by Dan » Sat Jan 23, 2010 3:19 pm
Those lenses are great if you have a huge budget and want to take amazing photos but to be honest when shooting video on these cameras each frame is basically downscaled by a factor of 8, so your 16 megapixel image is turned into a 2 megapixel image for 1080p video
So.. nearly all lenses no matter how cheap they are will give you fantastic image results on these cameras as when you downscale a soft edge lens it becomes a hard edge anyway providing a really sharp image, if you are using the camera for photography then i would invest in the high end lenses.
What you really need to "focus" on is fast lenses, ie. lenses that have a really low aperture,These lenses let the most amount of light into the camera so are really good for achieving huge depth of field and can shoot in really low light situations, the lower the aperture the more light you can use and the more depth of field you can achieve, theses can start to get pricy too as most expensive lenses tend to have lower apertures but there are a few that have lower apertures anyway, like the very cheap 50mm 1.8 FIXED lens by canon which goes for about €120. but as the name suggests this is a fixed lens so no zooming in and out, in fact most fixed lenses tend to have the lowest apertures as they have less actual glass lenses built into the mechanism and are designed with only one sweet spot on the lens. but you must also remember the crop factor, a 50mm lens on a 7D is really like a 70mm lens, 1.6 crop factor, The 5d doesn't have this problem as it has a crop factor of 1.0
The kit lens 18-135 is a very good lens for the price and has a fairly low aperture (low means big hole but small number) for most everyday usage, for those really dark scenes and those sweet shots of high depth of field go and get yourself a 50mm (1.8 -€120, or 1.4 €400) or maybe a 30mm low aperture cheap lens, then go and get yourself a nice cheap zoom lens, Will tend to have higher aperutres but all zoom lenses do.
My current lens collection for video is thus
Kit lens 18-135mm - canon (€400) cheaper when bought with camera (would like a lower aperture)
50mm, 1.8 - canon (€120) (amazing value for money - incredible images,
70mm-300mm - sigma (€190) (this lens will very rarely be used, but is handy to have in your bag just in case you need a long lens. - good image quality but wouldn't be great for night shooting)
Would love a 10-20mm low ap lens aswell though. my next purchase methinks..
If you search for reviews for these lenses you will see that some may get a poor review here and there but you must keep in mind you are not a photographer but shooting for video and that makes a huge difference.
If you are loaded and want to spend a lot of money you can't go wrong by sticking with the Canon L series lenses all of them are amazing.
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