Got the Kit what will a better lense do to image now??

S

sporty

Active member
I Got 7D kit and love the combo. I want to now up my image capture quality. I hear great things about the canon lenses series that cost $1500 and higher.

Does anyone have a website where I can see side by side lens previews to see the side by side capture differences in lenses??

Also can anyone explain a little bit about cheap and expensive lenses?

I had a and Dvx100 and Nikon D50 SLR for years but never got into lenses thats why I'm confused here. All I know about is major Photoshop and After effects editing and grading. I dont know anything about cheap or expensive lenses.

Thx in advance..
 
Here is a site for lens reviews: http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/

Just like everything else in the cheap vs. expensive - you usually get what you paid for. Speed of lens, build & quality, IS (image stabilization) and focal length are important factors in lens price and choice. If your not makin' money with it right now and it is more of a grow and expand your skills kinda of a purchase, then shoot with the kits lens. I don't think the video side of Video DSLR's are as super critical of lens choice as the still side.

I think for video, speed of the lens (2.8 constant aperture) and IS is pretty important (I like handheld shooting). I've rented lenses for the majority of my stills/Video DSLR work and still think it is a great way to find the rent lenses you would/will purchase.
 
ok thanks

Ok I have a small music video to do What lense should I rent to get to capture 85mm since the 7D is not full frame. I will rent one and use just the kit lense.. What do you recommend? thx
 
kingsta said:
ok thanks

Ok I have a small music video to do What lense should I rent to get to capture 85mm since the 7D is not full frame. I will rent one and use just the kit lense.. What do you recommend? thx
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You need a 50mm. Any one is fine; almost all 50mm lenses have optimized designs.
 
kingsta said:
ok thanks

Ok I have a small music video to do What lense should I rent to get to capture 85mm since the 7D is not full frame. I will rent one and use just the kit lense.. What do you recommend? thx
Click to expand...

It depends. Do you want 85mm field of view, or 85mm depth of field and focusing characteristics?
 
before you rush off and blow $1500 or more, what _exactly_ is bothering you about your current setup? i come from a similar field (3d/vfx), and what I find amusing about all this lens porn I read about is how the pricey ones have no vignetting, no barrel distortion, no chromatic aberration, no focus problems, minimized lens flare, no hexagonal shapes on bokeh regions (*gasp), etc.

in 3d, when trying to make rendered elements look real, the standard sequence of filters applied in comp are vignetting, barrel distortion, chromatic aberration, soft focus, lens flare, shaped bokeh, etc. bizarre that photographers are pushing towards the perfect cg image, and cg is pushing towards bad lens mimicry.

renting a box of primes for a day isn't that much; i say just get it, fiddle about, compare to the kit lens, see if its worth the investment.
 
A 50mm lens would get you 80mm w/1.6 crop factor. This is really only important if you come from a background of full frame or film. Not sure what the D50 crop factor is, but it should "feel" about the same. 50mm are pretty cheap to rent. Monitoring what you shoot will be very important as the LCD on the back is a little tough to nail focus if you have any movement of people and camera. If it is a music video, you can also claim "artistic choice" with very loose focus.

I like borrowlenses.com for rentals.

Have fun with it!
 
Absolutely rent first, then buy. Don't make the mistake of spending $750 for something "half the price" only to find that you buy that $1500 lens later on anyway. Likewise, don't spend $1500 if the look of a $750 lens suffices. These kinds of errors in judgement can get expensive! :)

The Canon 50mm range is a great example: there's one for $100 that's an insane value, but many find the focus to be loose and the build quality lacking. There's a $600 one that's built better and is faster (larger aperture) that many hold dear, and there's a $1200 one that pros regard as one of Canon's finest lenses. They'll all do the job, but which is best is totally up to the individual.

Also check out the reviews at http://www.fredmiranda.com/, in which both amateurs and pros review primes and zooms from Nikon, Canon, Tamron, and more. Great reference (pixel-peeper.com is pretty rad resource, too, as Ian-T pointed out).
 
This may sound like a rather stupid question to most, but I was just curious; is 85mm field of view a popular look or something? Or is it totally subjective?
 
Jean Dantes said:
This may sound like a rather stupid question to most, but I was just curious; is 85mm field of view a popular look or something? Or is it totally subjective?
Click to expand...
85mm is popular because it's the "standard" focal length for portrait photography.
 
ydgmdlu said:
85mm is popular because it's the "standard" focal length for portrait photography.
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True, the way long lenses compress the face bodes well with many clients who hate having portraits taken! But, just like everything with creating images, it's all subjective :) People like to lose sleep over it...just play with a few and see what feels right at different distances.

If you're going for that compressed-face look of the 85mm, you'll probably want to check out a 50mm for the 7D.

When I got my first DSLR - with APS-C sensor - I bought a 50mm because I was told it was THE lens to get. When I started shooting full frame, I was so used to shooting tight with a cropped 50mm that it felt way too wide, so I moved up to an 85 for portraiture. It all boils down to preference - so have fun testing :)
 
sea said:
in 3d, when trying to make rendered elements look real, the standard sequence of filters applied in comp are vignetting, barrel distortion, chromatic aberration, soft focus, lens flare, shaped bokeh, etc. bizarre that photographers are pushing towards the perfect cg image, and cg is pushing towards bad lens mimicry.
Click to expand...

For real! Perfection is out of reach in many cases and viewers like their pictures to have flavor. When I first started photography back in the 90s I used to get annoyed with the lab people and friends saying 'oh you can get rid of that lens flare with a hood...' and I was saying 'but I like the lens flare, it makes me feel all warm and summery...'. WHO'S LAUGHING NOW LAB GUYS!!

I'd like some opinions on this too - I'm close to pulling the trigger on a 7D but I'll defnitely be trying to keep the budget low, basically I have about $5000 I can allocate, and have most of the audio gear and computer power I need...but that budget also has to cover my shooting expenses for a few short projects so I don't want to spend much more than half on hardware.

I realize the kit lens isn't all that fast, but I'm interested in people's major criticisms - ie what am I going to hate about it? and while lens rental is an option, what choices would you make for cheap yet flexible glass on eBay? I'm not big on shakycam so IS isn't very high on my list of needs, mainly I'm thinking about stuff that doesn't breathe too much.
 
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