Lens hell

boulder said:
Thank you for your opinion. IMHO even though they may be soft for stills, they are acceptable for video. I love my Tamron 17-55 and my Tokina 11-16 and I use them more often than my primes...Nikon 50 f1.4, Vivitar 24mm f2 etc. I'm just dissapointed they arn't available for E-mount and it makes me pause as I have my shoot starting in late March. In my opinion even with new systems (m4/3 etc) things have moved faster. I will probably still end up getting the FS100 because of the sensor size.
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I dunno, I see the EXACT same complaints from m4/3 AF100 shooters about the lack of lenses. ESPECIALLY wide angle zooms....because remember, the m4/3 sensor
isn't as wide as the S35. So if you are using a 17-50 on your FS100, you are going to have to go to something like an 11-16 on the m4/3 system. And if
you go with the 11-16 on the FS100, not even sure what you'd go to on the AF100. Not to bash the AF100 as it is really nice, but if you are looking
wide, any lens you get is going to have a wider shot on the FS100 than the AF100. So, not sure if things have moved faster for the m4/3 system or not,
I know the AF100 shooters I know have the same complaints that the FS100 shooters have as far as 'not enough native mount lens options'.

I'm curious, why you looking for a faster than F3.5 zoom? I am sure there are good reasons, but that is fast enough with the
FS100 to shoot in pretty dark places, and at the wide angles you don't get nearly the shallow depth of field 'look' that you
do at the more telephoto end of the lens. Again, I'm sure you have your reasons, I was just wondering.
 
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Those are both nice lenses - I admit - actually kind of exceptions to my terrible biases

You have them in canon mount I guess?

You need to check out what Conurus is doing - you might be in luck

You are correct the E-mount is not getting the investment of other mounts be that M4/3 or Canon

Else I d just get a 17-55 nikkor G or try some other nikon fit lenses like the stigma 17-70 - which is IMO a great focal lenght, but I dont know if the nikkor fit Stigma one works on the FS even with a G adapter, surely the Tokina and Tampon are available too in nkkkor G fit?

As for tha lack of quality I think Distortion and CA do show up in vid, its not all lines per inch, which is of course irrelevant, but it sounds like your project might need a zoom anyway ... ?

Trust me Ive been through this a million times.. and have ended up with an 18 prime and a 35-70 for my basic package (and the kit lens)

S
 
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Yeah the Conurus would be great, save me the cost of buying these again. I tend to steal locations, which means I can't throw up lights and it's usally pretty dark and i have to act quickly. Fast wide zooms are the bomb for that. That is also why I love OS...sometimes I can't bring a tripod.
 
I dint think 3.5 or 2.8 is going to make any difference with the FS100

If you are really looking to shoot in the dark the Stigma 20 1.8 is the one
 
All I can add is go to a shop and feel them in your hands (or on your follow focus)

The sony, if it is like the kit lens, just wont work for manual focus due to the crappy fly by wire electronics - you will just not be able to focus manually

The stigma, if it feels like the stigmas I have felt will be very nasty too, virtually impossible to do a smooth focus rack

My nikon 18/F4 is up there with the finest glass in terms of tactility and image quality

Get them in your hands then decide.. IMO

18mmpreAI.jpg

S
 
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And if you don't like Nikon with their inverse focusing ring, try to get Minolta SR glass. I have a 21mm F2.8 on my FS100 and it's fantastic. Cost me far less than any decent Nikon I've seen recently on Fleabay. Their 17mm F4 is hard to find, though.
 
I see the FS100 and AF100 as interim cameras, with something even more badass comming out in the future for a similar price. In my mind it doesn't make sense to tie up funds in native mount lenses for either camera. In my opinion a better plan of attack is to invest in lenses which will transfer to any future camera purchase, rather than be tied down to a native lens mount which may not be on your next camera purchase in a year and a half.

All the Best!

