What lens to get (shallow dof)

mojo43

mojo43

Well-known member
Hello,

I have bought the FD adapter and a Canon 50mm 1.8 lens for my GH1.

I would like to achieve a shallower dof than the 50mm allows, and as I shoot a lot of hand held and I find that the 50mm is too shaky (it seems like a 35mm or less would work better). Can you tell me what combination would suit my needs described above as well as would be my cheapest solution?

Will a FL lens fit on the FD adapter?

Thanks in advance...
 
I think so! check out the Canon 35/2 lens, the DOF will be shallow and the handling will be less shaky than with the 50mm lens
 
Am I correct in saying the 35mm will have a greater dof than the 50mm 1.8? If so, I was looking for something that would be shallower if possible?

Thanks again...
 
I reckon the 20mm 1.7 Panasonic, and any 50-ish fast prime would do it. Or a 45mm Leica with MEGA OIS would work as well.
 
A 50/1.4 will be slightly shallower than a 50/1.8. A 50/1.2 would be shallower still.

But a wider lens will help with the shaking. However, it will be deeper DOF.

You're really working at cross purposes here. Your ultimate solution will be to quit trying to shoot handheld, which just doesn't work on DSLRs very well because of the form factor; put the camera on some sort of rig (even a low-cost Spider Brace) or use the no-budget solution -- hold the camera as far away from you as the neck strap will allow, and stabilize it with the pressure from the neck strap.
 
Everything being equal, ie the same aperture, the shorter the FL the deeper the DOF. However the level of blur can also be adjusted by controlling the distance from the lens to the subject relative to the distance from the subject to the background. This is why most wide lenses, or even a P&S with very short fl lens, can still blur the background if you move in closer (as in the close-up mode).

All 50mm lens should behave the same in terms of DOF regardless of the widest aperture. However at the same lens-subject-background distance, if a lens can open to f1.2, the background will get more blurry than that taken by a f1.8 lens wide open. It is not trivial to focus properly at f1.2 in close up as the DOF is so shallow even slight breathing may affect the focus.
 
Hmmm... so if I could find a FD 35mm or 28mm f/1.4 (if they even make this) then that would give me less shaky as well as my dof would be shallower than a 50mm f/1.8?

Thanks for the suggestion of using the neck strap. I am new to all of this and I have been using the eye piece to try to keep the camera steady.
 
mojo43 said:
Hmmm... so if I could find a FD 35mm or 28mm f/1.4 (if they even make this) then that would give me less shaky as well as my dof would be shallower than a 50mm f/1.8?

Thanks for the suggestion of using the neck strap. I am new to all of this and I have been using the eye piece to try to keep the camera steady.
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Back in the olden days, cinematographers would buy:

American Cinematographer Manual

But these days with the internet you can often find stuff that was in the manual
like "DoF" tables, for many camera/lens combinations:

Here's a URL for GH1 (and other Panasonic cameras of the G series) as well as other manufacturers.

Depth of Field Table


There are other things that one also needs to consider, such as Angle of View, speeds that objects are traveling at, relative to the camera, the shutterspeed, etc. These had tables in the ACM as well, but are available for some cameras/lenses, etc. on the Internet...

In addition...

While you are specifying lens lengths, etc... DoF is dependent on distence from the lense up to the hyperfocal distance. So, if your subject is 'far', you may have a DoF that goes to infinity... so, you need to specify what distances you are from the subject, and that
will figure into what DoF you will get...

For example, from the above table, for the GH1, 50mm lense the following entry can be found, for f/1.4, 2.0 and 2.4 respectively.


Code: 
10 ---- 9' 9'' to 10' 3''  ---- 9' 7.8" to 10' 5"	 ---- 9' 6.2" to 10' 6''

For a 35mm lens, same apatures:

Code: 
10 ---- 9' 6'' to 10' 7'' ---- 9' 3.8'' to 10' 10'' ---- 9' 0.7'' to 11' 2''

and for a 28mm lens:

Code: 
10 ---- 9' 2.9'' to 10' 11'' ---- 8' 11.6'' to 11' 4''	 ---- 8' 7.1'' to 11' 11''
 
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"so if I could find a FD 35mm or 28mm f/1.4 (if they even make this) then that would give me less shaky as well as my dof would be shallower than a 50mm f/1.8?"

To some degree, but WA lenses will easily give you distortion when you get too close to the subject so this limits your composition possibility. Furthermore, when you get really close = the object gets really big in your frame = very sensitive to camera shake.
 
Handheld + Shallow DOF = Incredibly Difficult. What kind of project are you working on?

Also - yes an FL lens works on the FD adapter. I've got a number of FLs.

You're still going to get pretty bad shake even with a 35mm - things won't really get significantly better until you get down to say, 24 or 20mm. There is a 24mm f/1.4 but it's very expensive - the 24 f/2 is also a bit pricey but obtainable. The 20mm 2.8 is very good and you'll get a bit of shallow DOF if you are very close to the subject.

It might be helpful if you told us what kind of shot/scene you want to accomplish and then a specific approach could be advised.
 
