Has anyone shot a short with more than one lens?

[Leo Mandy]

I would love to see the breakdown of a short film that utilizies a few different lenses and a 35 SLR adapter as well - something like a 50, 85 and 100mm or 28 lensesthrown in. I am in the market to expand my range of lenses and want to see some of work with these 'other' lenses.

[Kevin Red]

What purpose do the different lenses serve?

[Frank Ladner]

Hi Mandy!

I know exactly what you are talking about. I think maybe why we generally see the standard 50mm lens used is because of its speed. I have a couple of F1.8 lenses and others here use F1.4. These are well suited for 35mm adapters because you want as bright an image as possible to reduce grain appearance.

That said, I myself have played around with a couple of old telephoto lenses (Bell & Howell and Sears brand ), BUT they are around F3 and higher, so they are really only practical for outdoor / sunny-day use.

I just received my Letus35 Monday and am quite impressed with it. Since it is ground GLASS (as opposed to plastic or wax), it doesn't lose a lot of light. I am going to shoot some test footage for Quyen, and I will make a point to include some with the telephoto lens.

[Leo Mandy]

Thanks Frank, it would be great to see the differences! I am looking for the 85mm and the 100mm around ebay now to see what I can come up with (but it seems alot of people are doing the same!)

[A.J. Briones]

hi mandy. we are going to be shooting a music video in the next couple of weeks using the letus35 and the following lenses: 20mm (still being shipped to me), 28mm, 50mm, 28-105mm.

from our practice shoot, the 28-105mm zoom lens lost a lot of light compared to the 28mm and the 50mm, so we will be lighting the set, and will have to brighten it up to compensate depending on the lens we are using. the lighting guy is used to shooting film and this is the first time he will light for video, so he doesn't even know how he is going to set up his light meter (what asa setting?).

i've been looking at photography for reference in choosing lenses. GIS and flickr is a good source (just do a search for the focal length). that said, it would be nice to see video reference.

on a sidenote, has anyone here used a fisheye yet?

[Michael Maier]

Originally Posted by Frank Ladner

I am going to shoot some test footage for Quyen, and I will make a point to include some with the telephoto lens.

Is it a HD camera by any chance?

[Klosse Wistbacka]

Mandy,

I shot a short with the Redrock M2 with different lenses.
There's 20 mm, 35 mm, 50 mm and 100 mm in there ;)

http://www.wbe.fi/?aid=36&mid=8

[Daniel Rudd]

I've got a nikon 80-200mm zoom.

I've very carefully (holding on to it) tested a little. Haven't been able to do anything with the footage yet.

But my question is this? Anyone using the letus 35 with a heavy lens like this?

I'm afraid to let it rest on the adapter and the threads that hold it. It's a beast.

I'm trying to design a mount for it (like rails) but I don't know if I can be precise enough.

Daniel

[Michael Wisniewski]

Originally Posted by Kevin Red

What purpose do the different lenses serve?

Different lenses change the perspective in a shot, and thus change the spatial and apparent emotional relationship between objects and people in the shot.

50mm is considered to have the closest perspective to the human eye, and gives a very normal and realistic look. Distances between people seem normal. For example you'd use this if you were trying to get across that the scene was normal and pedestrian. An over the shoulder shot will give a perspective that seems "normal".

A wide angle lens (say 28mm or lower) makes everything look larger, bigger, and more exaggerated than in real life. Spaces and distances between people/objects look larger than normal. You might use this to make people look larger than life, or to exaggerate the relationship between two people or objects. In an over the shoulder shot, the person closest to the lens will look unnaturally large and imposing, and the distance between the two will look larger than normal.

A telephoto lens (say 200mm) compresses the apparent space between objects/people, they will seem to be closer than normal. You might use a telephoto if you want to show intimacy between people. It's also good for isolating people in a busy/crowded area where the back and foreground are moving. In an over the shoulder shot, the two people will be more similar in terms of stature, and the distance between them will seem closer than normal.

I also did a little experiment with some actors, based on the theory that different facial features would be "look" better for one or another set of lenses (totally un-scientific of course). The results seemed to show that actors with rounder chubby faces preferred the pictures I took with the telephoto lenses, while the actors with sharper features preferred the shots taken with a wide angle lens.

On the other hand, no one really appreciated the close ups I did using the wide angle lens.

[Sean McHenry]

I used to be in broadcast, for a long long time - in fact, too long, and one of the odd things was they would give semi wide lenses to the photog's who would invariably get 12" from the subject of an on the spot interview in the widest angle possible. Lots of un-naturally rounded faces there.

The feeling is sometimes that if they get closer it will feel closer. Distortion of an overly wide image is unsetteling at best when interviewing people.

Sean

[Dennis Wood]

Daniel, use rails...they're not hard to make.

[Bill Porter]

Originally Posted by A.J. Briones

on a sidenote, has anyone here used a fisheye yet?

Yes. You have to make sure the lens can give you a bright enough image, and that you can run it as wide open as possible while still maintaining focus. Not all fisheyes have this problem. If you do encounter it, I guess you could get around it if you can add lots of light.

[David MD Smith]

Hi Daniel,

There is an cheap alternative to building your own rails in the shape of
a Manfrotto 293 lens support for long telephotos.

[Steev Dinkins]

Example of 4 different focal length Nikon primes.

http://www.holyzoo.com/content/mpic/...ideo_Test7.mov

[Ben Winter]

Those lenses breathe so much, I'm almost out of breath myself.

But we've already been over that ;)

Thanks for the demo Steev, that was really helpful for me as well.