help choosing prime lense focal lengths for movies

T

ToddlerTerds

New member
I am interested in making films but i have never made or even took part in making one before. I dont have any screenplays ready so for the time being i will just write a quick short or maybe shoot random ideas i think up and have discarded. I really only messed around with camcorders with zoom lenses so i have no background at all in prime lenses. I was thinking of buying three lenses, a wide angle, 50mm and a telephoto. Will those 3 lenses pretty much cover everything from establishing shots to extreme closeups? Is a telephoto lens absolutely needed? or can you get away without one? If you had to shoot a movie with 3 prime lenses what focal lengths would you choose?

ohh ya, and im shooting on a gh3 m4/3, I have been looking at slr magic and voitlander glass. i have not found any telephoto fast primes from those company's. Does anyone recommend other manufacturers of glass that compete without being perfidiously expensive?

all comments are appreciated
 
Yes, three primes will get you a long way. A wide angle, a normal (some prefer to use a 35mm over a 50mm for a generally wider look) and a telephoto.

The big difference between primes and zooms in terms of actually getting the shot is that you have to move the camera instead of changing the focal length to get the framing you want. A wide angle will generally reach infinity at any distance over 5 foot so if you want the background in focus use your wide. If you get real close to your subject then there will also be a mild fisheye-like distortion where the subject appears larger, fuller and the background will seem artificially distant. This can be used to good effect. Also good for landscapes and establishing shots too because of its wide angle.

The telephoto is good for close ups, the background will be out of focus and only a narrow slice of background will fill the frame due to the tighter angle. This is good for reducing background distractions to focus on the subject. To get more than a head and shoulders you will need to get quite far back and infinity focus won't be available until you are extremely far away. Telephoto also artificially compresses the apparent distance between your subject and background so can be good for action/fx shots to make something look like a close call when in fact the two objects are not particularly close eg a punch or near miss in cars.

A normal lens should pretty much match the natural perspective of your eye. No exaggerated effects. Some people prefer to use a wide-normal such as a 35mm rather than a 50mm to ensure all their shots have a slightly heightened reality. To separate cinematic vision from the normal everday. 35mm is very close to normal.

When I pick a 3 lens set, depending on what I expect to be shooting I grab either a 20mm/35mm/105mm or a 24mm/50mm/135mm. In actuality I almost always end up taking at least 4, adding an 85mm because I love that lens. So my usual 4 lens set will be 20mm/35mm/85mm/135mm. I thought I would use the 200mm all the time but never really use it. You have to get too far from the subject which means the sound guy can't stand behind the cameraman.

Bear in mind all these choices are for a 35mm sensor, not M4/3. I don't know the exact formula off hand but I think 35mm is equivalent to 50mm on the GH3 so I'd suggest getting a 20mm/35mm/85mm set for you. Once you are familiar with these focal lengths you will have a better idea of how you want to fill the set in. Although on M4/3 the wide end of the spectrum is pretty limited.

As for brand, many go with vintage manual lenses for movies. The flange of the M4/3 means that most lenses can be used with a simple adapter. I use Nikon Nikkor AI lenses myself, they have a consistent look and personally think they match well to panasonic sensors. My second choice (possibly would have been my first choice if I had read Postmaster's article and seen his footage before I started buying the Nikons) would be the Carl Zeiss Jena lenses, the zebra ones. My third choice would be Canon but I've always shied from the warmer look. Canon's seem to favour reds to me which makes skin look flattering and the world look shiny. Not a fan of the Canon bokeh (background blur) but others are. The Nikons seem grittier and sharper with better bokeh to my eye. Whereas the Zeiss seem perfectly balanced between these, sharp and vibrant, with wonderfully creamy bokeh. Actually the other choice which I'm considering trading some unused lenses in for myself are the Rokinon cine lenses, the glass might not be quite a match for these others but it is made up for in features. This is without doubt the cheapest entry price into cine lens-like operation, are designed to be a matched set and will cost about $1500-1700 for a 3 lens set brand new. They are by all accounts a long way from real cine lenses but you won't get anyway near the real thing at this price point. I haven't used them but those on here who have bought them have generally been quite positive about their purchase. Do a search and read up on them because a couple of the focal lengths aren't quite up to the standard of the rest but they are generally well regarded.

