Which lenses to rent for short movie?

mikewest13

Well-known member
Hi guys,

I'm shooting a short movie at the end of the month, and need help with selecting the right lenses to rent. We're shooting at an abandoned location, so lighting will mostly be available, with bounce boards and some bright flash/flood lights for rim or hair lighting.

which lenses would you suggest we use?

I am thinking of either 4 primes:

EF24mm f1.4 L USM lens
EF35mm f1.4 L USM lens
EF50mm f1.2 L USM lens
EF85mm f1.2 L USM lens

Or two zooms for faster shot setups:

EF16-35/2.8L II USM Lens
EF24-105/4 L IS USM Lens or (EF24-70/2.8 L USM Lens )

Any help would be greatly appreciated... thanks
 
Yeah, the focus is a little more critical with the primes. But you can also stop down a bit for some latitude. Just make sure you have a kick ass monitor, it really goes a long way with primes. Also, you can stick to the wider lenses as much as possible, but I suppose it all comes down to aethstetics. I sometimes tell people to plan on making small buzzes in the focus work in your favor, especially if you expect focus to be a problem
 
It also depends on available light. If your shooting in a bright area those faster lenses can be a challenge. If you have to stop it down to something more than f.6 or so you loose a lot of the shallow DOF and defeat the benefit for renting faster lenses.

If that's the case make sure you have some good ND filters.
 
Hey Mike,

Don't have too much time to post in your thread but figured I could give you a quick tutorial over the phone or something since we live in the same city.

Shoot me a PM if you're interested.

Best of luck,

Kegan
 
are they harder to focus with.... or just step back a bit further to not have as shallow a DOF?

Since I don't have a monitor, I get around it by using the magnify button. You can zoom into the image 5x and 10x to get really sharp focus before you start shooting.
 
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