Collecting glass.

Azmyth

Azmyth

Veteran
So, I'm about to join the DSLR revolution with a GH13..

and I thought to myself.. for a narrative film maker such as myself. What sort of lenses should I be looking out for? I'm a budget minded kind of guy, but I also want something that I can make look really cinematic if lit correctly. I'm thinking old prime lenses would be great, but which ones?
 
I had Nikon primes for my GH1 and they did the job. If your looking into vintage cine lenses, thats another story, and budget, completely.
 
I have a variety of glass that I've collected now. I use a 7D so its a bit different, but here goes anyway:

- Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 VC (when I started out, I needed range and constant aperture. I was mostly shooting narrative and this range worked for me in most situations)

- Canon 50mm f1.8 (nicknamed the nifty-fifty. Works well for getting low light shots, however the focus ring is almost non-existent and is quite a pain to use)

- SMC Takumar 85mm f1.9 (hands down my favourite lens and I got it two days ago. This is vintage glass, from the early 1970s. Fast, has a beautiful "look", creamy bokeh, etc)

- Vivitar 70-210mm f3.5 Series 1 (just got this in the mail today. It's a Nikon mount and of the push/pull design. I haven't used this design before and think it'll take some getting used to, however optically it seems great. Once I have a chance to test it out some more, I'll give a more thorough review)

What I'm trying to get at is that as you shoot and progress you'll figure out what lenses you need, how fast you need them and what "look" works for you when you take it into post. Hard to describe an all in one solution for you.

Best of luck,

Kegan
 
dmpsk8 said:
I had Nikon primes for my GH1 and they did the job. If your looking into vintage cine lenses, thats another story, and budget, completely.
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+1 to this. Cine lenses such as the cooke, zeiss and angenieux are amazing lenses but as far as price... Well expect to pay way more for them then you paid for the camera. You'd also have to look into having a pl mount adapter(anything except for m43 needs an adapter) or conversion such as the hotrod... It all depends. I love the look of old c/y zeiss lenses myself, but they aren't cheap either. Nikon seems like the cheapest quality option... Just remember that getting your wide angle (since the cam is 2x crop) will be the hardest/most expensive. Hope this helps.
 
Older primes are definitely the way to go - I like Canon FDs better than Nikons but that's my personal preference. While it will take you longer to build a set, you could go with Zeiss lenses made for the Rollei SL35 mount, it's the cheapest way to get the good Zeiss stuff, a lot of it is real West German made too. I've got a 50/1.4 like that and it's superb. Definitely more expensive that going the route of Canon FDs and FLs. I actually love the look of the Canon FL glass (works on the same FD adapter) for cinematic/narrative use, but they're aren't a ton of really fast FL lenses, and you're going to want a fast 50 and something fast in the 24-35mm range and 85mm range too. You can find Canon FD 85mm f/1.2 Ls sometimes for $500 and the modern eos equilvalent is about a $2k lens...
 
As far as someone keeps mentioning about a wide angle lens being expensive for the GH1.. how much we talking?
 
my biggest issue is. I have NO clue about lenses. I haven't used a 35mm adapter, and I don't know what lens is good for what. I know primes are good, and fast is good.. thats about it.

The lenses on ebay range from dirt cheap to thousands of dollars.
 
If you buy your Gh1 new it will come with the 14-140mm kit lens which is wider than the hv-40 that you are already using. The standard range of lenses that most movies are shot on is 24-85mm, so a fairly complete set that you can get with standard nikon primes will be 24, 28, 35, 50, 85mm. All of these focal lenths are contained in the zoom. The advantage of primes are for lower light performance and focus. You can get f 2.8 lenses fairly cheap, but that's only one stop faster than the zoom, and you pay a healthy premium for f 1.4.

If the lighting you are using now allows for shooting no gain on your hv-40, you should be able to get away with the Gh-1's kit lens most of the time. The first add on lens will probably be a fast 50mm of whatever brand you like with an appropriate adapter. You can usually get these dirt cheap locally attached to a 35mm camera. Watch craig's list in your area for manual 35mm slr's. Pentax and olympus will be cheaper than nikon, if you're lucky a yashica will have the coveted zeiss glass. You can often find some old guy's full kit with wide, normal and telephoto lenses for dirt cheap because they couldn't be bothered breaking up the kit and putting it on e-bay.
 
dop16mm said:
If you buy your Gh1 new it will come with the 14-140mm kit lens which is wider than the hv-40 that you are already using. The standard range of lenses that most movies are shot on is 24-85mm, so a fairly complete set that you can get with standard nikon primes will be 24, 28, 35, 50, 85mm. All of these focal lenths are contained in the zoom. The advantage of primes are for lower light performance and focus. You can get f 2.8 lenses fairly cheap, but that's only one stop faster than the zoom, and you pay a healthy premium for f 1.4.