As for aperture, with all these vintage lenses it will be fairly easy and economical to source an f2.8 set. The wide will be the most difficult/expensive to find at f2 and probably won't be found faster than that in vintage lenses. The normal will be available as fast as f1.2 but will be pricey and most of these older lenses don't perform well below f2 anyway so I wouldn't bother. I mainly use 20mm/f3.5, 24mm/f3.5, 28mm/f2.8, 35mm/f2, 50mm/f1.4, 85mm/f2, 105mm/f2.5, 135mm/f3.5, 200mm/f4. I usually shoot f2 - f4, so it's not important that they don't match. Lenses are named for their fastest aperture but it doesn't mean they perform well wide open. Not at the prices most of us can afford. I usually have to open the aperture more than I would like due to a sensor that performs poorly in lowlight, otherwise I'd use more of an f2.8 - 5.6 range. But one extra stop means many many more watts of light and many more degrees of temperature in the room not to mention pinprick pupils on my subject.
 
1+ to everything Egg Born Son said.

I'll also add that I enjoy the look of a nice 85mm lens as well. It's like the perfect field of view and depth of field for a nice close-up. Not to shallow and just enough background to keep a shot interesting.
 
Very true. Good catch Azmyth. So the equivalent lenses to use on a MFT censor would be something like. 12mm = 35mm, 17mm = 50mm, 30mm = 85mm and 46mm = 135mm.
 
not quite, m43 has a 2x crop, so a 17=34, 25=50, 35=70.

But the gh2's crop isn't full m43, it's somewhere in between aps-c and m43, it's like 1.88 or somehting similar.
 
Sorry, I was going by the idea that MFT censors are closer to Super 16 then FF35mm. So I probably over estimated the crop factor, being that Super 16 is more like 3x. Though isn't MFT a bit more than 2x crop?
 
Thought I might have been wrong about the crop factor, must have been remembering the modified crop factor using that new speed booster adapter. Makes them effectively faster too.
 
Egg Born Son said:
Yes, three primes will get you a long way. A wide angle, a normal (some prefer to use a 35mm over a 50mm for a generally wider look) and a telephoto.

The big difference between primes and zooms in terms of actually getting the shot is that you have to move the camera instead of changing the focal length to get the framing you want. A wide angle will generally reach infinity at any distance over 5 foot so if you want the background in focus use your wide. If you get real close to your subject then there will also be a mild fisheye-like distortion where the subject appears larger, fuller and the background will seem artificially distant. This can be used to good effect. Also good for landscapes and establishing shots too because of its wide angle.

The telephoto is good for close ups, the background will be out of focus and only a narrow slice of background will fill the frame due to the tighter angle. This is good for reducing background distractions to focus on the subject. To get more than a head and shoulders you will need to get quite far back and infinity focus won't be available until you are extremely far away. Telephoto also artificially compresses the apparent distance between your subject and background so can be good for action/fx shots to make something look like a close call when in fact the two objects are not particularly close eg a punch or near miss in cars.

A normal lens should pretty much match the natural perspective of your eye. No exaggerated effects. Some people prefer to use a wide-normal such as a 35mm rather than a 50mm to ensure all their shots have a slightly heightened reality. To separate cinematic vision from the normal everday. 35mm is very close to normal.

When I pick a 3 lens set, depending on what I expect to be shooting I grab either a 20mm/35mm/105mm or a 24mm/50mm/135mm. In actuality I almost always end up taking at least 4, adding an 85mm because I love that lens. So my usual 4 lens set will be 20mm/35mm/85mm/135mm. I thought I would use the 200mm all the time but never really use it. You have to get too far from the subject which means the sound guy can't stand behind the cameraman.

Bear in mind all these choices are for a 35mm sensor, not M4/3. I don't know the exact formula off hand but I think 35mm is equivalent to 50mm on the GH3 so I'd suggest getting a 20mm/35mm/85mm set for you. Once you are familiar with these focal lengths you will have a better idea of how you want to fill the set in. Although on M4/3 the wide end of the spectrum is pretty limited.

