Tony Davies-Patrick
January 13th, 2011, 10:46 AM
It has taken a long time for me to move from carrying seperate camcorder & stills camera systems on my expeditions around the world (mainly Canon XL2/XL-H1 & Nikon SLR systems).
I've now travelled to more than 65-different countries and have always hated the need to carry so much equipment with me, especially with the added problems with baggage limits on flights, and the need to walk with all this gear sometimes into remote locations.
For years I've managed to use my prized Nikkor telephotos such as the 300mm ED-IF & 600mm ED-IF for dual purposes bayoneted on the the Nikon body for stills, or via an adapter matched to the Canon XL camcorders. But this didn't take away the fact that I still needed to carry both systems.
When I first bought the Canon 5D Mark II I began to use it not only for stills but also for video, although this was mainly just for steadicam work or inside an underwater housing for underwater video. I also carried an extra bag filled with a Nikonos AF RS SLR system and special UW lenses for underwater stills.
The majority of photographers using the 5D Mk2 for video seem to be completely absorbed in using very fast lenses almost solely at their maximum apertures. Even though I have owned many of the fastest lenses from Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Contax-Zeiss, Leica etc., I rarely used them wide open at f/1.2 or f/1.4 but almost always in the f/5.6-f/11 range. Yes, I would sometimes need to open up wide for a special shot, or close down to f/32 for a certain macro or landscape, but generally I would stick to the mid-apertures for most of my professional work. The main reason for liking the fast lenses was that they offered a very bright viewfinder.
During 2010 I began working more and more with the 5D Mk2 and less with the camcorders, until finally I moved completely to the 5D Mk2 system and stopped using the camcorders. The biggest problem with using a DSLR for video, apart from the need for extra stabilizers, is the lack of any 'all-in-one' wide-range zoom lenses with an inbuilt motor.
Apart from extreme telephoto work when I used the 300mm or 600mm with Canon XL camcorders (X7-X8 extra magnification with adapter) I did all my filming with just two lenses, the Canon 20X & 6X HD autofocus zooms. Being able to film fast-changing action without swapping lenses, such as when I needed to continue recording between a tightly framed telephoto subject and then zoom wide to take in the whole scene, was a major plus point for the camcorders.
How the heck could I do the same with a Canon 5D Mk2? The only two options I could think of that had professional build and image quality were the Canon EF 35-350mm f/3.5-f5.6 L and the Canon EF 28-300mm L IS zoom lenses.
I normally prefer to turn off the IS when I'm filming with the 5D, so the extra mm at the long end plus cheaper price meant that the 35-350mm would be the best option. It would also slot in nicely beside my Canon 17-35mm f/2.8 L lens to provide a decent range from 17mm-350mm in two lenses.
I must stress here that during my 30+ years as a professional photojournalist I have always given the wide-ranging all-in-one zoom lenses a very wide berth. They just didn't match the build quality and biting-edge performance of the fixed primes or short-range zooms. Despite these apprehensions, I felt that there were too many filming situations where I just didn't have time to change lenses during a vitally important wide-telephoto range shoot...so I bit the bullet and bought a 35-350mm lens to give it a try-out.
I must say that I'm quite surprised at the results. Not only was video footage filmed using the Canon 35-350mm L lens very good, with beautiful colours and sharp at all focal lengths, but is was surprisingly good for stills as well and easily sharp enough to use images captured with this lens for publication in magazines and books. The lens also has a decent minimum focus when set at 125mm, so also doubles up as a good lens for medium sized macro subjects. It is also an extremely robust lens with solid metal barrel – far better built than the cheaper options from Sigma/Tokina/Tamron.
I film and photograph a lot of varied landscapes in remote areas of the world, so it is vital that I use very good lenses to capture extreme detail across the frame. When stopped down to f/8-f/11 range for landscapes, the Canon 17-35mm f/2.8 L set at 17mm is extremely sharp in the centre of frame and right out to the four power-points, and only begins to show softer at the extreme corners. When set at around 25mm, the sharpness improves into the corners.
The 35-350mm set at 35mm and f/5.6-f22 range surprisingly turns in a very good sharp performance across the frame, and easily good enough for landscape video work and still images published double-page spread in magazines. The only negative aspect of the 35-350mm is the colour fringing at the corner of frame, although this is only really noticeable in very large prints.
