M2 Redrock Question

horrorshockpictures

horrorshockpictures

Active member
Hello friends,
its been a while but I have come back again!

I have a simple question for you guys,

What is the best Nikon lense to buy for the M2 redrock. I find my self in a problem state when it comes to this, there is so many lenses sold online that work with the Nikon lense mount but i really do not know what is best. I would like to know what is the exact name of the Nikon lense YOU recommend for me. thanks.
 
It all depends on what you want to do. its a good idea to have atleast one wide angle (28mm-35mm), one standard 50mm or 55mm and one macro like 100mm or 135mm. Normally prime lenses are preferred and also get fast lenses for example 50mm 1.4 or 1.8.

But again it really depeends on what you want to shoot.

Cheers,

-Kris
 
I agree with Krish. You can't just have one lense.

I bought used because I can't afford new, so if you go that route, the wear and tear and condition of the glass will also be a factor.

I got all Manual Nikon AIS lenses. (i believe the AI also work but they only have 7 shutter blades as opposed to the AIS which have 9. that's just a rule of thumb by the way. and the more blades the smoother the bokeh. if I remember correctly)
24mm/2
35mm/1.4
50mm/1.4
85mm/1.4
180mm/2.8

but if I were to only buy one, I'd probably get the 50mm.
good luck
 
50mm f1.4 hands down. Anything wider and you lose dof, anything longer and you lose close focus. Brand new you can get one under 300. Word.
 
If you are only going to buy one lens then borrow a cheap zoom lens from a friend, find the zoom setting that you think is right, buy the fastest prime that you can afford at that size.

Fast lenses will save you lighting dollars...

Bob
 
Pretty much what Siniarch said. You need a set of lenses not 'a' lense. Buy the fastest lenses you can afford, I wouldn't go over F2.8 on the primes (most 28mm are 2.8). Maybe start with a 28mm, 50mm and a 100, then add a 35, 85, 135 as you can. If you can afford only one to start get the 50mm, F1.8 are pretty affordable and common. I think Nikkor's are the best in the Nikon range.

** someone correct me if I'm wrong but you also must get manual apature and focus.

** always google a lense before you buy it. I've found that sometimes expensive lenses can have terrible reviews.

Ian
 
No one is talking about storytelling or the "effect" different focal lengths and angle of have on our perception of a scene.

If you are getting only 1 lens then there is really 1 choice: 50mm because this is closest to the way our eyes see. Everything else is stylistically divergent from that. Each lens and the effect it has on the images effects storytelling and the way the scene feels.

flen2.png

--------WIDE LENS NEAR THE COW------------- LONG LENS FAR AWAY FROM THE COW

NOTICE THE COW IS THE SAME SIZE AND POSITION IN BOTH SHOTS.

If this were photo and not just an illistration, the relationship of the cow to the hill would change as well, though more subtly.

We need to get out of a VIDEO MENTALITY or VIDEOGRAPHER MENTALITY that says put the tripod down in the most convenient spot and zoom in so that what you want in frame is visible. Even in video you are not using your full tool kit when you do this because zooming in changes the focal length and you get a different looking shot if you are zoomed in with the camera far away or close and zoomed out even if your subject and everything you want in frame is in frame.

This kind of plunk the sticks down and zoom in thinking carries over to selecting to prime lenses for 35mm adaptors. Most people just aren't considering the powerful story telling tools they are ignoring or using willy nilly. Ignoring the effects of focal length and angle of view is like randomly picking punctuation marks regardless of the managing of the sentence? A lot of people just care about the Shallow Depth of Field. "Great, the thing I want people to look at is sharp and the rest of the image is blurry." And they stick their one lens on and move the camera closer or further away from the subject so that what they want is in frame.

BUT:
  • A WIDE ANGLE LENS makes things look further apart - not from the camera necessarily but from each other in the shot! It also can difference in size of one object to another seem more drastic.
  • A NORMAL LENS is a more neutral statement as it sees most like our eyes.
  • A LONG LENS makes things in the shot look closer together and more the same size.
So forgetting about storytelling for a moment as much as possible .... which lens might be a better choice for a closeup of your leading lady. A leading lady that you want to be perceived as hot or pretty as possible? Most likely answer = the LONG LENS. Why because it makes things look closer together and of more similar size. No it won't make her eyes look close together so she looks cross eyed. But it will make features seem less extreme. It will make it so her nose is not the focal point of the shot. It will make her pores look smaller (helpful in HD). If her jawline is asymmetrical it will lessen the difference. Also it will have an intimate feeling and look. And already we are getting into storytelling. If we are supposed to fall in love with this woman, or believe that the leading man would fall in love with her, then using a long lens for a beauty effect is already helping you tell the story. Some actors have been known to refuse being shot for closeups until they see the camera man put the long lens on the camera.

OK so piggybacking off that example, say the protagonist of our story is an archetypal NERD and it is supposed to be unlikely that our leading lady would ever give him the time of day. He's also supposed to be funny. Which lens might be a good choice for his closeup? The WIDE ANGLE LENS. Nerds have been shot this way so many times for music videos or commercials (and of course films and TV) that it's pretty much cliche at this point. The wider the lens, the bigger his nose will look. If you shoot from a slightly high angle looking down, the bigger his glasses and maybe nose will look and the smaller and weaker his chin.