As for brand, many go with vintage manual lenses for movies. The flange of the M4/3 means that most lenses can be used with a simple adapter. I use Nikon Nikkor AI lenses myself, they have a consistent look and personally think they match well to panasonic sensors. My second choice (possibly would have been my first choice if I had read Postmaster's article and seen his footage before I started buying the Nikons) would be the Carl Zeiss Jena lenses, the zebra ones. My third choice would be Canon but I've always shied from the warmer look. Canon's seem to favour reds to me which makes skin look flattering and the world look shiny. Not a fan of the Canon bokeh (background blur) but others are. The Nikons seem grittier and sharper with better bokeh to my eye. Whereas the Zeiss seem perfectly balanced between these, sharp and vibrant, with wonderfully creamy bokeh. Actually the other choice which I'm considering trading some unused lenses in for myself are the Rokinon cine lenses, the glass might not be quite a match for these others but it is made up for in features. This is without doubt the cheapest entry price into cine lens-like operation, are designed to be a matched set and will cost about $1500-1700 for a 3 lens set brand new. They are by all accounts a long way from real cine lenses but you won't get anyway near the real thing at this price point. I haven't used them but those on here who have bought them have generally been quite positive about their purchase. Do a search and read up on them because a couple of the focal lengths aren't quite up to the standard of the rest but they are generally well regarded.

As for aperture, with all these vintage lenses it will be fairly easy and economical to source an f2.8 set. The wide will be the most difficult/expensive to find at f2 and probably won't be found faster than that in vintage lenses. The normal will be available as fast as f1.2 but will be pricey and most of these older lenses don't perform well below f2 anyway so I wouldn't bother. I mainly use 20mm/f3.5, 24mm/f3.5, 28mm/f2.8, 35mm/f2, 50mm/f1.4, 85mm/f2, 105mm/f2.5, 135mm/f3.5, 200mm/f4. I usually shoot f2 - f4, so it's not important that they don't match. Lenses are named for their fastest aperture but it doesn't mean they perform well wide open. Not at the prices most of us can afford. I usually have to open the aperture more than I would like due to a sensor that performs poorly in lowlight, otherwise I'd use more of an f2.8 - 5.6 range. But one extra stop means many many more watts of light and many more degrees of temperature in the room not to mention pinprick pupils on my subject.
Click to expand...

Thank you this helps a lot, i plan on using jib arm and some kinda dolly on tracks for camera movement. i was looking at vintage a bit but i don't really know where to start looking. many lenses are hard to find video samples and im scared of lens breathing. f2.8 seems kinda high to me considering the new cine lenses are around t .095 but they are cheaper and high quantity so i will keep searching.

@Azmyth I should ave clued into that way earlier because i saw 35mm mft samples and they looked almost like a portrait lens.
 
Don't be scared of lens breathing. It would be nice if they didn't but they do and it really doesn't matter. Seriously. If your film is so boring that the audience actually notices the frame closing in or opening up 1-2% during a rack focus then no lens will save you. And the breathing during a focus adjustment can be used creatively to subtle effect. These are the things that annoy seasoned pros that noone else consciously notices. You have to know what you want before you can seek gear that gets you there. There isn't any value in being a perfectionist until you know what you want and you can't know what you want until you've been dissatisfied with something you did. For moves on a dolly or a jib you are going to be using a wide lens at infinity focus anyway, so no breathing. Trying to adjust focus while performing complex camera moves will make you cry. And if you were ready for lenses that don't breathe, you wouldn't be using a GHx camera. A poor condition second hand non-breathing cine lens probably costs more than your car. Certainly more than your jib and dolly. Let alone your camera. Your camera is a bigger compromise than these lenses.

Don't invest too much fear and energy into what you are reading on the internet. It sounds like you are getting ahead of yourself and reading up on issues that don't concern you yet. With your GH3 you have chosen something that gets you 90% of the way there for a fraction of the price, think the same way with the rest of your gear. Most people on here including myself spend more time shooting test videos and playing with our gear than making videos. The work pressures in my dayjob are only a partial excuse for it but I'm well aware that I'm playing at it right now. Go and make some videos before you worry about splitting hairs over minor issues more experienced DPs are discussing. One lens is enough as long as you are pointing it at something and pressing record. I've got thirteen and counting, it doesn't make me any better than three and even with thirteen to choose from I usually pick the same 3 or 4 when putting together a kit.

The limitations of gear in early stages will engage your creativity, and by the time you get your hands on the good stuff you'll be able to appreciate what it offers. Many people have used a skateboard or wheelchair to get footage indistinguishable from a dolly. They needed a dolly shot and found a way. They didn't buy a dolly and then look for a shot to use it in. Not saying don't buy a dolly, just saying shoot your videos and then buy the gear that experience tells you would have made for an easier workflow or got you superior shots. For example, I bought a slider that never turned up so bought a skateboard, drilled a hole and attached the camera with a bolt from the hardware store. The resulting footage was wobbly 9 takes out of 10 and took 2 hours instead of 10 minutes but I got the shot. I want to buy another slider to solve this but if I had more time to spare I'd just modify my skateboard and practice getting smooth shots. When my hand was steady the shot was perfectly fine.

