newbie lens question
 

so, I was looking at what kind of lens I should get, and well, I was wondering what should be the first one to get wide angle or telephoto... or both?

or should I invest the money into the sound production instead? Light kit is already in order... DIY one for now.

best regards,

Mark

Mark Cinense,

I advise you to buy accessories from here only: JVC Official Store - Purchase genuine JVC accessories and much more -

Do not buy chip accessories!

Kaushik

I don't know what kind of video work you intend to pursue, nor do I know which model of camera you own, so my response will be generic.

Why purchase an additional lens? Should you not discover the useful limits of your camera relative to your production process first? Once you have found the camera's limitations, look towards the appropriate lens accessory. In my opinion you shouldn't exceed a wide angle adapter greater than .7x as barrel distortion as well as chromatic aberrations become painfully apparent in all but the most expensive lenses ... which may well not be available with the filter ring size you require. The HD7, for example, uses a 46mm filter size. If you can find a lens adapter with this filter size, I'm certain the lens quality will be poor at best. Adding a step-up filter ring adapter, like 46mm-52mm, only moves the lens forward enough from where it should be placed to introduce more unwanted image artifacts. Similarly, a telephoto adapter shouldn't exceed 1.5x, as anything larger will degrade the image, unless you are prepared to spend a lot of money.

Investing in sound equipment would likely be the better direction to take. However, you should only invest in equipment that makes sense in regard to what you want to accomplish with your video projects. In many ways audio is much more difficult to record, so having the right gear is extremely important.

Please be so kind as to provide a more defined objective regarding your intended projects. The more those of us visiting this forum know of your production goals the better we will be able to offer our opinions for your consideration.

I have Wide & Tele lenses with me, I did purchase for my Fuji Digital Camera S9000 FinePix. These lenses give good result with Fuji, but then I tried to use those lenses in my HD7 and bought ring adapter, but then result was worst! What you said above it was exact! It is useless for me to use wide/ tale lenses for HD7!

But I am not sure if we buy lenses from JVC will work perfect! I really want to buy wide lens for HD7, but want to have feedback from someone who already using JVC original wide lens, I have with me two wide lenses and two tele lense both are same, and on the box they have written that this lens will work with Full HD camera, video or still camera! But I am afraid they are not suitable with HD7!

Is someone here really tried JVC original lenses with HD7?

Kaushik

I guess I am going to invest into a light kit first. Apparently my DR-1 might work with this HD7 camera.

I bought cheap wide angle lens and telephoto thing but they were less than useless.

I did however buy some filters which were good. A UV, a polariser, a soft focus and a macro. The Macro and polariser were totally brilliant, the soft focus useful in some instances and I never really used the UV because I couldn't fit the hood on when fitted.

I am selling my HD7 reluctantly with the lenses and extra batteries if anyone here is interested.

Also I have a TwoNeil 35mm static lens adapter for the HD7 which is also for sale.

email for details
wayne.avanson@zen.co.uk

This shows the quality of the HD7 picture without any filters or lenses

Soft Layeth the Land on Vimeo

and this I did with the TwoNeil adapter

A Little Corner of Autumn on Vimeo

Avey

Avey,

Hi! I am afraid why you want to sale out your HD7? You have great succes with it, you have created some nice videos, are you planning to buy HM100 or what? It seems HM100 would be perfact camera!

Kaushik

hi Kaushik,

Yes the HD7 does do great shots when you're careful with it, and set it up manually, but I'm looking for something sharper and with facility to have a shorter depth of field for when i do projects for clients and projects involving actors.

So I'm taking the plunge with the new Canon 5D MkII because I love the quality of shots I've seen done with it generally on Vimeo, and although it has its limitations, I think the sheer quality outweighs the limitations.
Another reason is that I have wanted to upgrade my DSLR (Canon 400D) for a while for client work again, and so the 5D MkII fits the bill nicely for that too. So that's for sale also.

It's a shame because i really like the HD7 but I can't keep both so it has to go, filters batteries, lens adapter and all.

Thanks for your comments on my Vimeo stuff too Kaushik!

But I am afaird Canon 5D MkII is dedicated still camera and Full HD movie is secondary option and it has some limitation, only 12 minuts recording!

Movie recording * • Available optionally during Live view mode
• 1920 x 1080 (16:9) up to 12 mins (Quicktime 1080p H.264; 38.6 Mbits/sec)
• 640 x 480 (4:3) up to 24 mins (Quicktime 480p H.264; 17.3 Mbits/sec)
• Max file size 4 GB
• Quicktime MOV format (H.264 video, PCM sound)
• 30 fps

I am going to download some images and HD movie from here: Canon EOS 5D Mark II: 21MP and HD movies: Digital Photography Review

And will tell you my reaction, there will be no doubt about this camera! And yes I have seen smaple still pictures they just stunning! Movie file is been in downloading prossese, I am eagarly to see them! And by this time I was able to download both clips and see them, they are stunning no doubt about it!

Kaushik

Hey kaushik,

The stills are incredible and I will use that for my job as a designer/photographer every week. But the quality of the video is stunning too from what I have seen on Vimeo. To my eye, it looks quite a lot like a lot of films I have seen made with a Sony EX1 with a Letus Extreme lens adapter on. That of course would coast about three times the price of the 5D MkII so I can't afford that.

12 minutes of video in one shot? why is that a problem? I never shoot more than a couple of minutes in one go anyway, and when editing, I throw most of that two minutes away and use the best few seconds. Whether it's nature videos, holiday videos or films with actors in.

The pictures to me, look less like video and a little bit more like film which I like a lot. It is the benefits of the full frame sensor that also gets very good low light capability.

The only problems are lack of control of aperture, shutter speed and ISO but there are workarounds for now.

rolling shutter doesn't seem to be much of a problem either from the 60 or more videos I've looked at.

I also like what I perceive to be more 'natural' looking colours than the HD7 which I always thought was a little too oversaturated.

So to me, the benefits outweigh the negatives and allow me to just have one camera to take on holiday instead of two! YAY!