First person Lens, which wide angle lens would work?

F

FieldDog1

Member
Hi I am filming a horror movie and want a bunch of first person shots, something that is wide but not fish eye and has a very short range.

I need the best lens that looks like it coming from the eyes of the character, when he looks down, he can see his feet etc.

I was looking at the Tokina 11-16mm, but its really heavy for my stabilizer.

Are there any cheaper ones that would have this effect that are a little lighter and can perform very well in little no no light situations?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. thanks!

-Field
 
I am using canon 10-22 just because of the lighter weight. Tokina 11-16 is realy excellent choise.
 
^but not w/ 1.6x crop. I've heard that also, so maybe a 28mm or 30mm lens? That'd put you close to 50mm...
 
greeches said:
^but not w/ 1.6x crop. I've heard that also, so maybe a 28mm or 30mm lens? That'd put you close to 50mm...
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Yes, that is correct. There's the excellent Sigma 30mm f/1.4.

To the OP: You might find that a wide lens (<16mm) is too wide to simulate the FOV of the human eye. Unless you're going for some other effect (like perspective distortioon), you should stay away from wides for your stated purpose.
 
Great lens. I would personally stay at the 16mm end of the lens. 11mm makes the image a bit comical IMPO. 20mm 2.8 Canon lens is probably a good choice if you don't want to show off too much distortion. I think distortion can get comical when in movement. Also when you have so much distortion I think the audience pays attention to it and less about what's going on inside the image. But that's just my opinion. I do love the 11-16 lens though. 50mm would suck for a stabilizer. 24mm 1.4 is a pretty good lens too.
 
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thanks guys i really appreciate the expert advice, I think all of them would probably suit my needs, but I think the Tokina has to be bought.

I plan on using this with a lot of fast movement and most importantly, shot at night, is the Tokina the absolute best way to go? thanks guys!
 
If low-light capability is the most important thing for you, then you might want a prime lens that's faster than an f/2.8 zoom.

But I agree that, otherwise, the Tokina is a must-buy.
 
ydgmdlu said:
If low-light capability is the most important thing for you, then you might want a prime lens that's faster than an f/2.8 zoom.

But I agree that, otherwise, the Tokina is a must-buy.
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The only challenge with that is, with the 1.5 crop factor, anything more than 24mm or so would not be very wide.

And 24mm or less with faster than 2.8 is made of "unobtanium". The only one that sprouts to mind is the 24mm 1.4, which is not going to be very wide, and which costs $1,700.00.

Even used wide primes faster than 2.8 and lower than 24 are incredibly expensive. So... you're back to the Tokina! But decide soon, they can be hard to find.

Still, for low light a 28mm 1.8 is a good buy, not too wide, but faster, about $500.00. Might come in handy as well.
 
Well, I thought that the issue was not so much about wide lenses but more about what lens(es) would best replicate a first-person field of view. Sure, anything longer than 24mm is not "wide," but that's exactly the point. "Normal" lenses are supposed to replicate first-person FOV. But maybe the OP is going for a different effect.
 
If I were him I'd spend the extra money and go with a 24mm 1.4f for the reason of a dark horror movie. The extra stops are sure a life saver and might take away the need to set up more light or for the need to push the ISO to the point of artifact introduction. I agree about the 28 mm 1.8 that steventimothy said. If I had to choose and didn't have money for the 24mm I'd go for the 28mm 1.8, but then again he never really mentioned what his spending limit was. The stops are really important. With the Tokina you're gonna be running a relatively slow lens when it comes down to your darker environments.


Actually re-reading his original post his goals
1. to find a lens can be used as a POV, he actually didn't say it has to match the focal look of a human eye such as a 50mm (not fish eye but with a short range)
2. something light for his stabilizer

Seems like he was happy with what he had...throwing out the weight factor.
 
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50mm is equivelant to the human eye in terms of z-axis distortion (or lack thereof) but not in terms of FOV. A friend recently did a great human POV longtake with the 16-35mm Canon USM II on the 5D...something wide like the Tokina will probably be great.
 
draven4 said:
Actually re-reading his original post his goals
1. to find a lens can be used as a POV, he actually didn't say it has to match the focal look of a human eye such as a 50mm (not fish eye but with a short range)
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I'm not sure how you got that impression. He said:
FieldDog1 said:
I need the best lens that looks like it coming from the eyes of the character, when he looks down, he can see his feet etc.
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[Emphasis mine.] To me, that clearly means that he wants to replicate the FOV of human eyes. Otherwise, theoretically any lens could arguably be presented as "point of view." (E.g., a 200mm lens could be used for POV in certain contexts.)

