First Gig lens choice-input please

G

gbadgley

Active member
Howdy, I did a dry run, on a motivational speaker that I am going to shoot. I thought I would setup about 10 feet from the speaker. The light is not the greatest and using the Lumix 14-40 I barely have enough light at 20mm. If I go to say 35 mm I don't have enought light except I could go to the medium gain setting. Using the medium gain setting gives lots of light, but it does clip the talents hair. I never thought of putting a ND filter on, and I suppose I should have.

When I pan away from the speaker to where the audience is I get a lot of flicker as the lens is adjusting. I have autofocus on, and auto exposure, maybe I should leave the auto focus on but leave the exposure manual.

The other day, I tried using a 35mm Nikkor f1.2 and there was lots of light and the image was superb, but I not sure about the depth of field and if the speaker is moving around, or if I pan, I`m not sure things would stay in focus. I know I would give up the ability to zoom, but maybe since the Lumix is not parafocal, maybe is just best to go with the Nikkor 35 mm, and be done with it.

What lens would you guys use

Thanks for any input!
 
If I have a nice monitor like a TV-Logic or something to check focus, I would use the Nikon. But probably would try to avoid shooting wide open. You say the image is superb so I suppose the quality of that particular lens wide open is above acceptable in your case/opinion.
At 10 feet away, wide open. You would have about 10.6" of Depth of Field, so take that into account with your specific shooting situation.

Is there any chance you could light to raise the ambient light levels, or at the very least get the speaker exposed properly at a more workable stop? One small light would likely suffice. It would help for exposure as well as your depth of field.


Also, an ND filter? An ND filter would not help with the problem of the talents hair clipping. It would cause further issues as you are already struggling to achieve an acceptable exposure. An ND filter would affect the entire image by making it darker. In your case it would not help with any clipping issues on one particular area of the image.

Auto-exposure should be off in my opinion.
 
No, I can't increase the ambient light at this point.

10'6 depth of field is not going to do it then.

So, that means I'm going with the 14-140 with no auto exposure

But, if I increase the gain I get lots more light to the point where I get lots of clipping as I said. The whole image is much lighter. Are you saying putting an ND filter on this would cause me more issues?
 
An ND filter is going to make it darker- why do you want to make it darker?

How do your zebras and waveform look on the speaking subject?

Use ISO instead of gain, and you can fine tune it in smaller increments.

If you're using the Nikkor and it's too bright, stop down some and you will increase your depth of field. Wide open gives the shallowest DOF.

Focus manually, and carefully. You need to learn to focus and expose (no flicker) manually- practice and test with the lenses at home before the shoot. Best of luck.
 
I've used the AF100 on a simailar shoots and the 14-140 is really too slow for what you're doing.

Personally, I feel the AF100 is not a camera you want to use with zooming and autofocus. I personally go with much faster lenses and just manually focus. It will be much faster than the auto focus; especially with the focus assist tool (press user 1 button by default).

Also, don't use any ND filters in door. If you punch up your ISO and the light on the hair clips, stop down the apature, but be sure its really clipping by checking your zebras and waveform. Note however, that how the subject's overall face is exposed would be more of a priority then some slight clipping in other areas. Sometimes shooting conditions arn't ideal and you just need to decide what the best of a bad shooting enviroment will be.

As far as using an AF100 in a conference or audience type setting. I personally use 2 or 3 types of primes. Use one on all of the subject's shots and then change lenses and just get some wide b-roll shots. That way you can cut them togeather in post.
 
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