The Holy Trinity - Three Lenses to Never be without

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bcdevoe

Member
This query is aimed at HDSLR and DoF adapter cinematography, but still has a general element.

For cinematographers:

If you were forced to pick three lenses from your kit, or three lenses in general, for a long-form narrative project and could not deviate from the three, what would they be? Include focal lengths, speed, and brand if need be.

Thanks for suffering through my post!
 
Primes or zooms? what size sensor?
If zooms included it would be
17-55/2.8,
11-16/2.8,
85

if only primes and I was cropping to 1:2.39 on aps-c it would be 18, 30, 50
 
Should we do FF FOV equivalent just so there is a standard?

i.e. a 30mm on a 1.6x crop factor APS-C sensor is a FF 50mm?
 
True. S35 is the norm. but it is actually larger than APS-C by a little.

sensor_table.gif
 
That is an awesome tool Taylor. I have seen other ones that give you overlays but they don't seem nearly as complete! Isn't the Nikon sensor slightly larger than the 7D sensor (see chart above)? It lists them as the same size.
 
If Super35,

28mm f/2
50mm f/1.2
85mm f/1.4


Call me boring, but these are the three I would personally not want to be without. If shooting a feature, I would want a little more variety, especially depending on the intended look, but I would feel awkward without these three.
 
When red first came out all they had available for a while was the 18-50, 50-150 zooms and the only prime was the 300. The nearest rental shop was over the mountains in Vancouver. So for the longest time I did everything using those three lenses and they were fine. Its like any kind of restriction, you make everything work with what you have available. Hypothetical problems to me are a complete waste of time as I've no shortage of real world issues to deal with on set all the time.
 
What a great array of responses. Thank you all.

Just to pose a novice question: s35 is probably NOT the type of sensor I'm working with, which is a Lumix GH1. If I can be so bold as to refine the question to lenses for that type of rig?
 
your camera is m4/3, see page one for the comparison chart. In regards to FoV, your camera will require wider lenses for equiv frame, when discussing s35mm.
 
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