which 14mm?

stonebat

stonebat

Veteran
samyang 14mm 2.8, tokina 11-16mm 2.8, oly 14-54mm ii 2.8-3.5

they have 14mm at 2.8. which one works better for cinematic filming? not too sharp... u know the film look.

if all being equal, im gearing toward the oly. otherwise i would need to get tamron 17-50mm 2.8, too.
 
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What are the requirements for "cinematic filming"?

Also, I would not readily "equate" these very different lenses. One is a prime, second a wide-angle zoom, third a "standard" zoom. Oly will autofocus with an appropriate adapter, others will not. There are size and price differences as well.
 
stonebat said:
samyang 14mm 2.8, tokina 11-16mm 2.8, oly 14-54mm ii 2.8-3.5

they have 14mm at 2.8. which one works better for cinematic filming? not too sharp... u know the film look.

if all being equal, im gearing toward the oly. otherwise i would need to get tamron 17-50mm 2.8, too.
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I was looking for a very fast wide angle and decided on the Tokina 11-16mm. I love the lens. I like the constant iris through zoom. I don't use any lenses at the moment slower than 2.8.

If you have a local camera store, I'd try the tokina out. I did, and i bought it on the spot.
 
is it difficult to use the oly zoom for manual exposure setting?

i wanna use them at max aperture. which one can give more old film look like canon fd's?
 
Samyang 14mm is extremely sharp lens. But it has distortion present (very sharp and good CA, but they do not correct distortion).
Oly is not good option because of wired MF.
Tokina is most popular lens here in Nikon mount version.
For stills Samyang is much better, but for video due to uncorrected distortion it is not very good choice.
 
i really like gh13, but i will be honest about m43 format. no freaking idea whether its gonna survive or not in a few years. buying a bulky 14mm wide angle lens just to get 28mm equivalent is... a major drawback of 2x crop. 5d mark ii + nikkor 28mm 2.8 (sharp, no distortion, close range correction) combo is about the same weight. also lack of IBIS in panny bodies. sure tripod is preferred... but those walking footage looks dynamic if done right. set it at infinity focus and start walking. no need for continuous autofocus. m43 lenses look cute but too much software correction and i hate the fly-by-wire focusing. it felt like spinning wheel. so ive been collecting nikon f mount lenses. f mount has longer flange-back-distance (ffd) than canon eos and sony alpha. oly 43 zooms have 3 issues for videography: varifocal, fly-by-wire, short ffd. samyang 14mm... yes i was wondering how to correct the distortion in video. that leaves tokina 11-16 nikon version the only choice. but im gonna wait for gh2 kit zoom official announcement... for no apparent reason.

things become much simpler if i give up on 28mm equivalent for now. tamron 17-50 is 34-100 on gh1 and 27-80 on t2i. t2i body price is gonna be close to tokina 11-16. btw why isnt there any canon eos adapter with aperture ring control? technical reason?
 
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ok... i gave up on 14mm.

mainly i take video on my little kids. both preschool. less than a half the size of adults. framing them through the pancake (40mm equivalent) is like framing adults through 20mm equivalent. it sorta negates 2x crop factor.

nikkor 50mm ais feels just right for kids full body footage. i think vivitar 28mm should feel wide enough on them. 14mm lens might make them too tiny. i could get closer to them... but more distortion.
 
stonebat said:
ok... i gave up on 14mm.

mainly i take video on my little kids. both preschool. less than a half the size of adults. framing them through the pancake (40mm equivalent) is like framing adults through 20mm equivalent. it sorta negates 2x crop factor.
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Why not use the kit lens? I have recently "rediscovered" it -- all this focus (excuse the pun) on focusing manually in video mode is appropriate for certain shots, but not necessarily required for your typical "home-style" shooting. Autofocus is very fast and reliable with the kit lens and you don't need to switch out lenses if you need to change focal range. It is slow, yes, aperture-wise, but more than enough in daytime outdoors conditions and is quite up to task with appropriate light added for dim indoors shots. Which goes back to your original question of "cinematic filming" -- appropriately lighting your scene.
 
stonebat said:
btw why isnt there any canon eos adapter with aperture ring control? technical reason?
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Unlike Nikon glass Canon EF lenses doesn't have a mechanical control of the aperture from the body - it's electronic. Theoretically somebody could reverse engineer the protocol and make a m4/3 adapter with built-in electronics (Redrock Micro has done it for their DOF adapter) but I doubt it would make enough money to warrant the investment.
 
thanks. good to know. no love for canon ef or ef-s lens.

i own two fd mount primes and two ais f mount primes. possibly one f mount zoom.
 
svecher said:
Why not use the kit lens? I have recently "rediscovered" it -- all this focus (excuse the pun) on focusing manually in video mode is appropriate for certain shots, but not necessarily required for your typical "home-style" shooting. Autofocus is very fast and reliable with the kit lens and you don't need to switch out lenses if you need to change focal range. It is slow, yes, aperture-wise, but more than enough in daytime outdoors conditions and is quite up to task with appropriate light added for dim indoors shots. Which goes back to your original question of "cinematic filming" -- appropriately lighting your scene.
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thats what i had in my mind and laughed at my friend who bought 5d mark ii & 70-200 2.8L for his 2 year old daughter. he was extremely concerned about low light condition. i told him to use a good ext flash, but i found that i cannot use a flash or any extra lighting source when taking "candid" video for indoor and outdoor. also it turned out many kids events happen indoor. nikkor 50mm 1.4 worked beautifully at 1.4 or 2.0 where the panny zoom at 50mm f/5.6 would have failed miserably. for outdoor, f5.6 is still too slow. shutter speed based auto exposure control raises aperture so high that it looks like "home-style" video that i hate it. i'd use f2.8 zoom at max aperture with fader adjustable nd filter to have the old film look. yes manual control. manual exposure. thats how i like it.
 
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