what lens to buy for excellent video 'film like' result on Canon EOS 7D

[Wajahat Abbasi]

couple of days back i watched 'City of Lakes' and was very impressed by what DSLR can do for you, their great work motivated me to try my lucky trying to tell a story shoot completely on DSLR too.

I don't own a canon eos 7d right now but planing to buy one very soon, i have limited experience shooting (with Canon XL2 and XHA1s) shoot couple of projects for friends, i am new to D-SLR video. in next couple of months i am planing to shoot a short film with help of few friends.

i know this might be a very basic (and a very newbie) question to a lot of you pro's here ... what lens/lenses should i buy to achieve a excellent film look?. i have seen some great videos on youtube made with 7D and i am hoping to come as close as possible to a great film look, i don't have as such a budget for the film , i am just spending out of my own pocket so please keep that in mind while making suggestion.

film would be an hour long about some students and their relationships in school and outside . so ill have indoor/outdoor, day night all kind of shoots.

the look i would love to have for my film! .... excellent work! ( City of Lakes: A Hybrid Production in India at DVInfo.net)

[Liam Hall]

Try the search button. Everything you have asked has been answered a zillion times.

In the meantime, try these three affordable primes:

Canon 28mm f/1.8
Canon 50mm f/1.4
Canon 85mm f/1.8

And add a Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 and you're good to go.

[Wajahat Abbasi]

sorry i did try to search but didn't find any simple answer, most of the threads people talk about one specific lens and reading thru most of them i feel my self lost mostly so i thought ill ask....

thanks for the suggestions ill look into these

[Kin Lau]

If you like the "City of Lakes", they've mentioned that the EF 24/1.4L is the main lens used.

[Liam Hall]

The 24L is a fantastic lens, but you can buy all four of the lenses I suggested for the price of the 24L.

[Wajahat Abbasi]

EF 24/1.4L is $1500 ....would it be worth spending this much .. ??? compared to other lenses which are around $400

[Perrone Ford]

Originally Posted by Wajahat Abbasi

EF 24/1.4L is $1500 ....would it be worth spending this much .. ??? compared to other lenses which are around $400

"Worth" is something only you can determine. That 24/1.4L lens costs about 1/20 what a top quality Cinema lens costs. Are those lenses worth it? Who knows.

I can absolutely guarantee you, that if you make a great movie, no one is going to care if you used a $400 lens or a $1500 lens. And by the time you take it through post, the difference will be very, very small.

[Jeremy Pevar]

I'm a big fan of the Canon 24-105 f4 L Series zoom. Its a good all-around lens for the 7D, and worth the $1100 price tag.

[Philip Hinkle]

Keep in mind that good lenses help with that film look but good lighting will do even more to give the film look than lenses do. Using lighting properly in a scene to create shadows in the right places and light in the right places will create that film look. I've seen plenty of footage shot with A1 and other similar prosumer cameras that were amazing and you would never know they didn't have glass like a DSLR in video mode.

I have a 7D and I have gone the route of manual focus lenses. Those are old lenses from the film days that are available inexpensive and with a little digging you can find some great glass. You have to have inexpensive adaptors to make them fit and no auto functions work but in video mode they don't work anyway. I have a collection of 4 or 5 lenses for my normal wedding shooting. They all cost under $250 combined for all 4 lenses. The slowest in the group is a Vivitar 70-210 f3.5. All the others are 2.8 or faster so they work well in low light. You have to do lots of research to find the good ones but they are out there and reasonably easy to find. Lots of small film makers have been snatching them up over the past years because they work great and have a little different look than the digital glass. This site is a good source to start learning about them.

Canon EOS lens Adapters - Manual focus lenses on Canon EOS bodies

This site has some neat ways retro lenses are being used with digital.

The Retro Way: My Other Photography

Might be worth looking into if you are on a budget like I was. So far I love what I am getting from them.

[Laurence Janus]

Originally Posted by Liam Hall

In the meantime, try these three affordable primes:

Canon 28mm f/1.8
Canon 50mm f/1.4
Canon 85mm f/1.8

And add a Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 and you're good to go.

This is my exact shopping list!
The L's are nice but the money can be better spent elsewhere.

[Nate Haustein]

Originally Posted by Jeremy Pevar

I'm a big fan of the Canon 24-105 f4 L Series zoom. Its a good all-around lens for the 7D, and worth the $1100 price tag.

I second that. If you're shooting with enough light, the F4 aperture helps you not to 'overdo' the shallow depth part of it. The IS also helps tremendously in my opinion. You'll want a wide and a normal lens as well tho. My ideal setup would be:

11-16mm Tokina F2.8
24-105mm Canon F4
30mm Sigma F1.4

[James Donnelly]

With due respect to your opinions, more opinions.

Originally Posted by Jeremy Pevar

I'm a big fan of the Canon 24-105 f4 L Series zoom. Its a good all-around lens for the 7D, and worth the $1100 price tag.

If I already had one, I would use it. I think it's a great lens for stills. But if I was able to choose any lens in that price range for video, it would not be an f/4 lens. That is just too limited.

I personally think anyone with that budget buying a lens similar to that for video would be better of with the 24-70 L f/2.8. When shooting video, the fact that it lets in double the light outweighs the missing IS and shorter range.

Originally Posted by Nate Haustein

I second that. If you're shooting with enough light, the F4 aperture helps you not to 'overdo' the shallow depth part of it. The IS also helps tremendously in my opinion.

Again, to me it's could be a great outdoor run and gun lens, and the IS would help for that. But I cannot see why anyone using DSLR's thinks that a limited maximum aperture is a good thing. If you're happy with slower glass, you are throwing away one of the advantages of these cameras, and lets face it there are plenty of disadvantages.

[Perrone Ford]

Originally Posted by James Donnelly

Again, to me it's could be a great outdoor run and gun lens, and the IS would help for that. But I cannot see why anyone using DSLR's thinks that a limited maximum aperture is a good thing. If you're happy with slower glass, you are throwing away one of the advantages of these cameras, and lets face it there are plenty of disadvantages.

Meanwhile, people paying $20k-$30k for primes are trying to get T1.2 or T1.4 glass.

F4 precludes shooting indoors in anything but excellent light. It cuts Golden Hour to a few golden minutes. It becomes F8 as soon as you add a polarizer outdoors. Goodness help you if you also want to add a black pro-mist or something.

Frankly, I can't think of a piece of glass I want to own that's slower than F2.8. And no primes slower than F2.5.

Just my opinion of course, but I gave up on slow glass decades ago.

[Liam Hall]

FWIW I'm with James and Perrone in regards to slow glass, but to be fair the 24-105 f/4 is a very nice lens, though it is better suited to the 5D (as is the 24-70) . I shot a lot with it recently whilst on tour in Africa with Princes William and Harry. Had the 24-105m on the 5D and a 70-200 f/2.8 on the 7D and a couple of short primes in my pocket.

If I had to buy one zoom lens for the 7D it would be the Canon 17-55mm f/2.8.

[Brian David Melnyk]

i recently bought the Canon 35m F2.0 lens as i am often shooting in tighter spaces, so the 50m would not quite be wide enough... and i read a really good review of it. have not had the chance yet to use it on a project, but am wondering if anyone else is using this lense, and what their experience has been?