Micah Mcdowell
Forum Replies Created
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There’s lots of information already on the COW about budget lenses, so feel free to search around the forums a bit.
For your budget, I would get the kit lens, and a Canon 50mm prime lens as well. Use the zoom for wide angles and situations where you need to change framing fast, and use the prime for low light or shallow depth-of-field shots. Keep in mind that you cannot do a smooth zoom with any variable-aperture lens such as the kit lens.
Or…
Keep an eye out for older manual-focus prime lenses that can be adapted to your Canon, such as old Nikon or Olympus glass. You can often get them very cheaply at secondhand stores or on eBay, and adaptors are very affordable as well. I use an old Fujinon 50mm f/1.4 screw-mount prime lens with an adaptor on my 550D most of the time. For a zoom, I’ve heard good things about the older Tokina AF 28-70mm f/2.6-2.8 AT-X Pro as well. You can probably find one on eBay for under $300 if you watch carefully… make sure it’s for Canon EOS and not an old FD lens. -
I’d agree, the 60D would be perfect. You’ve got a great collection of lenses; get the 60D body and you’ll be good to go.
Unless you’ve already got one, you may consider getting a good camera mounted shotgun mic for audio since you’ve got room in your budget. Something like the Rode VideoMic Pro, perhaps?
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Nice look you’ve got going there in your sample videos.
Just one note… you can’t focus to infinity (distant objects) with the FD lenses and your adapter, correct? They may work great for close-up/macro photography like your samples, but for most other purposes, you can’t utilize FD lenses on Canon EOS cameras. Keep that in mind before you get too heavily invested in them. -
Absolutely beautiful footage!
I’ve been thinking about picking one of those Tokinas for my Canon… how do you like it? Also, is it parfocal (when you zoom in and focus, does it appear to hold focus when zoomed back out)? I’ve found lots of conflicting information on the subject. I’m hoping it might be a good budget alternative to the Canon 24-70L, with a whole quarter-stop of extra aperture, no less.
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What frame rate/shutter speed did you shoot at?
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On one hand, I’m absolutely surprised that they can’t figure out how to make money from those little cameras, considering how many seem to have flown off the shelves. Flip has almost become a genericized trademark for “tiny, lousy video camera.”
On the other hand, I HATE the shaky footage with awful tin-can audio, usually with the camera held sideways so everything is recorded with a portrait aspect ratio (!). I won’t shed a tear if I never have to use b-roll shot by an amateur with a Flip ever again.
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I wonder how far back that offer goes? We bought in January.
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My problem is that the current CS5 has issues… it’s got several unresolvable bugs that make it unusable where I work, and there’s no way in the world that we’re going to pay for a minor upgrade to fix things that should just work in the first place. And they’re issues recognized as bugs by Adobe, no less.
I don’t need new functionality; what’s there just needs to work without crashes or goofy incompatibility issues.
NOT happy. -
Well, the file HAS to be either progressive or interlaced.. it can’t just be neither. I’m guessing that Mediainfo can’t identify the interlacing or lack thereof from the metadata of those file formats. Nothing to worry about, I’m sure. If you chose progressive in the Export dialogue, it’s still progressive.
Also, “lossy/lossless” doesn’t make sense.. it’s either one or the other. Photo Jpeg is lossy, while Animation can be lossless (with quality set to 100%) or lossy (at lower quality settings), which makes it quite handy.
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I think the usual policy is a 14-day grace period, but that’s generally for OSes, not pro apps. Some say that they’ve gotten the Apple Store to allow them to return/exchange the software for the newest, but that’s not guaranteed.
Of course, the new OS X Lion will probably be dirt cheap, but FCS upgrades get pricey real quickly.