Film lens?
- Thread starter Lucian
- Start date
Michael Olsen
Veteran
What film lenses are you talking about? :huh:
Tracey Lee
Well-known member
Yeah I want to know where I can buy some film lenses for dirt cheap.
Are you referring to old SLR Film lenses or Motion Picture lenses?
Are you referring to old SLR Film lenses or Motion Picture lenses?
Michael Olsen
Veteran
Ah. It depends on the way it mounts to the camera. Really, the flange focal length.
If you can post some examples and we'll be able to help you!
If you can post some examples and we'll be able to help you!
Tracey Lee
Well-known member
I have found several manual Nikon lenses on eBay over the years and I prefer them to Canon lenses.
I've mounted several 35mm lenses on to dslr's and they fit no prob. But they don't read out any info. Shooting blind. So presumably you have to set shutter and iris manually, with external metering of some sort, just wondering how doable.
They're selling about 1/8th the cost of the dlsr lenses.
They're selling about 1/8th the cost of the dlsr lenses.
Taylor Rudd
Veteran
Press the shutter half way and the internal light meter should pop up. My 30D worked with my "dumb" Nikon AI lenses just fine.
By "dumb", I mean the adapter I was using did not have the chip for focus-confirmation.
By "dumb", I mean the adapter I was using did not have the chip for focus-confirmation.
Eddy Robinson
Well-known member
If you're monitoring off a laptop with the EOS utility (highly recommended), then you have the option before you go into shooting mode of zooming right into the image to check your focus. There's tons of guides that'll tell you how to set aperture and iso - you don't want to change your shutter speed away from 1/50 unless you are deliberately seeking a hyperrealistic look of the Saving Private Ryan type.
So basically, set your shutter speed to 1/50 and make sure it's locked there. Hunt around your scene from different angles you might want to use given the available lighting (yours or whatever the location provides; if shooting exterior day, consider the fact that the sun is going to move).
What is the most depth-of-field you'll need? The deeper the required focus, the narrower your aperture will have to be = a higher f-stop. This in turn affects the amount of light available and you may have to increase your ISO (gain), which will result in a noisier image. For example, if you want to show a long interior hallway without much light and have it all in sharp focus, then you'll need to pump the gain and noise will increase accordingly.
A good rule of thumb is more depth = more light, and shadows are the enemy because they won't be nice and dark. On the upside, 1/50 is a very slow shutter speed in still photo terms, so as long as you have a stable mount for the camera you'll get by without too much additional lighting.
If you're shooting closeups you may well want a narrow depth of field and should have your aperture open wider. Obviously this means more light so you can get away with a lower ISO setting, but then your beautiful clean closeups won't necessarily cut well with your noisy wide shots, plus you might be fighting against hot spots from actors with shiny skin/ glasses/ jewelry etc.
In practice, a lot of the time you'll end up splitting the difference - trading away a little beauty for greater flexibility. I would way rather have an image with a little extra noise and/or a little bit more depth of field on the closeups than have one that doesn't cut well with the wide shots or where a lot of time is lost adjusting the lighting for every new setup.
Let's face it, if you're buying the 7D you want great-looking images but can't spend the earth to get them, so chances are you're going to be trying to squeeze as much out of your budget as possible...and the #1 way of doing that is to reduce the time spent on setting up your shots. The joy of a manual camera, and the great annoyance of anything labelled 'auto', is that you can practice these things without worrying about what the camera will 'think' in the actual location. No actors? No problem! Stick a zoom lens and pop the camera on a tripod, then shoot yourself.
No, silly. With a camera. Oh, he's the director too? OK. Set up in your kitchen or so, do a shot where you walk into frame, sit down, and sip a cup of tea. Now do it 3, 4, 5 times with different apertures and gain settings - a slate plus a dry-erase comes in handy here. Overdo things a bit, go brighter or darker than your normally would at the extremes. Got more than one light in the kitchen, maybe do a few variations. Now move the camera and get some kind of medium closeup of you drinking the tea, and do it over and over again with different settings and lighting combos. End on some kind of tight close-up like your eyes or the abandoned teabag and again go through your different aperture/ISO combos. Aim for maybe 15-20 takes altogether.