So, happy enough with the 35-350mm for video, I needed to also look for another option for a different lens to be used mainly for landscape stills work (and some video) that would provide me with biting sharpness right into the corner of the frame, with superb micro-detail from foreground to background and no colour fringing at extreme corners.
Some of my best ever landscape photographs have been taken with Nikon, Pentax, and Canon lenses, and of these three, the Pentax professional-grade lenses always seem to me to provide the edge.
So I turned to Pentax for a landscape lens to fit to the Canon. The Pentax 35mm SLR M & A range of manual lenses are sharp, but do have a major problem in that they often need to be adapted to fit the Canon EOS mount, even when a Pentax-EOS adapter is used.
The Pentax 645 and 6X7 Medium format lens range includes some of the finest optics in the world. The best in the 645 range is the 35mm wide lens and the 50-100mm. However, the Pentax 6X7 and 67 lenses can easily fit the 645D with an adapter and so it is a useful option to own 67 lenses because they can easily fit the Pentax 67II, Pentax 645D and canon 5D Mark II. The professional range of Pentax 67 lenses is world renowned, and matched to the smaller sensor of the Canon 5D the frame is inside the 'sweet' central section of the glass.
I had read some conflicting advice on the internet that medium format lenses were not as sharp as 35mm SLR/DSLR lenses and so not useful when mounted on the smaller format bodies; but this seemed to stem only from people who had never actually tried the combination. Almost all the professionals who used the Pentax 67 and 645 lenses on the Canon DSLR cameras told a of a completely different story and provided evidence that the lenses were extremely sharp right across the range and in fact even bettered the results with Canon L lenses.
Well, I must admit that I have to agree with them that a Pentax 67 or 645 lens matched to the Canon 5D Mark II produces still images of superb quality, with great colour and biting sharpness right to the very corners of the frame – better than any Canon L lens I've so far tried.
The main Pentax 67 MF lens that I'm using at the moment with the Canon 5D Mark II is the widest optic in the range, namely the Pentax 67 45mm 1:4 ultra-wide lens (around 21mm on MF format). This lens is very light at only 486gm and so balances nicely on the 5D. It is built to a very high standard and the manual focus ring is as smooth as butter, so not only is it a top-grade performer to take stills images, it also is a dream to use for video as well.
I've now travelled to more than 65-different countries and have always hated the need to carry so much equipment with me, especially with the added problems with baggage limits on flights, and the need to walk with all this gear sometimes into remote locations.
For years I've managed to use my prized Nikkor telephotos such as the 300mm ED-IF & 600mm ED-IF for dual purposes bayoneted on the the Nikon body for stills, or via an adapter matched to the Canon XL camcorders. But this didn't take away the fact that I still needed to carry both systems.
When I first bought the Canon 5D Mark II I began to use it not only for stills but also for video, although this was mainly just for steadicam work or inside an underwater housing for underwater video. I also carried an extra bag filled with a Nikonos AF RS SLR system and special UW lenses for underwater stills.
The majority of photographers using the 5D Mk2 for video seem to be completely absorbed in using very fast lenses almost solely at their maximum apertures. Even though I have owned many of the fastest lenses from Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Contax-Zeiss, Leica etc., I rarely used them wide open at f/1.2 or f/1.4 but almost always in the f/5.6-f/11 range. Yes, I would sometimes need to open up wide for a special shot, or close down to f/32 for a certain macro or landscape, but generally I would stick to the mid-apertures for most of my professional work. The main reason for liking the fast lenses was that they offered a very bright viewfinder.
During 2010 I began working more and more with the 5D Mk2 and less with the camcorders, until finally I moved completely to the 5D Mk2 system and stopped using the camcorders. The biggest problem with using a DSLR for video, apart from the need for extra stabilizers, is the lack of any 'all-in-one' wide-range zoom lenses with an inbuilt motor.
Apart from extreme telephoto work when I used the 300mm or 600mm with Canon XL camcorders (X7-X8 extra magnification with adapter) I did all my filming with just two lenses, the Canon 20X & 6X HD autofocus zooms. Being able to film fast-changing action without swapping lenses, such as when I needed to continue recording between a tightly framed telephoto subject and then zoom wide to take in the whole scene, was a major plus point for the camcorders.
