Lens advice for shooting video

[stef@apl]

As far as zoom lens characteristics, you want it to be parfocal and not breathe. To test the first, zoom in on something and focus, then zoom out and shoot it. If it's in perfect focus, it's probably parfocal. The 24-105 is not.

As far as breathing, zoom in on a narrow object and compare the background to the wide view of the object. It should be the same. You should not see any more or less background around the object.

If you don't plan on zoom shots but just want the freedom to pick focal length, then neither of those things matter. However you might instead get a set of primes in that case. Wider apertures are still useful despite the painful dof. Image stabilization noise doesn't matter since you won't be using the mic on the camera for any serious video. IS does help hand-held shooting a lot. I use a tripod, but if you hand shoot then it makes a difference.

Also, get something with a WIDE focus ring or you'll have trouble attaching a rig.

If you're going to be doing this a lot, you really should go full frame. FF 5Dm2 pulls in a ton more light than the 7D. Also, the 60D is probably more useful for video if the 5d2 is out of budget.

[stef@apl]

One thing I forgot to add, is any zoom lens used for video should also be a consistent f-stop. If you zoom and go from f/4 to f/5.6, you're going to lose a stop while zooming... that's completely unacceptable for video!

Even if you only set the zoom at one focal length, you should *still* have a consistent fstop zoom because you will have to adjust the frame shutter speed. This can cause issues with blurring that will be seen... e.g. if you shoot at 1/80 @ f/3.5 and then zoom in at 1/30 @ f/5.6, you're going to have potential issues with blurring that you didn't have when zoomed out.

[playitlive]

Some of the best lenses for video are older Nikon metal manual focus primes. The focus ring tends to turn a lot more smoothly and also have longer throws. It can be very irritating to try to do a smooth rack focus with an AF lenses that was not specifically designed for MF use. With that said, I do own some AF lenses that also have smooth MF rings.

Of course you will also need an adapter for the Nikon F-mount lenses, but these older lenses will save you money over newer AF lenses to offset the cost. You may even find you enjoy using MF for your photography if you combine it with the live view option on the 7D.

Check out used MF lenses on Ebay, Amazon, Adorama, or BHphoto.

[macuser88]

If you are a Canon person, this might be a great lens to purchase:

Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L II IS USM lens

Check out some funny video footage with it here:
Slow motion video effects. Applications compared.

[richardpcrowe]

As I said in the above title, I am very well set up for still photography with several 1.6x cameras, including a 7D, along with: 12-24mm Tokina, 17-55mm f/2.8 IS, 70-200mm f/4L IS, 300mm f/4L IS and 400mm f/5.6L lenses...

However, that said, I prefer a camcorder for my video work. IMO, a good camcorder is far better suited for video than a morpohdite DSLR used as a pseudo video camera.

Yes, the DSLR will accept interchangeable lenses and will allow you narrow selective DOF but, that is where the advantages end.

I chose a Panasonic TM-900 as my primary video camera and I believe I can run rings around the 7D shooting video with this camera.

The Canon focusing in video sucks! You cannot use the eye level viewfinder and it is virtually impossible to accurately follow focus using the LCD monitor. In order to convert the 7D into a maginal video camera, you have to add many accessories which add to the weight and the price of the rig.

Sound recording is not great with the 7D and most of the zoom lenses designed for still photogaphy have such a short turning distance from wide to telephoto that it is virtually impossible to do a smooth zoom. I am a retired professional cinematographer and regard the 2010 era 7D camera as far inferior to the 1960's era 16mm Arriflex camera with 12-120mm Angenieux zoom. I don't "trombone" my zoom but there are times when a smooth zoom is quite creative. The motorized zoom of the TM900 can be operated at three sepeeds.

The TM900 has complete manual controls as well as an eye level electronic viewfinder through which you have total control of the camera parameters. The eye level viewfinder comes into its own when following action and when shooting in bright sun. BTW: the LCD viewfinder of the TM900 is, IMO, superior to the LCD of the 7D in contrast, acuity and brightness.

I am blown away by the quality of the video captured by my Panasonic TM700 as well as the versatility of the camera. It can do things that could not even be thought about by a 7D videographer. As far as lenses go, the Panasonic lens is made by Leica which puts it in pretty good company...

Watch these vdeos in full screen mode for the best idea of the TM900 quality...

