[Steve Crow]

Update:

Canon fixed my lens under warranty, I only had to pay for return shipping which Canon doesn’t cover – it came to $17

[Steve Crow]

First of all the sensors in the 5DM2 are so hugely better than your camera that you are already going to be seeing MUCH better video.

I have the 50mm 1.4 and for training videos (or most any other kind of video for that matter) this lens is going to be excellent, there is no need to spend the extra money.

I love it for shallow depth of field shots but that might not even be a huge concern of yours. Set it at F8 or F11 and film away.

If you are on the fence I suggest renting both of them or buying the 1.4 and renting the L glass for the duration of the project, it will probably cost less than $200 for a week’s rental (an estimate) Heck you could rent the camera with the lenses too and see how you like the combo, in fact that’s what I suggest you do now that I think about it.

I use BorrowLenses.com but there are other rental houses out there besides them too.

Now I did have my focus ring break suddenly on the 1.4 but don’t let the scare you. The chances of that happening to you are very low unless you drop the lens a couple of times. (I treated my lens carefully but there are always going to be one or two lemon copies of a lens out there in the market place when Canon is manufacturing them by the thousands) Canon fixed my lens for the cost of shipping.

[Steve Crow]

Yes, I believe it goes from 2 to 8 fstops of ND so it’s really cool

[Steve Crow]

Someone did a test on Vimeo:

https://vimeo.com/5536709

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[Steve Crow]

I use the Fader ND and find it very smooth however I don’t typically continue filming while adjusting the amount of ND, I first find the amount of ND I want to apply and only then do I begin filming. Why not rent one and try it out yourself?

[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

[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.

[Steve Crow]

Yes, traffic from America is not allowed to watch the video in order to be fair to British tax payers – at least that’s the theory as I understand it.

My only thought is that I’d much rather create this effect in software than “bake it in” into the camera footage. That way you can revise and control the effect.

[Steve Crow]

When you say “Torch” I assume you mean what we here in the United States would call a flashlight, yes?

Sorry I don’t know the answer to your question but I wanted to clarify the issue for other readers who may not understand British colloquialisms.

For us a “torch” is lit piece of wood or something similar that you hold in your hand in order to navigate through a cave or jungle

[Steve Crow]

No offense taken Richard. The Canon repair center was certainly familiar with this issue which has been talked about on several different camera forums. However, to your point, 99% of the lenses are probably perfectly fine but when you are manufacturing thousands upon thousands of these lenses even a very small percentage of bad copies still mean several hundred people are going to experience the issue but that is balanced by the tens of thousands that will find the lenses a workhorse.

I certainly never meant to imply that all of them are no good.