FS7: Difference between 'good and fantastic' lens

Ben Scott said:
All that aside, there is plenty space for other types of shooters to use AF but having worked in all the fields and areas I have worked in over the years from Current Affairs to Docs, to lifestyle, to narrative, promo and commercials, as well as live broadcast and events stuff, I have never once needed or wanted AF.
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You took the words right out of my mouth, and I would also add AE and ATW to that sentence. I do not need or WANT them.
 
Can we find the same discussion about AF and AE on photography blogs from 20 years ago? With the same arguments? I think AF is common now for most professional photographers.
 
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It is not the same arguments at all. The ergonomics and performance requirements of photography are totally different than for professional video. No comparison at all and not even worth talking about here. And BTW, I use AF and AE all the time for stills.
 
Doug Jensen said:
It is not the same arguments at all. The ergonomics and performance requirements of photography are totally different than for professional video.
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I am not as convinced as you are, foreseeing the future is difficult. People said that about electronic cameras too. They would never have the same quality as chemical film. A few years later good-by Kodak and Agfa.
 
I am not saying that AF will never happen and I am open to the possibility some day it might be good enough. I'm not waiting for it and I'm not wishing for it, but I won't say I'd never use AF.
But, excluding special uses like jibs, we are far, far, away from having anything usable for routine professional video production today. Not even close.
 
Filmmakers often choose compositions where only a relatively small off center portion of the frame is intended to be in sharp focus. And, filmmakers often choose to use subtle and dramatic precisely timed rack focuses. At the point that a computer driven autofocus system can make those decisions for the filmmaker, the computer is, for all intents, the filmmaker. I'm not so bold as to suggest the computer won't become capable of outthinking us, but I do think that anyone who considers themselves either an artist or a craftsman wouldn't want the computer doing their job for them.
 
What we see is also smaller and smaller crews, even in professional video.
I make my living of video, which I guess by definition makes me a professional. Most of the time I have no time to even use my lowly Samyang lenses, even if I would want to and my e-mounts get more use than I thought or wished.

I would love if I had the time to use manual primes more often, but for my paying jobs that is rarely the case. So the manual primes get more use in my non-professional shooting...

When it comes to autofocus, I believe it's things like face recognition and object recognition that will be the big thing that leads to autofocus making inroads in "professional" (should really say high end) shooting.

I once rented some canon glass, 24-70/2.8 and 70-200/2.8 and found the focus on those just fiddly and rather useless and I'd rather use the auto focus on my e-mount lenses that those.
But I love the longer throw of my Samyangs.

Like the OP, I haven't experienced first hand the difference between the truly fantastic cine lenses and "just" good glass.
I dream of having the chance more often to use manual lenses and the time to light things to perfection. It's just not the reality I live in...
 
dmitrizigany said:
What we see is also smaller and smaller crews, even in professional video.
I make my living of video, which I guess by definition makes me a professional. Most of the time I have no time to even use my lowly Samyang lenses, even if I would want to and my e-mounts get more use than I thought or wished.

I would love if I had the time to use manual primes more often, but for my paying jobs that is rarely the case. So the manual primes get more use in my non-professional shooting...

When it comes to autofocus, I believe it's things like face recognition and object recognition that will be the big thing that leads to autofocus making inroads in "professional" (should really say high end) shooting.

I once rented some canon glass, 24-70/2.8 and 70-200/2.8 and found the focus on those just fiddly and rather useless and I'd rather use the auto focus on my e-mount lenses that those.
But I love the longer throw of my Samyangs.

Like the OP, I haven't experienced first hand the difference between the truly fantastic cine lenses and "just" good glass.
I dream of having the chance more often to use manual lenses and the time to light things to perfection. It's just not the reality I live in...
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I'm not saying this to be difficult but I'm fascinated by the idea of what work you do that would stop you using manual glass as a timesaver. From the highest end stuff I have done to the lowest of the low end - whether with a crew or as a 1-man band - there has never been a time when I felt I'd be better served with autofocus. Unless it's super fast moving wildlife or motorsports.. I already spoke earlier about lines blurring in terms of people who earn their wage with cameras and its not snobbishness. But vloggers, wedding shooters, videographers, ENG camermen and DOPs all have different experience and requirements.