How the heck could I do the same with a Canon 5D Mk2? The only two options I could think of that had professional build and image quality were the Canon EF 35-350mm f/3.5-f5.6 L and the Canon EF 28-300mm L IS zoom lenses.
I normally prefer to turn off the IS when I'm filming with the 5D, so the extra mm at the long end plus cheaper price meant that the 35-350mm would be the best option. It would also slot in nicely beside my Canon 17-35mm f/2.8 L lens to provide a decent range from 17mm-350mm in two lenses.
I must stress here that during my 30+ years as a professional photojournalist I have always given the wide-ranging all-in-one zoom lenses a very wide berth. They just didn't match the build quality and biting-edge performance of the fixed primes or short-range zooms. Despite these apprehensions, I felt that there were too many filming situations where I just didn't have time to change lenses during a vitally important wide-telephoto range shoot...so I bit the bullet and bought a 35-350mm lens to give it a try-out.
I must say that I'm quite surprised at the results. Not only was video footage filmed using the Canon 35-350mm L lens very good, with beautiful colours and sharp at all focal lengths, but is was surprisingly good for stills as well and easily sharp enough to use images captured with this lens for publication in magazines and books. The lens also has a decent minimum focus when set at 125mm, so also doubles up as a good lens for medium sized macro subjects. It is also an extremely robust lens with solid metal barrel – far better built than the cheaper options from Sigma/Tokina/Tamron.
I film and photograph a lot of varied landscapes in remote areas of the world, so it is vital that I use very good lenses to capture extreme detail across the frame. When stopped down to f/8-f/11 range for landscapes, the Canon 17-35mm f/2.8 L set at 17mm is extremely sharp in the centre of frame and right out to the four power-points, and only begins to show softer at the extreme corners. When set at around 25mm, the sharpness improves into the corners.
The 35-350mm set at 35mm and f/5.6-f22 range surprisingly turns in a very good sharp performance across the frame, and easily good enough for landscape video work and still images published double-page spread in magazines. The only negative aspect of the 35-350mm is the colour fringing at the corner of frame, although this is only really noticeable in very large prints.
So, happy enough with the 35-350mm for video, I needed to also look for another option for a different lens to be used mainly for landscape stills work (and some video) that would provide me with biting sharpness right into the corner of the frame, with superb micro-detail from foreground to background and no colour fringing at extreme corners.
Some of my best ever landscape photographs have been taken with Nikon, Pentax, and Canon lenses, and of these three, the Pentax professional-grade lenses always seem to me to provide the edge.
So I turned to Pentax for a landscape lens to fit to the Canon. The Pentax 35mm SLR M & A range of manual lenses are sharp, but do have a major problem in that they often need to be adapted to fit the Canon EOS mount, even when a Pentax-EOS adapter is used.
The Pentax 645 and 6X7 Medium format lens range includes some of the finest optics in the world. The best in the 645 range is the 35mm wide lens and the 50-100mm. However, the Pentax 6X7 and 67 lenses can easily fit the 645D with an adapter and so it is a useful option to own 67 lenses because they can easily fit the Pentax 67II, Pentax 645D and canon 5D Mark II. The professional range of Pentax 67 lenses is world renowned, and matched to the smaller sensor of the Canon 5D the frame is inside the 'sweet' central section of the glass.
I had read some conflicting advice on the internet that medium format lenses were not as sharp as 35mm SLR/DSLR lenses and so not useful when mounted on the smaller format bodies; but this seemed to stem only from people who had never actually tried the combination. Almost all the professionals who used the Pentax 67 and 645 lenses on the Canon DSLR cameras told a of a completely different story and provided evidence that the lenses were extremely sharp right across the range and in fact even bettered the results with Canon L lenses.
Well, I must admit that I have to agree with them that a Pentax 67 or 645 lens matched to the Canon 5D Mark II produces still images of superb quality, with great colour and biting sharpness right to the very corners of the frame – better than any Canon L lens I've so far tried.
The main Pentax 67 MF lens that I'm using at the moment with the Canon 5D Mark II is the widest optic in the range, namely the Pentax 67 45mm 1:4 ultra-wide lens (around 21mm on MF format). This lens is very light at only 486gm and so balances nicely on the 5D. It is built to a very high standard and the manual focus ring is as smooth as butter, so not only is it a top-grade performer to take stills images, it also is a dream to use for video as well.