Here is a TM900 test done by French videographer, Thierry Philippon. The opening shot of the cat climbing though the hole in the stone wall is quite impressive:

Panasonic HDC-SD900 / TM900 on Vimeo

Panasonic HDC-SD900 / TM900 on Vimeo

Catch the opening shot of this Utah video by Roger Sealey:

20110601 Utah and Moab Trip on Vimeo

20110601 Utah and Moab Trip on Vimeo

By the way, did I mention? The TM900 cost me only $719 (USD) with free shipping from B&H Photo in NYC (less than the price of a good lens alone) and it weighs a mere .87 lb. or 395 grams; or about two thirds the weight of the Canon 17-55mm f/2.8 lens alone...

[Dave_EP]

Originally Posted by Flimzy

So, I'd like to get a general-purpose zoom lens (something that covers at least the 20-70mm range, or so) to use for shooting video.

Canon 24-70L which is a nice constant f2.8. It's not cheap though.

Tamron 28-75 - much cheaper, fairly sharp and still a constant f2.8.

Originally Posted by Flimzy

My primary question is, how important is lens quality for videography? I know that "quality" can mean many different things, so let me break this question down a little bit more.

The lens quality is still very important. Cheap lenses get much less than satisfactory results. Since everything passes through this glass you don't want cheap cheap stuff.

Originally Posted by Flimzy

1. How important is sharpness? 1080p video is barely 2 megapixels, so it would stand to reason that an ultra-sharp lens is not really necessary to get sharp-looking video. Is this an accurate assumption?

No - that is not a reasonable assumption. Lower megapixels do not mean crappy lenses are OK - crappy lenses will still draw a crappy image on those 2 megapixels and you really need to be getting the best image you can.

Originally Posted by Flimzy

My approach for buying lenses for still photography has usually been to buy the best lens I can afford for the application I'm interested in. I'm wondering/hoping that it might be reasonable to buy a cheaper lens for video, and not feel like I'm sacrificing image quality, since the output resolution is so much lower than with stills. Is this just wishful thinking?

Whether you are disappointed or not depends largely on what you have to compare it to. Once you've shot with a fantastic lens, the crappy lens will forever annoy you.

Originally Posted by Flimzy

2. Obviously a large aperture is a bonus for video, since long exposures can't be used. But when shooting in low-light, again, it would stand to reason that I might be able to use a higher ISO to compensate for a slower lens, with less noticeable impact, since I'm recording at a much lower resolution than I would be for still photography. Is this also true? How fast of a lens do I need to be able to record in an average indoor lighting setting (no studio lighting), without a high ISO becoming noticeable?

Higher ISO is MORE noticeable on video than stills because of two things:

1) When you make a print or view at less than 100% much of the noise goes away from a hi-res image.
2) The noise is different from frame to frame so that it also becomes more noticeable to the eye. You can fix this to a large extent using plug-ins like Neat Video.

Originally Posted by Flimzy

3. Is image stabilization a pro or a con for hand-held video recording? I can imagine the sound of the motor might be a nuisance if picked up by the microphone. What impact does it have on the video itself?

If you intended putting your microphone on your camera - avoid IS - you will hear it. If you are recording off camera and syncing the sound in post then it's no problem and IS can help with hand held capture.

Originally Posted by Flimzy

4. I'm guessing a USM for auto focus probably won't matter a whole lot, since what I've read suggests that live auto-focus doesn't work very well in video mode. But even so, I suppose a USM AF would be a bonus, if/when it does work.

Forget live AF - it's not going to do what you need, so USM becomes less of an issue.

Originally Posted by Flimzy

Are there other factors I ought to consider when selecting a lens _specifically for video_?

High quality clean glass is just as important on video as it is on stills, in fact for many people it's more important. Lots of people are so fixated in the shallow DOF thinking that they are using only f1.4 glass, which in my experience is both awesome AND limiting! We recently sold many of our primes because we found that 95% of our shooting was with the 24-70L and 70-200 f2.8. f1.4 was actually too shallow much of the time!

[richardpcrowe]

I use the video on my 7D for identifying my still images. As an example, at a recent model shoot I filmed each model using the lowest resolution video to save space on my memory card and asked the model to state her name and her email address. I had that information on the same memory card as my still images and could not lose it like I frequently lost notebook information.