Wide angle reality check

[Barry_Green]

if you want ultra wide, stick with a 5d moire II.

LOL! Post of the decade. :thumbsup:

 

[Barry_Green]

I think it is rather humorous that over the last while everyone has been clamoring for telephoto shallow focus solutions for video cameras, and as soon as someone builds one, everyone starts complaining about lack of wide angle.

Hah! You are exactly correct!

Compared to what? Yes there are super wide lenses for full frame stills for shooting big group interiors, but guess what we are movie shooters and can move the frame to take in the shot.

Extremely wide on cinema cameras isn't all that common. Especially in a zoom. Look at cinema zooms, the LWZ 14-45 and the Angenieux 15-40 are about as wide as you get. And those are $50,000 lenses.

On 16mm, about as wide as you would normally get would be a 10mm or 12mm. Which translates into about 20mm-24mm on an AF100.

All of the standard zooms in m4/3 start at 14mm which is already wider than any video camera you've ever used.

Correct. That's wider than the EX1, it's wider than the HVX200, it's wider than the DVX100, it's even a hair wider than the HPX170, which has about the widest standard angle of any fixed-lens camcorder on the market.

Add the 7-14mm and it will blow your socks off.

Correct. The 7mm is mega-wide. I have an 8mm Peleng which is astonishingly wide, and it's super-barrel distortion. The 7mm Panasonic (the 7-14 lens) is nearly rectilinear, and even wider, than that 8mm Peleng!

Yes at f4 it is a bit slow, but consider the pains we have gone through to shoot hv20 with no gain, f2 at maybe 100asa, that would be f4 at 400, if the cam is clean at 800 - 1600 it is a non issue, if so turn a light on.

Yes f4 is slow. But you know what? At 7mm, you're getting a wider field of view than a 14mm lens on the 5D Mark II. And if you want a 14mm lens on the 5D Mark II, it's not going to be any faster than f/2.8, is it? So yeah, you'll have to go with 200 ISO on the AF100 instead of 100 ISO on the 5D, but you'll get the same sensitivity and a wider field of view.

And here's the kicker -- the extreme wide angle on the 5D is going to make it look its worst. Deep-focus shots look like crap on a DSLR, because that's where you get the most aliasing. Super-wide shots show off the DSLR's shortcomings. I am extremely confident that 7mm f/4 on the AF100, at 200 ISO, would look substantially superior to 14mm f/2.8 at 100 ISO on the 5D. Not a doubt in my mind. And I'm sure that 7mm f/4 at 3200 ISO on the AF100 would look better than 14mm f/2.8 at 1600 ISO on the 5D, too.

On my 16mm kit the widest lens I have is 10mm and I've never had trouble getting a shot, that should have a FOV similar to the 20mm pancake, which at f1.7 should be more that fast enough to cover the dance at a wedding reception.

Agreed. 16mm normally maxes out at about 10mm wide. That's all we've ever really used, folks. And it's enough.

I actually have an astonishingly wide 5.9mm on my 16mm camera. It's mega-super-wide, and fixed-focus -- everything is in focus pretty much from the lens surface to infinity, so they didn't even put a focus ring on it. And do you know how wide it is, in terms of the AF100? About 14mm. In Super16 it'd be equiv. to about 12mm on the AF100.

If You've ever read American Cinematographer Magazine, you'll see that most every shot in every movie you see is 25mm or longer. 18mm is typically the widest standard lens. The prime kits do go down to 12mm but lenses that wide are a speciality item. 10mm on a movie really stands out, there are only a handful of shots in Hollywood history that have used it, and if you saw it, you knew it.

This is all correct. Look at cinema prime lens sets, you'll see that 18mm is almost always the widest lens offered in a standard kit. There are specialty lenses that go wider, but look at what you rent -- 18, 21, 25, 28, 35, 50, 85. That's what we use. And 14mm on the 14-140 is wider on an AF100, than 18mm on a 35mm cinema camera.

And if you need wider than that, the 7-14 zoom provides it.

I really don't see the overblown situation of demanding wider lenses. For what? What are you going to shoot on your Red with? The Red Pro Primes go down to a maximum wide of 18mm. The 14mm on the AF100 is wider than 18mm on the Red.

Sure we'd all love to have even more options (and the 7-14 provides it) but -- these super-wide-angle lenses everyone seems to want are NOT the norm. They're a specialty item.

 

[Barry_Green]

Nice discussion.

So, the 20mm 1.7 would be consider a nice wide angle option, acording to film standards, in a m4/3 chip?

thanks.