Where I can see it being handy is on a gimbal or jib where for whatever reason you can't physically get at the lens or use a wireless follow focus. Might buy a Batis 25mm specifically for this purpose.
 
Virtually the only time I've found auto focus useful is in some form of remote operation, or for certain compositions on a slider. For remote work, auto-focus can be necessary either being the feed isn't being reviewed or can't reasonably have the focus remote controlled (which can be a budget/gear available issue). For sliders, you're sometimes unable to maintain a view of the viewfinder and have good hand placement to maintain focus while also completing the necessary footwork to acheive the shot in a stable manner. In this instance, if the composition is fairly flat, autofocus will sometimes do a good job and be useful.

Push autofocus can be a useful feature particularly when using a camera that doesn't have a good LCD to verify focus. Fortunately, as cameras continue to improve this is less of a concern.

I'm mostly with Ben though. Outside of special shot situations, I don't find autofocus to make better choices than I do.
 
Ben Scott said:
I'm not saying this to be difficult but I'm fascinated by the idea of what work you do that would stop you using manual glass as a timesaver. From the highest end stuff I have done to the lowest of the low end - whether with a crew or as a 1-man band - there has never been a time when I felt I'd be better served with autofocus. Unless it's super fast moving wildlife or motorsports.. I already spoke earlier about lines blurring in terms of people who earn their wage with cameras and its not snobbishness. But vloggers, wedding shooters, videographers, ENG camermen and DOPs all have different experience and requirements.
Where I can see it being handy is on a gimbal or jib where for whatever reason you can't physically get at the lens or use a wireless follow focus. Might buy a Batis 25mm specifically for this purpose.
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And I'm not trying to be a proponent for auto focus! ;)
I just thought that theatrical releases was a bad example to "slam" autofocus. It did come off as a bit snobbish...

I shoot mostly music videos, live performances and recently some corporate stuff, but seems like the sweet corporate days are already over...

Thing is, I operate in areas where budgets are almost non-existent, there is never money to rent the right equipment or extra people... I usually do the camera, lights, and just about everything related to the image on set. In this area people are used to people with DSLRs waving their cameras around not caring if their footage is shaky or goes in and out of focus all the time. Obviously then they can work quite quickly so people are getting used to this and are impatient when you do things properly.

And since I don't own a follow focus or a proper shoulder rig (because of financial reasons) manual focusing can be a bit of a hit and miss, especially when I can't be on a tripod, and there the face recognition works surprisingly well when using Sony lenses and do save me some time. And time is the biggest enemy always...

Guess my point is, if auto focus gets improved (again, still surprised how well the face recognition already work) you could work with maybe a smaller rig on quite a lot of jobs... If you already have (or have budget to rent) a great rig then obviously the need for AF is minimised.

Live performances when not having access to a bigger monitor is maybe the best example of where face recognition auto focus is great and I actually wouldn't want to use only manual focus. Please also note that I am anly using auto focus in combination with face recognition, that's the only time where I like it!
 
The point about theatrical releases was that even the people with access to the best most cutting edge most expensive gear still prefer good old mechanical manual lenses.

I do plenty of stuff on my own and often do 'one bag' jobs but it's still never occurred to me. Is it just a case of not having proper manual lenses with a decent throw to be precise, or is it about practice and nailing focus or is it simply a case of being used to AF and so working it into a workflow
 
Ben Scott said:
The point about theatrical releases was that even the people with access to the best most cutting edge most expensive gear still prefer good old mechanical manual lenses.
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But they also have the money to have the best lenses and dedicated focus pullers etc, so quite obvious they have no need for it.

