Which type of lens would I need for this?

ironpony

Carbonite Member
Right now I am using the Canon T2i., but might get something in the future for bigger projects. I would like a lens that can hook on to any consumer priced HD camera, with some sort of adapter or converter of course. I want a lens that is in focus all the time for some of the shots I want to do, for some scripts. What type of lens and converter/adapter (I don't know what you call it, pardon my lack of terminology), to mount to whatever camera, as some lenses can. What are some good consumer priced lenses for that, if there is any?
 
Your best bet is to use as wide a lens as possible and close the iris down as much as possible. raise the ISO to compensate. That'll get you pretty good depth of field.
 
The wider you go, the deeper your DOF will be. At 11mm, you'll pretty much be in focus throughout the frame even at f/2.8. There are trade-offs, though, at such a wide angle... such as barrel distortion.

As for adaptability, you can get one lens and then use adapter rings to move to other HD cameras, such as going from your T2i to an AF100 or one of the other HD cams with interchangeable lenses. Those adapter rings are inexpensive. But you say you're looking at a "consumer-priced" HD camera, which means that you'll be working with a fixed (read: non-interchangeable) lens. At that point, to use a lens from a DSLR, you're in the realm of the 35mm adapter which also has quite a few trade-offs for what you get.
 
As said, a wide-angle is pretty much that. An 18 stopped down to about 5.6 will have a lot of depth of field and look very nice and if you go down to about 11 or 16 you will almost have complete focus. Look at Citizen Kane to see how that can be achieved.

You might also want to invest in a split diopter, it allows you have something very close and very far away, both in focus. But cheap they are not....
 
If you want to buy lenses that fit a variety of cameras (as long as they are interchangeable) through the use of adapters then you'll probably want to get hold of some manual primes as they'll be cheaper and easier to adapt. Zeiss CP.2 are nice as you can change the mounts (Go PL, F, EF...) but they are costly. So your best bet will probably be to scout out some older Nikon F-Mount manual primes and get an EF adapter for your T2i. But you'll probably always be stuck with a few EF lenses as modern technology allows them to have very wide focal lengths and still remain relatively fast. Also, autofocus is always nice for photography.
 
Okay thanks, but doesn't autofocus suck for cinematography cause the camera is always guessing on what to focus on, and therefore goes out of focus at the wrong times and wrong places?
 
Okay thanks, but doesn't autofocus suck for cinematography cause the camera is always guessing on what to focus on, and therefore goes out of focus at the wrong times and wrong places?

Yes, but most lenses that have autofocus have a switch that turns it off. Use it for stills, deactivate it for motion pictures.

The other thing to consider: light. The smaller the aperture, the deeper the focus. So if you can light for f/9 or f/11, you'll have quite a bit of the image in focus.
 
Okay thanks. I want lights that can light for that though, brighter ones. I have some bright halogens now, but could go brighter. How much will I need. Also I would like to get fluorescents that are bright enough for that. I know some people here discourage using them but I like the flourescent look, especially for office type scenes, I think it is very effective. So which lights can light for f/11? Also what is barrel distortion? I looked it up, but have no idea what some websites are talking about when describing it. Thanks.
 
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