to me, the kit lenses are pretty useless in video mode. I shot a short film and the footage captured with the kit lenses was almost useless. if you want a zoom I'd invest in a 3rd part medium zoom range lens like a sigma or tamron and try to get one that has some sort of stabilization feature. but if we're talking purly photos here, the kits lenses are actually fine and are pretty good.
Canon T3i vs. 60D
- Thread starter NorBro
- Start date
to me, the kit lenses are pretty useless in video mode. I shot a short film and the footage captured with the kit lenses was almost useless. if you want a zoom I'd invest in a 3rd part medium zoom range lens like a sigma or tamron and try to get one that has some sort of stabilization feature. but if we're talking purly photos here, the kits lenses are actually fine and are pretty good.
El Director
Veteran
I shot an entire feature with just the kit lens on my T2i. This was pre Magic Lantern too. Click the link in my sig to see what can be done with a kit lense. We have grabs in the photo section
Few samples (again, all kit lens). It's not that useless
Few samples (again, all kit lens). It's not that useless
your screen grabs look nice. this deffently was not the quailty of the kit lens i had my hands on. you also have some pretty nice lighting going on. The kit lens i had made my image look about 4 times noiser than it should. Maybe it's different when it's in motion but from you're stills that looks nice. good job by the way. any way to see any scenes from this online?
El Director
Veteran
Thank you. The lighting was a rack of two worklights from Home Depot pumped through a white shower curtain on a PVC frame to act as diffusion. It gave us a soft yet contrasty look. Outdoors was no light, just sun. And we never went above ISO 800. You can actually see the first six minutes of the film in the video section on our facebook or click HERE Watch in HD if you can. This was a few days before the final sound mix, but I felt it good enough to post to get people excited
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M. Gilden
Canon DSLR Moderator
To clarify: The kit lens is relatively sharp and performs well for both stills and video. To my knowledge, there is nothing about a lens that will make video "noisy"- that is usually caused by the camera body accounting for higher ISO (which is a form of digital gain).
The biggest problem with the kit lens is that it is relatively slow as far as aperture goes. At best, we're starting with F/3.5, and at 50mm we're already starting at almost F/6. That won't do very well in any kind of natural lighting unless you are shooting outdoors. However, light your scenes properly and the kit lens will perform admirably.
A good third party lens will let you open up wider (F/2.8, etc) and let you keep that constant across the zoom range. This makes setting up your scenes a lot easier, and is essential for documentary type work or live events where lighting is limited.
The biggest problem with the kit lens is that it is relatively slow as far as aperture goes. At best, we're starting with F/3.5, and at 50mm we're already starting at almost F/6. That won't do very well in any kind of natural lighting unless you are shooting outdoors. However, light your scenes properly and the kit lens will perform admirably.
A good third party lens will let you open up wider (F/2.8, etc) and let you keep that constant across the zoom range. This makes setting up your scenes a lot easier, and is essential for documentary type work or live events where lighting is limited.
El Director
Veteran
I would agree that it depends on what you're using it for. I would not recommend the kit for doc work. But for narratives, its just fine. I read somewhere that Hollywood films are rarely shot faster than f4, lighting would be the key
M. Gilden
Canon DSLR Moderator
Hmmm- I wonder how often that is the case when shooting night scenes. I know Stanley Kubrick was famous for shooting on F0.7 with a re-purposed NASA lens to get a particular shot by candlelight. It was said to be twice as fast as the fastest standard film lens available at the time, which was F/1.4. But many Hollywood films are shot in broad daylight, so I suppose the >F/4 statement may be true.
Even so, there are clearly scenes shot in wider apertures quite often. And I'm under the impression that part of the appeal of the DSLR video revolution was the ability to use it in low-light versus traditional cams. The kit lens does not really give you that kind of flexibility. But, it has been proven to be a worthy contender in the right hands (good examples above!).
vision_filmz
Carbonite Member
Nothing wrong with the kit lens as you can get some great images with it, but there are other lens that perform better. Tamron or even Sigma 17-50mm lenses are constant aperture (f/2.8) and have a nicer bokeh. They might not be image stabilized lenses , but personally anything less than 50mm is really not needed for many shots.
At the end though the kit lens is good to learn and then you can grow from there.
At the end though the kit lens is good to learn and then you can grow from there.
yea, there was something about the kit lens that you just couldn't get a good picture out of it, it was like the whole thing was coated with dust but it looked clean, it just gave the crappiest picture, and we were outside so the iso was low. but this has been the case with almost every kit lens I've used, which is about 5, I've never used one that came close to getting the kind of image I got out of my canon 50mm 1.4 but this is just me as I've never used a kit lens that got me the kind of image I'm seeing above which is again, really nice work. I'll take back my statement about these lenses being useless as you've shown they can actually be pretty nice. I guess my experience with them has been a bit tarnished so i'm not really comfortable with them anymore.
but I still stand by my 3rd party lenses lol
Bruce Foreman
Veteran
I have both the 18-55mm "kit" lens and the EF 17-40mm f4L (purchased primarily for the "weather sealing" when on my 7D). I've shot both stills and video with both of them and while I can see a difference between the two, the "kit" lens is actually a good performer. In video the extra inherent contrast in L zoom does make it look just a bit sharper, cleaner, and livelier than the "kit" lens.
I do most of my video work with prime lenses, EF 24mm f2.8, EF 28mm f1.8, and EF 50mm f1.8 (the original version with metal barrel and focusing ring in the "right" place).
Noise generally comes from underexposure. Nothing about a lens causes, enhances, or reduces noise. It generally falls on the operator to understand how all parts of the scene will be rendered and dark areas that do not get enough light will show noise. Yes, it will be more noticeable at higher ISO's but I can use 3200 and even 6400 without getting objectionable noise because I will either light or place my actors in an envirnment where there is enough ambient light so I can expose properly. I've even tested 12,800 and found if I choose the lighted location (night street and sidewalk scenes) wisely I can use that ISO to "get the shot" although there will be some noise evident.
I do most of my video work with prime lenses, EF 24mm f2.8, EF 28mm f1.8, and EF 50mm f1.8 (the original version with metal barrel and focusing ring in the "right" place).
Noise generally comes from underexposure. Nothing about a lens causes, enhances, or reduces noise. It generally falls on the operator to understand how all parts of the scene will be rendered and dark areas that do not get enough light will show noise. Yes, it will be more noticeable at higher ISO's but I can use 3200 and even 6400 without getting objectionable noise because I will either light or place my actors in an envirnment where there is enough ambient light so I can expose properly. I've even tested 12,800 and found if I choose the lighted location (night street and sidewalk scenes) wisely I can use that ISO to "get the shot" although there will be some noise evident.
bumkicho
Well-known member
Just grabbed 60d with 18-200 IS lens for under $1180 which I will receive on Tuesday. Pretty good deal I thought. So I am downloading magic lantern unified version and technicolor cinestyle. Anything else I should know about? Also any thoughts on 18-200 IS lens?
A quick question. Do I need to install ML first and then technicolor? I assume it doesn't matter, but just want to make sure.
A quick question. Do I need to install ML first and then technicolor? I assume it doesn't matter, but just want to make sure.