Dave
 
David W. Jones said:
I see the FS100 and AF100 as interim cameras, with something even more badass comming out in the future for a similar price. In my mind it doesn't make sense to tie up funds in native mount lenses for either camera. In my opinion a better plan of attack is to invest in lenses which will transfer to any future camera purchase, rather than be tied down to a native lens mount which may not be on your next camera purchase in a year and a half.
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In general I agree, but in specific this doesn't necessarily work. For primes, yes - PL-mount prime lenses will always be in demand and will work on anything and will survive any camera purchase. Which is why I have a set of CP's, and have used them on the F3, the FS100, the AF100, the GH2, the Epic, and would use them on a Scarlet or C300 if I chose to get those...

So yes, I agree with that. BUT... there are some jobs that you just can't buy a general-purpose lens like that for. Zooms, for example -- a PL-mount zoom like the Zeiss LWZ 14-45 is simply not practical to buy and use on multiple cameras, not when there's $100 options like the Panasonic 14-42 out there. Or, how do you buy a general-purpose zoom like the Panasonic 14-140 or the Sony 18-200, in PL mount? You can't. Doesn't exist. Even if you got a 10x PL zoom, it will be 20x the size, 20x the weight, and 20x the cost, and it won't do many things that the Pana/Sony zooms do (such as OIS, autofocus, and auto-iris).

Then there's lenses like the Noktor 25mm f/0.95. You can't buy that for any other system, at any price. It just doesn't exist. But for native m43 users, it's $899. Or the 12mm f/1.6 -- that's a $500 lens. But to get the equivalent in PL you'd need a 14mm f/1.6... does that even exist? Closest I can think of at an affordable price would be the Red Pro 18mm/1.8, but even then, the 12mm is so much wider it's silly, and the Red costs 10x as much (and it's very, very inexpensive for what it is!)

Or for nature photography, I really like my 100-300. It was $599, it's a hypertelephoto zoom (100 to 300mm!) and it has great autofocus and excellent image stabilization. How could you get anything like that in a camera-agnostic mount? It just doesn't exist.

So, I do agree that for most purposes getting camera-agnostic lenses is the way to go, and those lenses will survive camera bodies and formats and, in the case of the Compact Primes or ZF's, it'll even survive sensor size changes. But there are so many really compelling reasons to go with native-mount lenses for certain things that agnostic lenses just can't come within a hundred miles of doing...
 
alaskacameradude said:
And if you go with the 11-16 on the FS100, not even sure what you'd go to on the AF100.
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You'd need something like a 9-14. Which is why I have and love the 7-14, it's super-amazing wide, it makes the 11-16 look practically like a telephoto lens. It's way wider than the 11-16, even when used on the FS100's larger sensor. If you want a wide zoom, there's nothing on the market that compares to the 7-14 on the AF100. If you want something equally wide to the 11-16, Olympus makes a 9-18. But the 7-14 is so much wider it's not even a contest.

Not to bash the AF100 as it is really nice, but if you are lookingwide, any lens you get is going to have a wider shot on the FS100 than the AF100.
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True that if you put the same lens on both, the FS100 would have the wider field of view. But if the question is: what camera can give me the widest image, the answer is an AF100 with the 7-14, because there is no equivalent lens fo rthe FS100.

True that the 7-14 is f/4 and not f/2.8, but the noise is so clean on the AF100 that I have no problem bumping up the gain a notch to get the "equivalent" of f/2.8, in exchange for the drastically wider field of view that you get from 7mm vs. something like the Tokina's 11mm.
 
Barry_Green said:
If you want a wide zoom, there's nothing on the market that compares to the 7-14 on the AF100. If you want something equally wide to the 11-16, Olympus makes a 9-18. But the 7-14 is so much wider it's not even a contest.


True that if you put the same lens on both, the FS100 would have the wider field of view. But if the question is: what camera can give me the widest image, the answer is an AF100 with the 7-14, because there is no equivalent lens fo rthe FS100.