The "normal lens" concept is of course just a convention. There are plenty of photographers who feel that 50mm (on full-frame) is not the best representation of human vision and thus prefer 35mm instead. For APS-C, a ~22mm lens would approximate that FOV, so 24mm would be close enough.
 
ydgmdlu said:
I'm not sure how you got that impression. He said:

[Emphasis mine.] To me, that clearly means that he wants to replicate the FOV of human eyes. Otherwise, theoretically any lens could arguably be presented as "point of view." (E.g., a 200mm lens could be used for POV in certain contexts.)

The "normal lens" concept is of course just a convention. There are plenty of photographers who feel that 50mm (on full-frame) is not the best representation of human vision and thus prefer 35mm instead. For APS-C, a ~22mm lens would approximate that FOV, so 24mm would be close enough.
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50mm just has no distortion on the Z-Axis relative to the human eye...the foreground and background don't get spread out like with a wide angle or compressed like with a telephoto...that's it. That's all normal is. Human FOV is incredibly wide, about 100º... and so wide angles are often used, even though they distort space....

You need to decide what you want to do: do you want to replicate the distortion (or lack thereof) of the human eye, or do you want to replicate the FOV....you cannot do both...although you can split the difference, which is what something like a 35mm lens (maybe a 24 or so on the 7D...too lazy to do the math :)) will do.



I think that you should use a wide-angle, OP. Why? A number of reasons.

First, the wide angle look will instantly code it as POV...they're used a lot for this purpose.

Second, the wide angle will allow you to have manageably deep DOF like the human eye without having to put lights everywhere, and make it so you don't need to keep pulling focus.

Third, the wide angle will minimize the effects of shakiness in a handheld POV shot.

Fourth, only a 50mm, not a wider lens that crops to 50mm on the 7D, will give you that true 1:1 no-distortion look. Since a 50mm on the 7D crops to 80mm it will be pretty much useless to you as it's far too long a lens after the crop to do things like say, look down at your feet, or accurately code the shot as human POV. It has been suggested that you use a wider lens that will crop to 50mm on the 7D, but at that point the 50mm range is arbitrary, because those lenses are wider than 50mm, and therefore will not have the 1:1 no-distortion normal lens look...you're better off going full wide. Remember: crop factor only effects FOV, not other properties of the lens.

Wide angle all the way.
 
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steventimothy said:
The only challenge with that is, with the 1.5 crop factor, anything more than 24mm or so would not be very wide.

And 24mm or less with faster than 2.8 is made of "unobtanium". The only one that sprouts to mind is the 24mm 1.4, which is not going to be very wide, and which costs $1,700.00.

Even used wide primes faster than 2.8 and lower than 24 are incredibly expensive. So... you're back to the Tokina! But decide soon, they can be hard to find.

Still, for low light a 28mm 1.8 is a good buy, not too wide, but faster, about $500.00. Might come in handy as well.
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I have a nice sigma 24mm f/1.8 for Nikon mount (will work on a Canon with an adaptor and they make one for EOS) that I got for $400. It autofocuses and focuses quite close (less than 1/5 of a foot.)

It is, however, quite heavy.


My question to the OP is this: if it's a horror movie with first person shots and you're going to be using a WIDE lens...why use a stabilizer? It will likely make it look unnaturally smooth.

The other question is this: is there really a need for speed? Even wide lenses sometimes get soft and shallow wide open... I'd say if you have the lighting capability for it buy a cheapo sub-$100 18-55mm, use it wide open at 18mm, and sell it after the production is done. Use the $500 you save to buy some lights. :D

After reading this thread I was running around my room looking at my legs and falling down on stuff with different lenses on my Gh1 trying to get a POV shot...I found the 14mm (28mm equiv on GH1) to be my favorite. 18mm is a 28.8 equiv on the 7D...should be perfect if you can light for it (f/3.5 shouldn't be that hard...even at night I try to light for at least f/4...the other day I did a night shoot at f/4 and ISO 100 with under 1,000 watts in lights.) Those lenses are dirt cheap and light as hell too.
 
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I think after watching countless videos, you just cant beat the Tokina 11-16. thanks for your advice guys, this forum is great!
 
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