Lenses

[kye]

4 hours ago, mercer said:

It’s been a long road but I’ve learned a lot about myself as a filmmaker and weirdly the joke I made earlier about a 50mm lens and a wide angle/telephoto adapter would almost suit me better than a collection of focal length lens sets... if I can get over my indecisive nature. Lol. 

I thing that learning about ourselves as filmmakers is the ultimate challenge, as no amount of fancy/big/small/lightweight/Hollywood equipment will make shooting an easier process if we don't know who we are, what we're shooting and why we're doing it in the first place.

I'm not sure about you, but a good amount of my indecision comes from my curiosity about all the new and shiny things that are around...  we have 70+ years of cinematic history to explore, and even if the vintage stuff doesn't peak our interest, we have manufacturers in a perpetual deathmatch trying to create new equipment that will give Hollywood results for pocket-change budgets, and there are many hidden gems to be explored.  
Of course, this curiosity for equipment is really curiosity to learn about ourselves, and the people who are top of their game will have their go-to setup that they've worked out suits their own methods and goals and are pushing forward on other creative pursuits rather than technical ones, but the battle for perfection in creativity is a journey with no end  

[kye]

Why aren't there a bunch of cheap ~80mm lenses around the place?

People talk about 50mm as the normal lens and the internet is drowning in them, even having fancy names like "nifty fifty", but 80mm is referred to as a classic portrait focal length so why aren't there nicknames for this focal length and bucket loads of vintage 85mm f1.8 lenses sitting on ebay ready to be plucked like ripened fruit?

It's not like zooms were that great back in the day and the quadrillion 135mm lenses around are too long to replace an 85mm as the default portrait length.

[thebrothersthre3]

8 minutes ago, kye said:

Why aren't there a bunch of cheap ~80mm lenses around the place?

People talk about 50mm as the normal lens and the internet is drowning in them, even having fancy names like "nifty fifty", but 80mm is referred to as a classic portrait focal length so why aren't there nicknames for this focal length and bucket loads of vintage 85mm f1.8 lenses sitting on ebay ready to be plucked like ripened fruit?

It's not like zooms were that great back in the day and the quadrillion 135mm lenses around are too long to replace an 85mm as the default portrait length.

maybe everyone is keeping their 85s 

[kye]

2 minutes ago, thebrothersthre3 said:

maybe everyone is keeping their 85s 

Yeah, or they didn't make as many of them perhaps.

The fact that the Yongnuo 85mm f1.8 is over three times the price of a Yongnuo 50mm f1.8 is a sign as well.  They'd have a very similar optical design I would think.

[thebrothersthre3]

2 minutes ago, kye said:

Yeah, or they didn't make as many of them perhaps.

The fact that the Yongnuo 85mm f1.8 is over three times the price of a Yongnuo 50mm f1.8 is a sign as well.  They'd have a very similar optical design I would think.

50s are even cheaper with more modern lenses it seems. But yeah not sure why exactly. I am guessing back in the film camera days most cameras came with a 50mm. More versatile than 85mm I feel like. Can sort of be used for wide shots as well as portraits. 

[webrunner5]

Speaking of cheap 50mm lenses.

 

[thephoenix]

funny that he doesn't have the most famous one, the 50 3.5, swirly bokeh and front aperture selection

[noone]

9 hours ago, kye said:

Why aren't there a bunch of cheap ~80mm lenses around the place?

People talk about 50mm as the normal lens and the internet is drowning in them, even having fancy names like "nifty fifty", but 80mm is referred to as a classic portrait focal length so why aren't there nicknames for this focal length and bucket loads of vintage 85mm f1.8 lenses sitting on ebay ready to be plucked like ripened fruit?

It's not like zooms were that great back in the day and the quadrillion 135mm lenses around are too long to replace an 85mm as the default portrait length.

Well a large percentage of people are using APSC and on those 50mm Is pretty close to 80 (75mm FF angle of view for most and 80mm for Canon 1.6).

I guess they just made a lot more 50s for a lot longer and it used to be people got a 28mm a 50mm and a 135mm with 85s becoming a thing after that.

I have just got a cheap little APSC Sony and my only AF remaining E mount lens Is the Sony Zeiss 55 1.8 which I am going to be using pretty much AS an 85 (well 82.5) and it will do better than many of the real 85s I had on FF (Sony 85 1.8 FE possibly excepted) and will be a hell of a lot easier to use than my old FD 85 1.2L  FF.

[leslie]

my tokina 28-70 arrived, upon inspection i have some specks show up when i zoom curious if they will show up in footage? . Still waiting for the lens mount to arrive so unable to test just yet. Another question has anyone in australia used a camera shop or repairer they could recommend. Pretty keen to get it cleaned professionally 

[kye]

37 minutes ago, leslie said:

my tokina 28-70 arrived, upon inspection i have some specks show up when i zoom curious if they will show up in footage? . Still waiting for the lens mount to arrive so unable to test just yet. Another question has anyone in australia used a camera shop or repairer they could recommend. Pretty keen to get it cleaned professionally 

Typically specs that are on the camera-end of the lens are more likely to show up in footage than those at the front end of the lens, but it will depend on the aperture.  At wide apertures you'll be throwing the specs out of focus more than at small apertures, like f22 for example.