True that the 7-14 is f/4 and not f/2.8, but the noise is so clean on the AF100 that I have no problem bumping up the gain a notch to get the "equivalent" of f/2.8, in exchange for the drastically wider field of view that you get from 7mm vs. something like the Tokina's 11mm.
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I'm pretty sure you are wrong here Barry. Just a quick search online finds me an A mount 8-16 from Sigma here:
http://www.sigmaphoto.com/shop/8-16mm-f45-56-dc-hsm-sigma

That is certainly wider than the 7-14 on the AF 100 if you are using it on the FS 100.....so the statement 'which camera can give me the widest
image, the answer is the AF100'.....I don't think that is really true. The FS100 is going to be wider than the AF100 as long as you can find
equivalent lenses. Since there are enough lenses out there (and both cameras can adapt to a TON of still lenses) you can pretty much always do
that. There is even a native e mount 8mm lens here:

http://www.photozone.de/sony-alpha-aps-c-lens-tests/665-samyang8f35nex

You can find a Rokinon e mount 8mm lens on Ebay for $310 here:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320792288715+

Again, I can't say for 100% certainty as I do NOT own any of these lenses. However, it appears to me, that with the bigger chip,
you are going to be able to get wider shots with the FS100 than the AF100.
 
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Wasn't aware of that Sigma, so yep, that would give you a little bit wider.

The Samyang and Rokinon don't count, those are fisheyes.
 
Its not just the width (!)

The cinema look comes on occasion from S35 shot a 18/T2.0 or the like on very expensive cine lenses

M4/3 at 4 will look nothing like that, itll look more like my EX1

The only way to get thin DOF on a reasonably cheap wide is to use a 5d with an affordable lens like a 24/2.8 - which has that 18/2/S35 look

or fork out for a cine lens the cheapest being the RRP 18 (I think)

S
 
Not terribly interested in going wider than 11 on an S35...wider than that if you move the camera at all things start to look like a Terry Gilliam film. I can probably go slower than 2.8 on the FS100 as it seems less noisy than my current 60D. It's just that on my 60D, 2.8 has been fairly clean in lowlight settings without having to bump it up to unwanted ISO's
 
morgan_moore said:
Its not just the width (!)

The cinema look comes on occasion from S35 shot a 18/T2.0 or the like on very expensive cine lenses

M4/3 at 4 will look nothing like that, itll look more like my EX1

The only way to get thin DOF on a reasonably cheap wide is to use a 5d with an affordable lens like a 24/2.8 - which has that 18/2/S35 look

or fork out for a cine lens the cheapest being the RRP 18 (I think)

S
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As someone who owns an 18mm T2 cine lens I can tell you that it's very seldom that I shoot at T2.
And maybe it's just me, but this whole shooting every shot with obnoxiously shallow depth of field thing does not equal "the cinematic look". Just my opinion!

All the Best!

Dave
 
I said "on occasion" not "equals" - meaning that it is part of the toolkit of creating a "cine look" not it is the tookit - very different

I still think M4/3, wide 4 or deeper could tend to look pretty video ish

S
 
IMHO there is an inherent problem on µFT with original lenses. They are not only corrected electronically for distortion, CA or vignetting, but at the same time there is some sharpening going on – even if turned down to a minimum in the camera. That is going a long way for a video look. Another reason why heritage glass can look better on these cams.
 
So my rokinon 35/85mm came in the mail today. Can't throw it on the camera yet since I'm still waiting for my adapter but WOW, just wow. These things are solid. People weren't kidding when they said they were built well. Smooth focus rings with great throws, solid construction, beautiful glass. Can't wait to get these bad boys on the camera.

Side note- if anyone has been following my incessant indecision for wide angle. I decided on the sigma 20mm f/1.8 over the nikkor. I figured, with 1.8 I'll always have that option even though I'll probably rarely ever shoot that wide open. And since my films aren't being projected at 2k in the cinema, I highly doubt anyone will ever see the difference that these two lenses would render =) Plus, I like big heavy lenses, psychologically makes me feel better.
 
There's also a 24mm f/1.4 Rokinon on the way too. Between the three of them (and with a couple of f/2.8 zooms) you'd have a fantastically comprehensive high-speed kit.
 
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