It would be a very common focal length. It's wider than a 25mm lens on a 35mm cinema camera. It's moderately wide, but I wouldn't call it an actual wide angle.

The forthcoming 14mm f/2.5 is wider than some cinema lens sets can go. And it's substantially faster than the Zeiss Compact Prime's T3.6.

 

[Barry_Green]

I think a 20 would be fine as a kind of "medium-wide". As dop16mm said, though, for a true "wide" I would consider something around 15mm.

Exactly agreed. For a true wide, the 14mm f/2.5 looks like the lens to consider.

 

[Barry_Green]

Is there an adapter currently on the market that can control the aperture?

Yes, look for any "Nikon G" adapter for m4/3. Rainbowimaging makes one. They're cheap, but they're manual control, so ... for a budget they're available now. I don't know if it actually lets you set the f-stop you want, or if it just closes the iris down and you decide that the image looks good at that point? Haven't used one.

Does the Voigtlander VM Micro 4/3 Adapter let the camera body set the f-stop because I don't see an aperture ring on the lens.

No. I have one of those and it doesn't letyou control the iris.

Perhaps it would be smarter to wait and see how the Birger mount looks.

There's no rush, the AF100 is still two months away, so def. wait and see what Birger (or any other manufacturer!) does. But if worse comes to worst, yes, there's a solution on the market today that would let you use the Tokina (or any aperture-ring-less lens) on the AF100 right now.

 

[J Davis]

keep in mind that anyone who wants scope aspect 1:2.39 or 1:2.35 (and who isn't lucky enough to have as set of anamorphics) will be cropping in on 1080p.
This means you will need to go wider than you would expect. Shooting at 18mm means you would move to something like 15mm.

 

[Rolf Silber]

Exactly agreed. For a true wide, the 14mm f/2.5 looks like the lens to consider.

You can, of course, try to get yourself a 9.8 mm Tégeà Kinoptik lens. It has fixed focus from here to eternity and f stop 1.8 if I remember it right. And there is a version with PL mount.

Lots of shots in "Clockwork Orange" have been done with that lens. Definitely all the ones that made you feel dizzy.

 

[notharrylume]

I'm concerened that there might be focusing issues both with the Tokina 11-16 and the Olympus 11-22 (which otherwise seem like good candidates covering useful wide ranges).

The Tokina apparently accesses its manual focus by pulling the focus ring towards the camera body. Does it lock it this position? My concern is that if it doesn't lock into manual focus mode that when using a follow focus with the lens that the focus ring could slip out of manual focus and become disengaged. Anyone have experience with this?

The Olympus concern centers around the fact that manual focus on this lens is "by wire", and according to reviews quite imprecise and mushy. Any knowledge about this?

 

[Ryan Patrick O'Hara]

If You've ever read American Cinematographer Magazine, you'll see that most every shot in every movie you see is 25mm or longer. 18mm is typically the widest standard lens. The prime kits do go down to 12mm but lenses that wide are a speciality item. 10mm on a movie really stands out, there are only a handful of shots in Hollywood history that have used it, and if you saw it, you knew it.

Exactly right. 25mm or 18mm is really the standard ground floor.

Interesting fact, the Gilliam film Fear and Loathing shot by Pecorini used ultra-wide angle lenses to emphasize the drug induced Vegas binge Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro's characters experience. The extremely wide angle lenses offer an aesthetic to the film that stands out from standard cinema. To quote American Cinematographer article "Gonzo Filmmaking" from April 1998:

...For the balance of the film, however, Pecorini shot with Zeiss Standard Speed prime lenses. ...In terms of specific lens choices, Pecorini indulged Gilliam's preference for wide angles through-out the shoot. "I'd say that we shot 95 percent of the film with 10mm, 12mm or 14mm lenses; that was our primary range! Sometimes I would check the shot and say, 'This is 16mm,' and Terry would look at me and joke, 'Are you nuts? That's telephoto!' We were sometimes literally shooting with a 12mm lens three inches away from Johnny Depp's nose."
- Nicola Pecorini

If you've ever seen the film, these wide angle lenses do stick out almost every scene and add a 'strange' aesthetic to the story and visuals.

 

[Joe Lawry]

But if worse comes to worst, yes, there's a solution on the market today that would let you use the Tokina (or any aperture-ring-less lens) on the AF100 right now.

Ah, the Nikon mount Tokina or the Canon mount tokina? im guessing you mean nikon..