There is a disease called gear aquisition syndrome (GAS) which most of us here have. Doesn't mean the gear helps. At the moment I have deep pockets and no time to use my purchases. The hope is when the situation reverses I'll have everything I need to make good use of the time. In reality life will move on and I will have to sell off gear I've barely used at half the price I paid. Probably when the next condom breaks and I knock some girl up after another shameful and disappointing drunken encounter. :Drogar-KnockedOut(D

Now this lecture is more of a warning than anything, feel completely free to ignore the advice. The rest of us did. But it sounds to me like you are just starting out, you've read too much internet and have a bunch of things floating around you're head that you are not ready for yet. Just get your three lenses, if you must the dolly and jib (they are cool pieces of gear, especially the jib but unless you're on a big project are usually too big a pain in the butt to lug around and set up, especially on uneven floors) and go out and make some videos. Lighting and audio will have a bigger impact than any lens will. The only lens limitations I've come across is due to my sensor's poor handling of lowlight. I have a HVX with a redrock adapter and I'm always wishing I had faster lenses for indoors shots so I could use fewer watts of lighting. I live in Australia and 2000W+ of lights heats a room unbearably in winter, let alone summer. Even with the conversion calculations for the M4/3 sensor I can assure you your GH3 isn't going to need this much light to achieve the same results.

The one item I would suggest to overcome the limitations of M4/3 would be that metabones speed booster I mentioned. It more effectively allows you to adapt quality vintage lenses like those I mentioned, most of which can be had for $100-300 a pop. Never used it myself but on paper it is a device that is nothing short of magic. Also have a look in the GH2 section for lens suggestions. I'm sure the question has been asked many times before and every lens suggestion made about a GH2 applies equally to a GH3.

Good luck and stick with the forum, it's a great community here and you'll learn a heap from the feedback if you post your videos.
 
What im scared of with lens breathing is focusing in during the shot. I saw some footage of vintage lenses used for video with lens going in and out of focus, its blurry and annoying. The cine lenses i was referring to are slr magic and voitlander "cine" lenses, not like a zeiss compact prime set. I should have clarified that stuff.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Ball-Bearing-Jib-Arm-w-Motorized-Pan-Tilt/ im definitely building my own jibs/ dollys, i got experience with building and mechanics. as far s shooting goes I will most likely plan my shoots at the locations before i get there. especially stuff like camera angles and where the dolly will be placed. if the ground has different elevations i will use a level. ya i agree it would be stupid as hell wandering around with a bunch of heavy equipment looking for something to shoot. i never heard of the metabones speed booster and still don't really get how it achieves what it says it does but i will look into that too.

thanks so much for your reply's you've been very helpful.
 
That doesn't sound like lens breathing, that sounds like shallow focus. Probably because the person shooting read that shallow focus is the best thing ever and went too shallow with actors that can't hold their mark. It's a poor decision on the part of the camera operator, not a lens issue. If you post a link to an example I'll confirm what you are looking at. Lens breathing is when the composition changes during a focus move, most noticeable at the extents of the frame but can also be in a slight change in the relation between near and far objects. Here is a sample of actual lens breathing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIrJUFtYxiQ See, nothing to worry about.

Or are you talking about autofocussing? Where the camera is constantly searching for the subject? This again is not a lens issue it is a camera issue. Very few if any filmmakers use autofocus, all settings should be on manual because you are trying to control every element of the shot. Choosing focus, exposure and framing. A camera on auto settings is never going to produce cinematic footage.

That jib looks interesting. I would never discourage a DIY effort, knowing how to build rigs to solve problems is a skill that is never wasted.
 
If you're going to be shooting indoors while on location, you'll sometimes need a very wide angle, since you won't always be able to back up far enough to get everything in with a moderate wide angle. The Voigtlander 17.5mm f/0.95 would be an excellent choice. Add a 24mm for medium shots, and a 50mm for close-ups.

-- Ken

P.S. -- I recently got a Lumix 12-35mm zoom, and am surprised at how often I use it in the 12mm to 15mm range. That lens is on my AF100 most of the time.
 
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