Super Wide lenses for video

[Steve Crow]

There doesn’t seem to be much difference between 11 and 18mm – that’s not enough of a difference for me to pay for especially when you consider you can just take a step back and get much the same result.

If you want to keep things in focus aka “not blurry” then you can always shoot with something like an F8 or F11 aperture which will give you a pretty deep depth of field. I just used an online depth of field calculator at https://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html and found that if you are standing 10 feet away from the subject and film at F8 with an 18mm focal length than anything that is least 4-5 feet in front of you will be in focus. At F11 anything that is 3 feet away will be in focus so you’re golden!

I’d look into getting a monopod with the little tripod legs at the bottom (Manfrotto sells a nice one) as that will allow you to move with the action freely yet remain very stable.

[Michael Sacci]

NO image stab on that lens.

There is also a bit of distortion, but anything this wide is going to have some. So your footage will have a level of “weirdness” to it. Not sure I would want to watch a lot of this type of footage for an extended period of time.

Also if the shooter is close to the lens the stuff they are shooting at is going to look like it is a mile away.

[Mark Roberts]

Steve,

I do have a monopod already. I’ve just never shot any video handheld without Stabilization. When I used my 50mm lens it was on a tripod. Hmm, I guess I have an old 28-300 sigma lens that isn’t stabilized that I could do some testing with. I guess I’m mostly concerned about how much shake the stabilization eliminates.

I also wanted to get a 2.8 lens that’s nice and wide. I’ve had a number of different L lenses but nothing very wide. I really disliked my 70-200 F4L non IS. I used image plot the last 15000 shots I took, 80% were under 85mm and now with video, I’m finding wide just ain’t wide enough!

[Michael Sacci]

[Mark Roberts] “Hmm, I guess I have an old 28-300 sigma lens that isn’t stabilized that I could do some testing with”
Why not just turn off the stabilization of the lens you might use? That way you can do a run with it on and with it off, same scene, same lens setting, better test. Then test the unstable clips with SmoothCam or better yet Lock N Load.

For what I’m thinking you are trying to get is more like a steadicam shoot. Look into the Glidecam or other rigs. They take a lot of practice but for shoot like following a person they cannot be beat.

[Sohrab Sandhu]

Michael

I am thinking of getting a 17-55mm EF-S 2.8 for my T2i.I plan to use T2i with a glidecam. I mostly do wedding work.

Do you think this a wide enough lense to go on a glidecam?

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[Steve Crow]

You should definitely check out StillMotion a wedding video agency really known for cinematic DSLR work – here are my notes on their specific lens recommendations as explained in a video they made on the topic. You will see they mostly recommend the uses of primes expect for one zoom they really like:

StillMotion Lens Recommendations

For 7D on Steadicam

PRIME: Canon 14mm 2.8L II USM rectilinear – 3 foot hyperfocal distance

On Monopod

50mm

35mm – goes great with the 7D 35mm 1.4L USM

85mm 1.2L USM on the 7D shooting at 1.2 when you know exactly what the subject is going to be doing and movement is more constrained

135mm F2.0 L USM (they used a camera with a 1.3 crop factor when making this recommendation so the effective focal length is 175.5 – therefore for my T2i with a 1.7 crop factor I would want to be closer to a 103mm – for instance Canon has an EF 100mm F.2 USM that sells for about $430)

ONLY ZOOM RECOMMENDATION

70-200 F2.8L USM with the Canon 7D

StillMotionBlog.com

[Mark Roberts]

Why not just turn off the stabilization of the lens you might use?

Duh, LOL. Right, I forgot.

I have a steady cam rig I made up that works pretty good but I have to hold it away from my body. I saw something on the web and went into the machine shop and built something. In the daylight I can’t see the screen without the z-finder and that throws the balance way off anyway. I guess I need to experiment some this weekend and see what the difference is…if I can live without stabilization on the lens maybe that Tokina lens will work. It’s true that I can just step back some, but sometimes I like being right up close without such a narrow focus.

[Michael Sacci]

I thing for shooting people moving in a scene you wouldn’t want to go wider. But that is really up to you. If you are getting that lens try it out but that is a pretty wide lens for video. If you need wider than you look at your different options. If you keep the lens stopped down a bit, f5.6-8 you will get some serious depth of field.

While I have a couple of primes I shoot 95% of my stuff with zooms, 24-105 f4, not that I do any zoom but coming from a video camera background, I crop with my zoom. Taking 2 steps forward or backwards is not always an option. So I like the versatility of a zoom. If I would shoot more movie still things I would lean more towards primes (when I had complete control of the situation) but for event or documentaries I would almost always go with zooms. Unless I had to go wider than a f2.8. But once again this is what I like and the way I want to work.

[Michael Sacci]

and sometimes taking two steps backwards gets you off a cliff. 🙂

[Mark Roberts]

Has anyone here picked up any of those Zeiss lenses?

I see BH has a 35mm F2 for 1004 bucks. Distagon 35mm T* f/2 ZE Lens for Canon EF Mount Cameras. I’d rather have 18mm but for superb glass at F2 I could probably live with 35mm. Manual focus but no big deal.

I was also looking at that Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L but it’s almost $1420. It’d take me a while to get that much put together without the wife noticing. heh.