[Zach Goodwin2]

Cropped Photo taken with OM 28-70 F/2.8 on Canon T2i. The Canadian Goose.

[kye]

2 hours ago, noone said:

Well a large percentage of people are using APSC and on those 50mm Is pretty close to 80 (75mm FF angle of view for most and 80mm for Canon 1.6).

I guess they just made a lot more 50s for a lot longer and it used to be people got a 28mm a 50mm and a 135mm with 85s becoming a thing after that.

I have just got a cheap little APSC Sony and my only AF remaining E mount lens Is the Sony Zeiss 55 1.8 which I am going to be using pretty much AS an 85 (well 82.5) and it will do better than many of the real 85s I had on FF (Sony 85 1.8 FE possibly excepted) and will be a hell of a lot easier to use than my old FD 85 1.2L  FF.

I suspect you're right.  The APSC factor, combined with that the 85mm might have been the fourth prime people bought, plus it wasn't the default lens with any camera..

Damn!!

I know that the Rokinon/Samyang 85/1.4 is probably the best price-performance out there but I just didn't want to spend that much for an occasional lens.

[webrunner5]

I think this video fits in with lenses. How others used DoF or the lack of it..

https://www.newsshooter.com/2019/07/27/citizen-kane-apocalypse-now-deconstructing-cinematography/

[thephoenix]

On 7/27/2019 at 2:23 AM, noone said:

Well a large percentage of people are using APSC and on those 50mm Is pretty close to 80 (75mm FF angle of view for most and 80mm for Canon 1.6).

I guess they just made a lot more 50s for a lot longer and it used to be people got a 28mm a 50mm and a 135mm with 85s becoming a thing after that.

I have just got a cheap little APSC Sony and my only AF remaining E mount lens Is the Sony Zeiss 55 1.8 which I am going to be using pretty much AS an 85 (well 82.5) and it will do better than many of the real 85s I had on FF (Sony 85 1.8 FE possibly excepted) and will be a hell of a lot easier to use than my old FD 85 1.2L  FF.

i have the canon 85 1.4 is lens and never ever use it with my xt3. actually i never used it i think, sold my 85 1.2 to get it, maybe it wasn't a smart move.

well i will test it some day but yes the long focals are not my favorites

[kye]

 

[Video Hummus]

Is there anyway to use flickr data to grab all images taken with zoom lenses between 16-200mm (16-35, 24-70, 70-200) and see the distribution of focal lengths of each zoom range pictures were taken at.

I bet they will be pretty close to 24mm, 35mm, 50mm, and 85mm for each of those ranges. And out of those prime lengths I bet 35mm and 50mm are the most popular.

I really find 16-50mm pleasing to the eye and this is also why I'm excited for the PL 10-25mm f1.7,

[webrunner5]

For video in this day and age 50mm is a tele lens. Long lenses for video unless you are a sports, animal shooter is sort of a waste of time. Now for Photos that is a whole different story. But yeah most people tend to shoot at 35mm for photos.

[Video Hummus]

4 minutes ago, webrunner5 said:

For video in this day and age 50mm is a tele lens. Long lenses for video unless you are a sports, animal shooter is sort of a waste of time. Now for Photos that is a whole different story.

I think 50mm is a pretty natural FOV of a human eye that is intensely focused on a subject. We tend to naturally ignore the periphery in those situations. 35mm is probably closest to a natural FOV. But it hard because images are flat 2D and we have 3D perception soo it's not exactly the same.

[webrunner5]

Problem is we can see almost 180 degrees and that would be a what a 8mm, 10mm Fisheye lens? And yeah we sort of see like 44mm, 46mm equivalent lens wise. They picked 50mm because it is the easiest, cheapest lens to manufacture.

[kye]

1 hour ago, Video Hummus said:

Is there anyway to use flickr data to grab all images taken with zoom lenses between 16-200mm (16-35, 24-70, 70-200) and see the distribution of focal lengths of each zoom range pictures were taken at.

I bet they will be pretty close to 24mm, 35mm, 50mm, and 85mm for each of those ranges. And out of those prime lengths I bet 35mm and 50mm are the most popular.

I really find 16-50mm pleasing to the eye and this is also why I'm excited for the PL 10-25mm f1.7,

Back when I was focusing on still images, I did some analysis of my ~50k image LR catalog and found a few interesting things:

• The majority of keepers were towards the middle of my 28-84mm equiv zoom range
• There were lots of shots at the widest end of my lens range 28mm and lots at the longest end 84mm

On the back of that I explored a wider focal length range and have discovered that when I travel I like 16mm for "wow" wides, 35mm for environmental portraits, and thirdly an ~80mm when you need a bit more reach, but that's used a lot less than the first two.  I only need a longer lens when I'm doing sports or wildlife, and am currently rocking a setup that is equivalent to 280-840mm and even that isn't long enough sometimes.

The conclusion I drew was that the 24-70 standard zoom is great for general use, and is absolutely the best choice in terms of being the default kit lens on most cameras.

Everyones shooting style will differ (of course) so my advice is to ignore what everyone else does (unless you're buying a lens for everyone else) and concentrate on what you shoot and how you shoot it.  

Over the years I have used the equipment I had, kept notes about what worked and what didn't, and only bought new equipment when I found an issue that impacted me in real life.  This is the best path to understanding yourself and getting the best equipment for the job.