Wide and fast for low light
 

I am going to do some real estate videos shooting mostly indoors. I need the best combination for shooting wide, with minimum distortion in available light indoors. I would prefer to not add additional lighting.
First the lens.
The Lumix 7-14, f4 is the perfect range. It's distortion compensation does away with the majority of fish eye distortion but it is only f4. Would a full frame lens and a speed booster do a better job? If so which combination would be recommended?
Camera settings?
What would be the recommendations for the Photo Style? CNED? 4K I assume on a 1080 timeline. Format MOV, Highlights/Shadows at 0 & 0, i.dynamic and i.Resolution (off), Master Pedestal at 0, and Luminance Levels at 0-255. Shoot at the lowest iso the situation will allow and add a little sharpening, Neat noise reduction and color grading in post. The end result needn't win an Oscar just be quick and presentable.
I have seen some very good low light segments from the GH4 on the internet but try as I may I can't come up with an acceptable combination.
Thanks for you input.

Re: Wide and fast for low light
 

Olympus will be coming out soon with a "Olympus M.ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 7-14mm f/2.8 PRO" lens, not cheap but the widest and fastest zoomlens for m4/3, another option if you would get a prime is a Samyang 10mm f2.8 (in combination with a speedbooster?) or a olympus 12mm f2.0. Also bear in mind that in 4K the cropfactor is larger.

Re: Wide and fast for low light
 

Thanks Noa,
I think I will wait for the Olympus 7-14.
Any suggestions for camera setups? I have seen some great GH4 low light footage on the internet but never do they give their settings. I have tested to infintium with no acceptable results. Bought Reed's e-book, tried Miller's settings etc. and everything is noisy and of poor quality.

Life is good, challenging
Kent

Re: Wide and fast for low light
 

I agree with what Noa suggested, mainly because i have exactly that! The Samyang 10mm 2.8 with the Metabones speed booster. I went that way because it was way cheaper than the Panasonic 7-14, plus it was a faster lens, that when used with the speed booster becomes a way faster lens. There is virtually no barrel distortion at all which i am super happy with. While i haven't used the Panasonic 7-14, for indoor stuff, i would have to say if you can live without the zoom to 14mm, the Samyang is the way to go.
Bryce

Re: Wide and fast for low light
 

When you put the 10mm samyang on a speedbooster I think it becomes a 8mm? This is already very wide so you might want to get the 12mm f2.0 from Olympus as well which is also an excellent lens just to have a extra focal length to choose from.

I have shot below video with my gh4 and with below setting (only slight colourgrading in post)
cine-d profile with contrast -1, sharpness -5 and saturation -1 and I had the luminance level set to 16-255

Re: Wide and fast for low light
 

Noa;
Very well done promo. From what I see I need this lens with the SpeedBooster. Which mount do you prefer?
I will try those camera settings. Thanks for sharing.
Bryce, thank you for your input.

Re: Wide and fast for low light
 

That promo was shot with a 12-35 f2.8 and 2 shots (during that dark presentation) with a olympus 12 f2.0 and 75 f1.8 lens, all my lenses are m4/3 so don't have a separate mount.

Re: Wide and fast for low light
 

Your work always inspires me, Noa :)

Kent, one cheaper lens you can try that is still fairly wide is the recent Panasonic 15mm f/1.7. I would trade my 14mm f/2.5 for it in a heartbeat.

Re: Wide and fast for low light
 

Coming soon.... the Voigtlander 10mm f0.95. Wide and fast, though not AF, not cheap and not light. I guess you can't have it all ;)

Re: Wide and fast for low light
 

Thx :) If you plan to shoot 4K on the gh4 a 15mm lens is somewhat limiting in narrow spaces because of the extra cropfactor, that 10mm f0.95 though looks like a awesome lens, I personally prefer autofocus lenses, my 12mm f2.0 allows me to quickly autofocus and have it in focus everytime, if you would shoot at f0.95 focussing will become very tricky on that Olympus lens, especially because it's such a wide lens.

Re: Wide and fast for low light
 

Thanks for all the input. I need all the help I can get.

I appreciate your generosity

Kent

Re: Wide and fast for low light
 

I use a Tokina 11-16/f2.8 on a Nikon-mount Speedbooster, making it an effective 8-12/f2 rectilinear lens. It's worked well enough for my needs.

Another lens I've tried is the Sigma 10-20/f3.5 (boosted, 7-14/f2.5) which also worked well.

Naturally none of these are auto anything, but autofocus with ultrawides is silly anyway since they focus so deep, even wide open.

Re: Wide and fast for low light
 

That's not my experience and it depends on the size of the sensor your camera has, the closer the subject is to your camera with superwide lenses, the more critical focus becomes if you are shooting at f2.0

Re: Wide and fast for low light
 

I agree. You can get away with simple zone focusing for subjects that are not close, especially shooting at f8 in good light, but wide open such as f2 and certainly f0.95, you need to be pretty much spot on and zone focusing will only get you so far.

Re: Wide and fast for low light
 

I agree with Noa, even with my 14mm f/2.5 I still need to pay close attention to focus when I film people who are somewhat close to me.

By the way, does the crop factor increase on the GH4 when you film in 4k, or why do you say that the 15mm is not going to be wide enough?