If the lighting you are using now allows for shooting no gain on your hv-40, you should be able to get away with the Gh-1's kit lens most of the time. The first add on lens will probably be a fast 50mm of whatever brand you like with an appropriate adapter. You can usually get these dirt cheap locally attached to a 35mm camera. Watch craig's list in your area for manual 35mm slr's. Pentax and olympus will be cheaper than nikon, if you're lucky a yashica will have the coveted zeiss glass. You can often find some old guy's full kit with wide, normal and telephoto lenses for dirt cheap because they couldn't be bothered breaking up the kit and putting it on e-bay.
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Fantastic..

well, I do actually have...

Canon FD 50mm f1.4 prime FD lens
Asahi Pentax Takumar f1.4 50mm prime M42
Canon 28mm f2.8 FD
 
dop16mm said:
Watch craig's list in your area for manual 35mm slr's. Pentax and olympus will be cheaper than nikon, if you're lucky a yashica will have the coveted zeiss glass. You can often find some old guy's full kit with wide, normal and telephoto lenses for dirt cheap because they couldn't be bothered breaking up the kit and putting it on e-bay.
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+1

Seriously you can sometimes find amazing deals buying someone's entire kit because they don't want to break them up - with Canon FD cameras for sure this is the case, less so with Nikon, Contax...man I've kicked myself multiple times for not being in on the bidding when say an RTS goes with 3-4 Zeiss lenses for $600-700 on eBay and often one of the really great Zeiss lenses are in that kit, something wide or the 28/2, 35/1.4 or 85/1.4 - it happens often enough to make it worth watching. Rollei Sl35 too.
 
but that's only one stop faster than the zoom, and you pay a healthy premium for f 1.4.
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only one stop? One stop can mean the difference between shooting and not shooting a scene in certain conditions. On paper one stop doesent seem like much, but when your in the the dark one stop is huge.
 
maranfilms said:
only one stop? One stop can mean the difference between shooting and not shooting a scene in certain conditions. On paper one stop doesent seem like much, but when your in the the dark one stop is huge.
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+1

One stop can be everything, get the fastest lenses you can afford in as many lengths you can afford, there are good deals on fast lenses in lots of different lengths especially if you can buy across systems as you can on the GH1.
 
The Olympus line of lenses specifically made for 4/3 format would be my first choice for new primes. They are optically superb though not necessarily cheap.

Contax/Zeiss M42 or Leica M series lenses are both really excellent. Leica is never cheap though.

Then again really high quality glass is never cheap. It will far outlast your camera and is a better investment though.
 
dop16mm said:
The standard range of lenses that most movies are shot on is 24-85mm, so a fairly complete set that you can get with standard nikon primes will be 24, 28, 35, 50, 85mm. All of these focal lenths are contained in the zoom. The advantage of primes are for lower light performance and focus. You can get f 2.8 lenses fairly cheap, but that's only one stop faster than the zoom, and you pay a healthy premium for f 1.4.
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A couple of things.

1. 24-85 may well be the "common" range of lensing for films, but do remember that is not FF35 focal length.

2. The Advantages of primes extend beyond lower light ability, and into things like edge to edge sharpness, weight, light transmission, C.A. qualities, fewer distortion issues, etc.

3. The GH1 zoom is not a constant aperture. It's F4-5.8. The difference of one stop means you can use HALF as much light. That's a massive difference if you are trying to light a film. On a large setup, that could be the difference between doing the shot or not. And if you're on the long end of the lens it's 2 stops. The same difference as going from ISO 400 to ISO 1600. I can't think of anyone who doesn't see that as a huge compromise.

4. Yes, getting a lens that is clean at F1.4 will force you to open your wallet. But the shooting capability is massively different from F1.4 to F4.0, to say nothing of F5.6 or more. That's 3-4 stops ISO 100 to ISO 800 or 1600. Massive.

Fast glass can open up possibilities that nothing else can. And you only need to bite that bullet once and it will pay off for years.
 
PerroneFord said:
A couple of things.

1. 24-85 may well be the "common" range of lensing for films, but do remember that is not FF35 focal length.
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True but the GH1/T2i/7D are all very close to the negative size of Super35 and a 24mm lens is a 24mm lens is a 24mm lens no matter what size the negative/sensor, so I think it's pretty fair to talk about these lengths as being in the right range, up until the 5D shooting on a Full Frame 35mm size negative (135 size) was a bit outside the norm unless I'm mistaken (which is possible for sure).
 
I think a lot of films would suffer if the widest they went was 24mm. 18mm is very common.
gh1 has a smaller sensor so ya'll may want to go wider than 18mm
 
Last year when I had a gh1 I shot my wides with a ceicio7 nikon F adapter with aperture controller
and used it to control a Nikon mount Tokina 11-16 DX

Pretty essential lens considering the sensor is smallish. I also recommend the canon FD 24mm f1.4L

edit:
some links to control nikon DX lenses
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=184685

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and the fastest wide for the GH1 is the FD 24/1.4

4437648816_c47d559952_z.jpg
 
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