Now dump them all into your editor and you have a little 3-shot 'scene' with 5-6 takes for each shot - the idea here being to have the wide-medium-tight combo which is what you need 90% of the time, 1 or 2 different lighting setups, and a range of camera settings for each shot. Match up the worst-looking wide shot with the best-looking closeup - ugh. Do it the other way around, still ugh but a new and different kind. Start mixing and matching and you'll quickly get a feel for where the camera's sweet spot is.
On another day, you can repeat the exercise in the garage, say, and learn how it responds in a whole different set of lighting conditions. And if you were smart enough to wear the same clothes, then you can intercut the garage footage with the kitchen footage and something else you shot in the street and...once you get a feel for what settings give you results that match up OK even when shot on different days and in different locations, it'll become second nature after a while. you'll still need to check your exposure by looking at your histogram and/or a light meter, but more importantly you'll be able to imagine roughly how your most frequently-used shots will come out and how much flexibility you have under different conditions.
So basically, set your shutter speed to 1/50 and make sure it's locked there. Hunt around your scene from different angles you might want to use given the available lighting (yours or whatever the location provides; if shooting exterior day, consider the fact that the sun is going to move).
What is the most depth-of-field you'll need? The deeper the required focus, the narrower your aperture will have to be = a higher f-stop. This in turn affects the amount of light available and you may have to increase your ISO (gain), which will result in a noisier image. For example, if you want to show a long interior hallway without much light and have it all in sharp focus, then you'll need to pump the gain and noise will increase accordingly.
A good rule of thumb is more depth = more light, and shadows are the enemy because they won't be nice and dark. On the upside, 1/50 is a very slow shutter speed in still photo terms, so as long as you have a stable mount for the camera you'll get by without too much additional lighting.
If you're shooting closeups you may well want a narrow depth of field and should have your aperture open wider. Obviously this means more light so you can get away with a lower ISO setting, but then your beautiful clean closeups won't necessarily cut well with your noisy wide shots, plus you might be fighting against hot spots from actors with shiny skin/ glasses/ jewelry etc.
In practice, a lot of the time you'll end up splitting the difference - trading away a little beauty for greater flexibility. I would way rather have an image with a little extra noise and/or a little bit more depth of field on the closeups than have one that doesn't cut well with the wide shots or where a lot of time is lost adjusting the lighting for every new setup.
Let's face it, if you're buying the 7D you want great-looking images but can't spend the earth to get them, so chances are you're going to be trying to squeeze as much out of your budget as possible...and the #1 way of doing that is to reduce the time spent on setting up your shots. The joy of a manual camera, and the great annoyance of anything labelled 'auto', is that you can practice these things without worrying about what the camera will 'think' in the actual location. No actors? No problem! Stick a zoom lens and pop the camera on a tripod, then shoot yourself.
No, silly. With a camera. Oh, he's the director too? OK. Set up in your kitchen or so, do a shot where you walk into frame, sit down, and sip a cup of tea. Now do it 3, 4, 5 times with different apertures and gain settings - a slate plus a dry-erase comes in handy here. Overdo things a bit, go brighter or darker than your normally would at the extremes. Got more than one light in the kitchen, maybe do a few variations. Now move the camera and get some kind of medium closeup of you drinking the tea, and do it over and over again with different settings and lighting combos. End on some kind of tight close-up like your eyes or the abandoned teabag and again go through your different aperture/ISO combos. Aim for maybe 15-20 takes altogether.
Now dump them all into your editor and you have a little 3-shot 'scene' with 5-6 takes for each shot - the idea here being to have the wide-medium-tight combo which is what you need 90% of the time, 1 or 2 different lighting setups, and a range of camera settings for each shot. Match up the worst-looking wide shot with the best-looking closeup - ugh. Do it the other way around, still ugh but a new and different kind. Start mixing and matching and you'll quickly get a feel for where the camera's sweet spot is.
On another day, you can repeat the exercise in the garage, say, and learn how it responds in a whole different set of lighting conditions. And if you were smart enough to wear the same clothes, then you can intercut the garage footage with the kitchen footage and something else you shot in the street and...once you get a feel for what settings give you results that match up OK even when shot on different days and in different locations, it'll become second nature after a while. you'll still need to check your exposure by looking at your histogram and/or a light meter, but more importantly you'll be able to imagine roughly how your most frequently-used shots will come out and how much flexibility you have under different conditions.