I do plenty of stuff on my own and often do 'one bag' jobs but it's still never occurred to me. Is it just a case of not having proper manual lenses with a decent throw to be precise, or is it about practice and nailing focus or is it simply a case of being used to AF and so working it into a workflow
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In my case, yes, it's obviously about not having the right equipment. And up until recently when I bought the 7Q+ also having no good way to judge focus. But the 7Q+ brought other issues, like mounting it on the camera and making that a useable rig in other situations than on a tripod (an issue I haven't afforded to solve yet). And as I said, I just hate the short focus throw of the canon lenses I've used so I'm not going that route. I love working with my Samyang lenses. But keep changing lenses is usually too time consuming... And for hand held they don't work without proper rig. Plan is to keep using e-mount for situations where they work and eventually complete the Samyang set (and dream of better ones) and get a follow focus, but it's a slooooow process :(
 
To get the thread back on topic. Despite all talk about auto focus. My passion is images. And manual lenses. I love lighting scenes and taking my time getting the set decor and framing perfect. Like the OP i want to experience high end glass. For what I've seen Cooke lenses are what I'm after. But I'm not sure they are available for rent here. And could probably not afford to even rent them haha.

I just recently learned (and now it's obvious) that anamorphic lenses also have an effect of depth of field. So that has awakened my interest in anamorphic lenses.
I guess that could also be a real step in making it a different experience from still glass, a real anamorphic cine lens. Which ones are the most common and could be easiest to find for rental, you think?
 
I'm pretty sure you can rent a set of Cookes any major city in the world.

As for real anamorphics as opposed to adapted projector lenses, then Cookes or Hawkes, or Lomo/Kowas.
 
Hi Dmitri,

a couple of things to be aware of with anamorphics. The basic 'squish' is 2x. With conventional film gates - with the academy 1:1.37 or 4:3 of video sensors this gives a neat, efficient result for the 2.35:1-2.40:1 of cinemascope projection. Use that on a 16:9 sensor and you end up with a desquished image around 3.55:1 - ridiculously wide! As such, conventional anamorphic filming on a 16:9 sensor generally has the sides cropped to bring it back to cinemascope. That is lopping rather a lot from either side.

Alternatively, there are some anamorphic lenses available with 1.33x squish. This gives a neat, efficient fit to 2.35:1 widescreen. The down sides are that they are less common than 2x anamorphic and that a lot of the recent popularity of anamorphics has been from what are really optical defects; if you are fan of J J Abrams, 2x anamorphics tends to flare, and with front anamorphics the flares form ovals and streaks unlike the circles of spherical shooting. If you are a fan of Wes Anderson, the barrelling associated with the wide field of view of mid range anamorphics has also been something of a trend. Both of these effects will be different and reduced in 1.33x anamorphics.

There are also differing approaches to how anamorphics are constructed which can produce different effects, and certainly with older anamorphics it is generally a good idea not to be working near wide open. Focus can be - interesting.

I worked with anamorphics when I was an assistant many moons ago, and have had a bit of a play from time to time when I can get near a set, but I've not yet had a professional shoot pan out where anamorphic has been discussed. As a rabid movie buff, I'd love to! I've also not yet had a play with 1.33x anamorphics, so I'd be really interested to hear from anyone who has worked with them; particularly whether they give enough of the 'scope feel that tends to draw people to anamorphic lenses rather than masked spherical,

Ben
 
Yes, that was one of my concerns, as anamorphic was developed to get more out of the limited space on film, it makes sense. But with digital, you are stretching pixels more or less and is that a good thing really? (Seems to be working though)

Originally I wondered what the fuss was about as I don't care much for the oval flares. Certainly not a fan of JJ Abrams, I do like Wes Andersson but his look is nothing I'm after in my own filming (Blade Runner is my measuring stick).
The thing that got me thinking about it recently was watching Penny Dreadful, I really like the look of that. I was wondering how they got such a shallow depth of field. And I knew it was shot on Alexa and Cooke lenses. But with my FS700 and T1.5 lenses I cannot get that. So that's where I found out that anamorphic lenses do more than add oval flares :D
So, without having tried it yet, I feel I'd rather use anamorphic lenses than go with a speedbooster kind of thing.
All this is all rather hypothetical at this point as I'm probably stuck on the Samyang end of the lens spectrum for the foreseeable future.

It would be interesting to rent a high end cine lens (anamorphic or not) just to see and feel the difference first hand and hopefully gain more knowledge by that.
 
dmitrizigany said:
Yes, that was one of my concerns, as anamorphic was developed to get more out of the limited space on film, it makes sense. But with digital, you are stretching pixels more or less and is that a good thing really?
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You're not stretching pixels. You are squeezing light.
 
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