 

[Homunculus]

LMAO!!! 5d Moire II

 

[amosrafaeli]

Yes, look for any "Nikon G" adapter for m4/3. Rainbowimaging makes one. They're cheap, but they're manual control, so ... for a budget they're available now. I don't know if it actually lets you set the f-stop you want, or if it just closes the iris down and you decide that the image looks good at that point? Haven't used one.

I have a "Nikon G" from Rainbowimaging and it's OK. it controls the Iris with Mechanic ring, so you can open and close it on any Nikon fit lens but you can't see the actual F stop number.
but you can close and open Iris during a shot, because after short practice you can control it smoothly, unlike most on lens iris rings.

 

[dop16mm]

Wow I earned a sticky, cool, you guys made my day If only I could put down a pre-order to prove my theories come New Years. Alas feed the kids and house payments come first. If all goes well a project will be financed by summer and one will be coming home.

 

[Homunculus]

Wow I earned a sticky, cool, you guys made my day If only I could put down a pre-order to prove my theories come New Years. Alas feed the kids and house payments come first. If all goes well a project will be financed by summer and one will be coming home.

just put it on the credit card! come on be a man. real men have massive debt. rogar-BigGrin(DBG)

 

[Julienmassie]

I personally need wider than 20mm for

- Videoclip
- Documentary
- Verry small place run and gun, when you cant just frame everything you need whit a 35mm
- Special shot
- Inside cars
- Extreme sports

So i need to have this option right in my bag. Now i just dont know what to pick up.

- Panasonic Lumix G Vario 7-14mm f/4.0 ( dam its slow but dam its wide ! )

Since i want to shoot street shot at night in busy city street ( Spoiler, like in japan ) you think that whit the the correct AF100 iso set-up whit this f4 lens i can put something up ?

Because we can see how it perfrom in day in this philip bloom test http://vimeo.com/16129196
But what about night ? at f4 ....
Maybe the elevator at 0.26 ?

 

[TheReverend]

I personally need wider than 20mm for

- Videoclip
- Documentary
- Verry small place run and gun, when you cant just frame everything you need whit a 35mm
- Special shot
- Inside cars
- Extreme sports

So i need to have this option right in my bag. Now i just dont know what to pick up.

- Panasonic Lumix G Vario 7-14mm f/4.0 ( dam its slow but dam its wide ! )

Since i want to shoot street shot at night in busy city street ( Spoiler, like in japan ) you think that whit the the correct AF100 iso set-up whit this f4 lens i can put something up ?

Because we can see how it perfrom in day in this philip bloom test http://vimeo.com/16129196
But what about night ? at f4 ....
Maybe the elevator at 0.26 ?

$20 says using the 20mm will be wide enough for you.

But, that being said, a nikon adapter and the token 11-16mm f2.8 is just the ticket you want.

 

[Michael Olsen]

Honest question: do people not bother buying/using camera mounted lights anymore? Seems like if used properly - even held off camera by someone else - they could really make a difference...

 

[Julienmassie]

$20 says using the 20mm will be wide enough for you.

But, that being said, a nikon adapter and the token 11-16mm f2.8 is just the ticket you want.

And of course there is no x1,9 factor ? Like its not a 22-32mm on the AF100 ...

'' The Tokina AF 11-16mm f/2.8 AT-X Pro DX is currently offered for Canon and Nikon APS-C DSLRs only ''

Because its a APS-C ...

 

[TheReverend]

And of course there is no x1,9 factor ? Like its not a 22-32mm on the AF100 ...

Lol. Sorry that was the tokina 11-16mm. Stupid text correction.

Seriously though, the rest of this thread talks about how filmmakers don't really ever shoot wider than about 15-20mm, and that is assuming same size sensor as AF100. Basically if you are used to 35mm photo camera wide, you aren't gonna get that wide with this camera. But industry standard for film isn't that wide of FOV either, so it shouldn't be too much of a fuss. AF100 is basically identical size to film. This is a good thing!!!

 

[Julienmassie]

Yea but i have several client that LOVES WIDE ANGLES
Like i said before, im supposed to

- Shoot a music video this summer ( hip-hop ) and the performer ABSOLUTELY want to see himself rap downtown during night and in some club whit a pretty huge wide angle effect. And its a serious projet, the wide lens will easely pay itself right here.
- A snowboard film next winter ( i want the option to go pretty wide if i need it, and not look stupid like ... you know in my short film and corporative work i dont use this type of lens so now ... i dont have it sorry ... )
- Some people who talk in the car during a road trip ( i dont have big rig to set-up the car outside de car, its a doc, not a commercial ).

So thats my anwser the the main thread discussion.