Lens questions

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damien6

New member
Hi, I'm new here.
I'm planning to get a D90 and a few fast primes to shoot short films with.

I have a background in video, but am completely new to SLRs, so apologies in advance if I ask really basic/obvious stuff.

1. I want to shoot some really low light stuff (nightime city scapes, indoor mood lighting, that sort of thing), so I was going to go for a 1.4 lens, but the camera shop guy recommended the 1.8 over the 1.4, as he recons the 1.4 is harder to focus, and has really really shallow depth of field. Now, closing the aperture on the 1.4 to 1.8 should be equivalent to the 1.8 lens in depth of field, etc, right? Am I missing something here?
If you've shot with both the 1.8 and 1.4 version of a lens, where did you start noticing the difference?

2. What would you recommend for a portrait lens? 50mm? 35mm? What do you reckon is the closest to what the human eye sees on the not quite full sensor of the D90? I thought that'd be the 35mm, but I've also been told it has too much distortion at portait size.
 
1. I find it strange that the 1.8 was what the salesman was trying to sale you, since it's less expensive. Sure shooting at 1.4 is shallow, but it's also fast. And if you want something less shallow, you can stop it down to 1.8. The 50mm 1.8 is a great lens for the money though.

2. 50mm is a great portrait lens. 35mm is closer to what your eye sees. There would be very little distortion, so little it would be completely negligible.

Currently my two most used lenses are a 50mm 1.4 and the 28mm 2.8.
 
artforme said:
Currently my two most used lenses are a 50mm 1.4 and the 28mm 2.8.
Click to expand...

That's my cavalry too, except that I often put an 18-35 AF on a Merlin. The thing about the 50mm 1.4 is that you get pristine bokeh and if you are careful you can use it on a dolly closed down to say 5.6 if you plan it in advance, beautiful.
 
Definitely get the 1.4 because you can always stop it down to 1.8 if your DOF is too shallow and/or any lens isn't it's sharpest wide open.

Distortion on a 35mm lens? I don't think so. My 50mm 1.4 was the go-to lens for CU's and portraits. The 28mm 2.8 is great as a pretty fast med-wide lens. You can do pretty much anything with those two.

Not to mess you up or anything, but as a former D90 owner, I would urge you to consider the GH1 instead. The video quality and usability (manual controls) is much better, the jello is way less, and the features are greater. On the post production side... it's not as easy as the D90. (Unless you want to shoot 30p MJPEG)

If you're planning on doing a lot of stills, the D90 takes the cake though. Food for thought
 
Thanks for the feedback, that's very helpful!

Those of you who shoot a lot of low light stuff, in what kind of circumstances have you found that a 1.8 aperture just won’t do?


Tim Joy, you’re totally right about the GH1. Seems like everyone is giving up on Nikon right about now.

My hypothetical GH1 setup is about AU$1000 over the D90 setup (the difference being kit lens + lens adapter + more expensive camera body).

For my current purposes I could actually do without the kit lens, and I’d be happy to get that later down the track, but it seems hard enough getting hold of a GH1 at all, let alone one that someone is reselling without the kit lens.

I feel like I could only justify the + $1000 investment if I could also use the camera for work (weddings, corporate videos, etc) as well as making my own short films. To me that means useable onboard sound recording. As I understand right now that means running the sound through an AU$500 box that makes a high pitched sound to keep the levels right. That seems a little… absurd. I’m just picturing couples watching their wedding and having their dogs go crazy.

And I haven’t even looked at the AVCHD issues. If I’d have to do cumbersome conversions on 7+ hours of footage from every day’s shooting before I could start editing, that’s probably not doable either.
In conclusion, I have no idea. This is like an interminable emotional roller coaster, where with every camera, firmware update and rumour you start believing that amazing things are within your reach, only to realise with a sinking feeling that it is ruined by something so absurd you haven’t even thought to consider it.
Over and over again.
 
Tim Joy said:
Definitely get the 1.4 because you can always stop it down to 1.8 if your DOF is too shallow and/or any lens isn't it's sharpest wide open.

Distortion on a 35mm lens? I don't think so. My 50mm 1.4 was the go-to lens for CU's and portraits. The 28mm 2.8 is great as a pretty fast med-wide lens. You can do pretty much anything with those two.

Not to mess you up or anything, but as a former D90 owner, I would urge you to consider the GH1 instead. The video quality and usability (manual controls) is much better, the jello is way less, and the features are greater. On the post production side... it's not as easy as the D90. (Unless you want to shoot 30p MJPEG)

If you're planning on doing a lot of stills, the D90 takes the cake though. Food for thought
Click to expand...


Yeah I have the 50mm 1.4, I like to use that for full body portraits and for my wides. If you want minimal distortion and want an 'accurate pleasing' look for your subjects, get the 85mm for medium shots, and 135 for close-ups.

This is all subjective though really... if you like that cinematic look, a good wide 18/24/35 may be good for your mediums and close-ups. I have a 28mm 2.0 and I love that wide distortion for close-ups.

Also, I'd actually contend and disagree with the statement that the GH1 is better. It gives you more consistant control, but I've used it and personally I hate the look that comes out of it. It reaks of cheap living channel TV. The colours of it are just plain and ew and no colour correcting I've seen can mask it. If you choose another camera, I'd suggest the Canon 5d MKii.
 
damien6
I have a first generation autofocus 50mm f1.8 lens (aperture ring on body), and for stills and video, it works great - beautiful optics and the D90 is of course really incredible in low light. Unless you have a precise reason for the further stop to f1.4 (as I said, my lens handles low light beautifully), pick the cheaper of the two and put the difference towards another lens. Whatever you do, get a lens with the aperture ring on the body and a steel mount.

Your interest in lenses should have made you immediately suspicious of the Panasonic DMC-GH1. The 4/3 system on the Panasonic acommodates smaller lenses (therefore less light hitting the sensor) and subsequently does not allow an iris opening as large (therefore poorer DOF for 'film look') as the Nikon system. This coupled with the frame rate largely explains BandanaDan's observation that it looks like "cheap living channel TV". I am sure that Panasonic have made a very capable device, but for low light and exploitation of 35mm depth of field it's probably not the best choice. Additionally, as far as I'm aware, the Panasonic curently has no prime lense compatability.
 
Thanks for the lens feedback, damonb! Sounds like a 1.8 would definitely do for me.

You can get adaptors for both Canon and Nikon lenses for the GH1, and I've seen some great footage with fast primes.

This was shot with a 1.4 Nikon prime:
http://exposureroom.com/members/philipbloom.aspx/assets/34f22bbbaf174dc8bb421c1b1533c87b/

Because of the smaller sensor it does have an extra crop factor, which also means a shallower depth of field with the same lens.

I guess it depends on what you value. Full manual control against a bigger sensor and slightly prettier bokeh.
 
What I meant was, 'because of the smaller sensor it does have an extra crop factor, which also means a LESS shallow depth of field with the same lens'.

And that's a double negative. It's less cinematic and and pretty is what I meant basically.
 
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