Thanks for the help... I am looking for a lens that I can use for portraits that are shot on the fly when there isn't enough time to set up a tripod. I think that the 50mm 1.4 would be perfect except for the crop factor makes it hard to handhold and get decent results.

I was hoping that there would be a cheap solution, but it looks like there isn't. Can you suggest a fast lens that has IS in this range (~50mm) and would work with a GH1?

Thanks again for all the help...
 
The Leica DG Macro-Elmarit 45mm F2.8 sounds like your only option. Works well with the 20mm 1.7 with the same filter size.
 
Wow, that is disappointing... 2.8 is just not fast enough for that kind of money. I guess I am going to have to go with a Nikon AF-S 35mm f/1.8 G DX Lens and a Canon FD 50mm 1.4.

That's the best and cheapest combination that I could figure out...
 
In my whole set of FDs, the one I use most is the 35mm f/2.0 - very versatile for both wider shots and close-ups. You can check out how it works for handheld in 'Closing Time' through my sig link.
 
mojo43 said:
Thanks for the help... I am looking for a lens that I can use for portraits that are shot on the fly when there isn't enough time to set up a tripod. I think that the 50mm 1.4 would be perfect except for the crop factor makes it hard to handhold and get decent results.

I was hoping that there would be a cheap solution, but it looks like there isn't. Can you suggest a fast lens that has IS in this range (~50mm) and would work with a GH1?

Thanks again for all the help...
Click to expand...


What you are asking for is sort of one of those 'skills' things. I'd recommend taking up sharp shooting, and if you can learn to steady your hands with a fairly heavy rifle, you can probably be 'steady' enough for getting reasonably sharp 'shallow' DoF shots.

Personally I save this sort of technique for low light and 1/8th second shutter speeds for stills, when no tripod or monopod is available.

There is also breathing and taking three shots in a row, with hopefully one during the 'inter heartbeat' period where you hands are the steadiest... and using close to body arm positioning, or leaning on walls, or whatever...

In motion picture shooting, perhaps getting enough stablility to not have the camera waving all over the place is the best that can be done.

In that regard the 'usual' portait lens length on a 35mm (full neg) is about 100mm in length. For the smaller sensor digital cameras, something of 75-80mm will get that 'portrait' look. The problem of course is that tends to accentuate any movement on the camera's part.

So, shoot slightly wider and then use the various stabilizing filters in FCP/AE to stablize the image, and then resize to eliminate any unsightly border edges.

50mm is still a bit 'short' for a portrait lens but does lessen the wobblies.

Anything less than 50mm will probably have 'too much DoF' as well as 'facial distortions' for the usual portrait croppings.
 
j1clark@ucsd.edu said:
Anything less than 50mm will probably have 'too much DoF' as well as 'facial distortions' for the usual portrait croppings.
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Thanks, I hadn't really taken that into consideration. It is really hard to know without trying these lenses first. I tried the neck-strap trick last night (mentioned by Barry in a previous post) and that seemed to help a lot so maybe I will start with the 50mm 1.4 and go from there.

Thanks for the help!
 
mojo43 said:
Wow, that is disappointing... 2.8 is just not fast enough for that kind of money. I guess I am going to have to go with a Nikon AF-S 35mm f/1.8 G DX Lens and a Canon FD 50mm 1.4.
Click to expand...

But it is a "IS" lens so if you want to point and shoot, this feature can reduce camera shake dramatically. While a f2.8 aperture is not as good as f2.0, which we wish it had, it is important to note that most of the time, you do not shoot wide open. A very shallow DOF will make it so easy for one to miss the focus and you may end up with a situation in which the nose of the person is in focus but the eyes are not. Using a APS-C camera with a 1.5 crop factor, I usually use f2.8 -f3.5 even though I have a f1.4 lens. The Nikon 35/1.8 is a very lovely lens and works well on the GH1. You need to get an adapter that can control its aperture though since it is a "G" lens that does not have an aperture ring with which to control the aperture manually. However if the price is the same, a MF lens (such as the FD 35/2 that some suggested) may be better b/c the focusing ring is really nice and you can know exactly what aperture you are shooting.

I imagine you are not a still photographer by training, and it will take a while for you to learn the in and outs of using different lenses. You could try to use the kit zoom lens and set it at different fl and see at which fl you can get the shots you like. Vary the distance between your subject and background and try again to see how DOF changes. To get the same head shot, you can either use a short fl and move up close, or a long fl far away. Try various combo to get a sense of working distance, DOF, and distortion. You then focus on getting a lens with that particular fl that works best for you with a wide aperture. This may be the fastest way for you to find out what suits you.
 
If I'm not mistaken the 45mm lens is a true macro lens and typically you don't see macros faster than f2.8 - my guess is that it's probably a very good lens, but it's probably not what you're looking for in this instance, macros also usually have a very long and precise focusing range and due to this are usually not super fast at auto focusing. It does have IS but I really don't think that IS on a 45mm lens handheld is going to work too well for what you're aiming for - and in fact IS might even be a detriment, you really need a stabilization rig as opposed to trying to do it all with IS - IS technology for SLRs has really been good for stills but it's nowhere near as good the IS in a good videocamera for the purposes of video.
 
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