GH13 GH13 - lens for shooting interior of property

J

JimNastics

Active member
I've managed to sweet talk a local estate agent to let me video one of their nicest properties currently on sale, with a view to using this video to promote a service to all other local estate agents.

I could do with some advice on what would be the best lens(es) to use. I currently have the 14-140mm, the 20mm pancake, 50mm 1.4 Nikon, 28mm 2.8 Nikon, and an 85mm 2.0 Nikon. Ideally I'd just use the 14-140mm, but I'm worried about the slow speed.

Has anyone had any experience doing this? Any advice on lenses? I'd be happy to spend up to £500 on a new lens if need be. This is the kind of video style I'm after (although unfortunately I don't have a Glidetrack :( )

http://shoothome.tv/services/movies
 
Grisnjam said:
Or the panny 7-14. Might also be to slow though...
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I had a look at the 7-14mm but ruled it out due to price, speed and vignetting.

The Tokina looks lovely from what I've seen so far... hard to find a flaw, and comes in at my price. Anyone know if it'll work ok with the Metabones Nikon adapter?
 
So basically you want to be as wide as possible on most of the shots for real estate, right?
 
How much do you want to spend... this is not a rhetorical question... as most under $1000 short focal length lenses have obvious distortion (all lenses have distortion... just some less than others...), and some more than others. The 'keyword' to search on is rectillinear correction, or some indication of how much distortion to expect...

The last lens I bought that had this sort of property, was a Nikon 17mm (or was it 16mm... its been a while...), for $1500 new... Since the GH cameras have a smaller imaging area, one needs even shorter lenses for the same angle of view...

I would also recommend looking at the "Architectural Digest" Site for 'ideas' on shooting architectural shots, of which 'upscale realestate' would be one class...

I'd also recommend a tripod with spirit levels to get walls 'straight up and down', and floorboards 'straight across'...

On the other hand if you had a 'guided tour', you can relax some of the need for architectural precision, but that's perhaps a different sort of deal...

Another issue that comes up in architectural shots is 'how much can I get in the frame'... I have an iPhone app, called Toland, which has lens info on the GH-1 (presumably the GH-2 is 'nearly the same'...), such that for a given focal length I can easily calculate, the dimensions of the area in the frame, given the distance of the camera to the 'subject'.

For example: I walk into a room that is 15 feet long, and want to know if I can get a ceiling to floor shot of the far wall, with a 14mm lens setting on my 14-140 GH-1 kit lens. The Toland app gives me the shot will include a 10 foot tall by 18 feet wide 'shot' of the room. So I'm ok... if the room, bedroom say, were 10x10... I would not be able to get such a shot, as the dimensions of the frame would be 6 foot tall by 12 foot wide...

This also is a consideration if you do have 'people' in the shot... say some one standing in the middle of the room...

There are of course 'creative angles' and the like, but it's good to have some sort of 'estimates' to then work some sort of 'angled' shot from...
 
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BrandonT said:
So basically you want to be as wide as possible on most of the shots for real estate, right?
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Wide but without distortion (or as little as possible). If you check out the videos on here, I really like the style this company gets:

http://shoothome.tv/services/movies

Obviously it's hard to know what focal length they use in their videos for the internal wide shots, do you think they're a lot wider than the 22mm equivalent of the 11-16mm Tokina? I'm guessing their using 5D's or similar.
 
j1clark@ucsd.edu said:
Since the GH cameras have a smaller imaging area, one needs even shorter lenses for the same angle of view...
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This is my biggest worry... I really haven't got the cash right now to spend on expensive fast and wide lenses, but I really want to try and get the ball rolling on this little venture. I'm wondering if this kind of work to a professional level is beyond the scope of the GH famiily due to the small sensor?
 
Rent the lenses as needed. I just rented the Tokina 11-16 for a week for 50 bucks. YOu can pick up most lenses, even a Zeiss for about 80 bucks a week. Build up the work and then see what you like.


I'm learning to try and not spend like a sailor on shore leave, but then again today I did just buy the steadicam merlin arm and vest, and the 5" Sony HDMI monitor. I've been coveting these for a while.. I just bought some adapters and figured I'll rent the lenses till I can afford to buy them one by one.

CHeers
 
JimNastics said:
This is my biggest worry... I really haven't got the cash right now to spend on expensive fast and wide lenses, but I really want to try and get the ball rolling on this little venture. I'm wondering if this kind of work to a professional level is beyond the scope of the GH famiily due to the small sensor?
Click to expand...

Find someone who is willing to let you perhaps do a couple of test shoots, and see if what you have now can get something worth showing, then come back with 'better' (rental here would be good) to prove out the concept you have in mind.

The 3 three things that come to mind about this kind of photography, are:

1) parallel lines 'stay parallel' in the output. (technical)
2) lighting, kicking light in to holes in the room. (technical)
3) 'art', and what people sort have come to expect. (subjective)

There are some things one can do in the post processing, such as slightly correct for 'barrel' distortion, straighten up horizontal and verticals, along with minor correction of 'convergence', etc. But one will need to 'enlarge the image', then correct and recrop...

And there are some places where 'distortion' can be acceptable... usually in such situations were there is a large object of interest in the forground, and using deep DoF, and lighting, one can minimize the 'interest' in the fact that the background lines are distorted... While not exactly architectural... at wedding receptions there are often shots of the table settings with one place setting in the forground and the rest of the reception area in the bacground, food bar, etc... those can stand a bit of distortion, before people get distressed...

Often I would choose slightly 'oval' plates on the table to get 'straighter' lines on the candle sticks in the center of the table, as well as distant wall seams... that sort of trade off...
 
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Justyn,

Do you rent from lensrentals.com?

Justyn said:
Rent the lenses as needed. I just rented the Tokina 11-16 for a week for 50 bucks. YOu can pick up most lenses, even a Zeiss for about 80 bucks a week. Build up the work and then see what you like.


I'm learning to try and not spend like a sailor on shore leave, but then again today I did just buy the steadicam merlin arm and vest, and the 5" Sony HDMI monitor. I've been coveting these for a while.. I just bought some adapters and figured I'll rent the lenses till I can afford to buy them one by one.

CHeers
Click to expand...
 
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