So hopefully the story telling potential becomes apparent.

You could, for example, use wide angle lenses at he start of a lover's quarrel. They seem far apart. When someone gains higher status in the argument they could be closer to he camera than their scene partner and will therefore seem bigger. If one of them is being belittled and they are far away in a two shot then they will seem small. At some point they realize they love each other and were fighting over nothing, the scene is now moving towards making out and maybe a roll in the hay. Now might be a good time to sneakily start using LONG LENSES. Now that they are feeling closer, they actually look closer. Maybe we are not aware of the change because we don't know how lenses work, or we are so into the scene we don't care what lens is being used, but for some reason we feel what the characters are feeling, a closeness and intimacy.

With the NERD example, if she falls in love with him after he does something noble, well maybe you shoot him with wide angle lenses for the whole movie up to that point and then switch to long lenses. Suddenly, when she becomes attracted to him, he does in fact become more attractive and less awkward.

In a horror scene, a family is spending a typical day at the park. Things are NORMAL. It's important for the story and the later horror that this feels like everyday life so what follows will be more scary because it could happen to us. Maybe for a closeup of the kids or a shot of the kids playing you use a long lens either for a beauty effect or to make he family seem close. But when the stalker appears in the woods maybe you switch to an extremely wide angle lens. Things seem distorted, out of whack. Also maybe when the mother realizes her kid is missing you could shoot her with the wide angle (maybe from a low angle), as her world is just turned upside down. Any idealism or beauty or normalcy from before has disappeared. This is considered a less attractive way to shoot a woman (from below so her chin looks prominent) and with a wide angle lens, but could lend a gritty real effect.

So these choices are pretty obvious but they are used just for illustration, to get the point across.

The last thing to note is that while you cannot get extreme SDOF with your video camera, you can benefit from angel of view effects with your stock video lens. When you zoom in you make the lens longer. When you zoom out you make wider.

So even if you don't have a 35mm adapter it's good to be thinking about these tools when shooting.

If you do have a 35mm adapter its good to know about these effects when selecting lenses to buy and lenses for a shot.

Again, if it is a one lens only scenario, then 50mm is the pic. You can control DOF while making a fairly neutral spatial statement.

You will want to start there and then maybe as one person suggested, borrow a zoom and see what 28mm looks like and what 100 mm looks like.

Or take your camera and your 35mm adaptor to a used camera shop and try them on your camera and see what they do.

My current lenses.
SIGMA f2.8 28 mm
CANON f1.2 55mm
CANON f1.8 85mm
CANON f4 200mm
The faster the better, the f4 was cheap.
 
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JDS I totally agree with you; having a 35mm adaptor doesn't turn anyone into a great cinematographer. Was just pointing out to the original poster that he can't shoot everything with one lense. Also agree DOF isn't the be all and end all. It's not meant to be used for every shot.

35mm adaptors will be a huge plus for users, in that it will force us to all learn more about cinematography - I know I will.

JDS, is your Sigma lense any good? Also some canon fd lenses need a 'trick' to get the apature to move manually. Do you know how this is done?
 
tmnt said:
JDS I totally agree with you; having a 35mm adaptor doesn't turn anyone into a great cinematographer. Was just pointing out to the original poster that he can't shoot everything with one lense. Also agree DOF isn't the be all and end all. It's not meant to be used for every shot.

35mm adaptors will be a huge plus for users, in that it will force us to all learn more about cinematography - I know I will.
Click to expand...
My comments weren't directed at you per se. Just that i never, ever hear anyone talk about the spatial effects different lenses have on a shot. Only SDOF. There's a reason we use words like closer and distant to describe emotional states of being, and those shared cultural perceptions can be manipulated visually by using lenses of different focal lengths.

tmnt said:
JDS, is your Sigma lense any good? Also some canon fd lenses need a 'trick' to get the apature to move manually. Do you know how this is done?
Click to expand...
I think the Sigma lens is "OK" I have not had a chance to really test it yet. It was only $50, however, lol (used). My understanding with sigma is that they have a wide variety of lenses that vary greatly in quality.

Yes on the Canon lenses. I am not sure how you tell the difference as to which ones need the trick, which ones don't, and which ones will never iris down unless they are on the camera for which they were designed, since I was never a still photog. Timur Civan would know though. As for the trick, you just push a switch over in the back until it clicks. When you go to a used camera store, mount the lens in rear lens cap, then watch the iris from the front and see if you can get it to stop down. If you can great, if not see if the guy a the store can help you with "the trick", put it back in the rear lens cap and try again.

But some people know which are which by the label and kind of lens they are. But the trick is not a hack or anything, it's s switch that you flip, more or less, that allows you to iris down when mounted to ant FD mount.

My 85mm WON'T iris down. But it was in excellent condition and very fast and very reasonably priced.
 
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Hey Jack- I know it took some time to type all that out. Great practical lesson for newer folks, good reminder for those of us (like me) that get "a little ahead of myself" at times.

Thanks!
 
I started with the classic 50mm 1.4 (i heard 1.2 isnt as sharp), and worked out. Next I bought the 85mm f1.8 and the 35mm f1.4..... then i got a 24mm and 105mm.... it all depends
 
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