which lens for 35mm adapter?

Hans Moleman

Hans Moleman

Carbonite Member
Just recently purchased the brevis35 with the nikon mount. my question is, where do I start for lenses? Went to the camera shop and looked at 50mm stuff, but is that good for cutting the dof down to zip? I hought maybe something longer, maybe with some zoom, but they're lookin hefty on the price end.
 
Start with these. I figure, anything longer you'll might as well not use the adapter and use the telephoto of your DVX.

50 1.4 or 1.8
35 1.4 or 2.0
28 2.8 (or 1.4 yikes! expensive)
85 1.4 or 1.8
105 1.8 or 2.5
 
great, great, my other question would be do i keep the lens completely open and tweak the aperture in the dvx only?
 
you get the shortest depth of field the wider the iris on the 35mm lens but closing it down some can give you a nicer look.
 
PaPa said:
you get the shortest depth of field the wider the iris on the 35mm lens but closing it down some can give you a nicer look.
Click to expand...

I guess that could be true, as you could keep the DVX at optimum iris seting for focus on the gg.
 
No lens gives the sharpest image wide open. Althought the DOF will be at its shallowest, closing down a little will give more contrast and sharpness.
 
Well, i picked up a Tamron 28-200mm lens. I checked it on one of the SLR's at the shop and liked the dof on the longer end, but i also get the option of going wide. When my Brevis comes in, I'll post some picks for ya.
 
Wayne Kinney said:
No lens gives the sharpest image wide open. Althought the DOF will be at its shallowest, closing down a little will give more contrast and sharpness.
Click to expand...

Wayne you know much more than me about this so I have a question. Would setting your DVX / whatever cam at optimum iris levels and then your 35mm adapter at optimum iris level, then increasing lighting to get solid light be the optimum working situation for overall sharpness?
 
Okay, I don't even have a 35mm lens adaptor yet (just ordered my Brevis a week ago) nor am I an an expert in still photography, however from what I've READ (since I've been researching this heavily lately), I would presume that it would be best to have the DVX in it's optimum f-stop which would be 5.6 (although the DVX book says that 2.8 - 14 is usually acceptable, but again, if you want the best...).

The lens on the otherhand, like other people have said, performs best usually at least 2 stops close from it's widest setting giving you better contrast and colors. Now if you wanted the best from the lens, like any lens, the absolute best performance probably comes in the middle range (maybe slightly more towards the open side)

So there you have it. 5.6 for the DVX, and middle range, slight more towards open for the lens (for example a 1.8 lens might do well at a f4)

Now if it's a resolution matter you're looking at (and you aren't as concerned for color and contrast as you may fix it in post and am willing to compromise), I think actually you probably have a lot of leeway. I say it's more important to have the DVX in it's optimum range than the lens (and I'll mention why later). Like I mentioned earlier, that range is rather large from 2.8 to 14 as you're still going to be working with at least 80% of the resolution at both ends.

Even less important for resolution is probably the 35 lens because the thing is, these lens (unless they're a super cheap knockoff) are super high quality stuff. Remember, they are made to shoot 35mm film (or digital stills as big as 10+ megapixels). That's HUGE resolution. Hence, I don't think it would have any difficulty with the DVX's rather paltry (in comparision) 720x480 resolution. That's tiny compared to what it usually works with. Hence, if it's purely sharpness we're looking at, shooting the lens at wide open maybe affect the sharpness a little bit, but I would guess it'd really be mostly unnoticable. Again though, there's still other benefits of shooting with a aperture less than wide open (better looking image, wider depth of field which you probably want in the majority of your shots, etc).

That's only my guess though. Does anyone else with more knowledge have another opinion?
 
It's very interesting to sit with your camera and 35mm lens pointed at some out of focus specular highlights. As you alter your DVX aperture, and the 35mm lens aperture, some very interesting differences in sharpness and bokeh rendering become very evident. With some adapters, you may be stuck at wide open apertures on the 35mm lens to hide GG grain.

It's a really good idea to play with each lens like this to find out what looks best. I found f8 on the camera works well with most of my lenses, but this will vary from camera models. A few hours of careful testing and observation will likely pay big dividends when you're "live".
 
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