Any three lenses...

[Josh Hayes]

I'm shooting a music video as a favor to a friend of mine coming up this week. I have a lens budget for the day (to rent) of $150. Right now I shoot on the stock 14-140 4.5 -5.6 lens, and the Canon 85mm 2.8

Since I'll have enough a budget to rent two or maybe three good lenses. What would you recommend?

Some basic info/constraints: I have a Nikon F Series adapter so any F series lenses are a possibility. I also have the Canon FD adapter (that's the 85mm I already have) but that's it. The other lenses don't have manual aperture controls on them, so not useful to me.

If you had $150 for the day, what would you rent for the shots (mostly outdoors in the woods, oceans, etc..) Some of the video is supposed to look weirdish or spookish, so I'm thinking Fisheye should prob be 1 of the 2 (or 3).

[Jay Bratcher]

I would be all over the Nikon 14-24 if it wasn't a G lens :/ Failing that, you can't go wrong with most primes - any modern Nikon, and even the Sigmas are top notch. If I was looking for a zoom lens on the wide end, I would check out the Tokina 11 - 16 f/2.8. I think this lens generally gets favorable reviews, but you can get better / faster primes... It looks like your tele lenses are covered - I would be focusing on fast wide lenses.

Fisheyes on the GH1 are kind of strange - I shot this short test video just to see how my cheap-o Vivitar 7mm looks on the GH1:

YouTube - Viviatr (Peleng) WA lens on GH1

I think it has a lot of potential, although it just doesn't feel the same as it does on my Nikon because of the crop factor. I have seen a Sigma 8mm for rent before, but have never tried one - I expect it would perform similarly on the GH1.

[Josh Hayes]

Hi Jay. I was wondering about how a Fisheye would look since the crop factor is so much, it probably kills the warping at the end of the lens (which I want in this case). Thanks for that link to the video. What I might do, is go to the rental house, and look through the available fisheyes and see if anything gets a warped image.

If not, I could always shoot the fisheye shot on my V1U (I've got a great fisheye for that), turn it black and white or something to hide the quality difference and make it a trippy feel like that.

[Josh Hayes]

Since it looks like this particular house doesn't have any Canon FD lenses, my choices are Nikon lenses (any except the G series as I understand it). Here's two screenshots of my specific choices available.

[John Wiley]

I'm guessing the rental house doesn't have the Panasonic 7-14mm?

Out of that list I would definitely get the 50mm f/1.4. Then maybe the 20-35 f/2.8D. This is assuming you'll be shooting indoors and in low light. You'll be covered from 20-85mm, or from 14mm if you have enough light to use the kit lens. Something super-wide would be nice but the only thing wider on the rental house' list is the 12-24 which doesn't have an aperture ring.

Good luck with your shoot! Since I got my GH1 i've been dying to try it out for a music video, but so far i've only used it for a promotional video and some surfing clips.

[Josh Hayes]

Hi John. That's a negative on the Panasonic 7-14. In face since it's a photo rental house, they don't even have the name Panasonic listed on the table of contents or index, ha ha. Apparently there was a never a DVX or HVX equivalent in the photo area.

I was thinking the 50mm 1.4 as well. The shoot is about 70% outdoor and 30 percent indoor. I can use the kit lens outdoors (it looks to be a sunny day at this point much to my chagrin {at least with respect to the style of the video}) to get relatively wide. I'd love to have something wider, but as was mentioned before, may never get the fisheye look I want here from the GH1. I'll prob just use my faithful V1U's 180 degree fisheye. Anybody found a good snowboard/skateboard style warped look for the GH1 yet?

Thanks for the wishes of luck. It's nice sometimes to have these kind of setups where you're just helping a friend, and basically just allowed to be as creative if you want to get. Less pay sure, but more freedom. Kind of fun. I'm like you, it's mostly been used for other stuff (in my case documentary interviews) but you really want the chance to test it and get something else going.

[Josh Hayes]

So at this point, I'm thinking:

Nikon 50mm 1.4
Nikon 20-35 f/2.8D
Nikon 300mm f 2.8

Only thing is, I feel like I'm going to want a really good Macro lens too, but I'm not sure which lens is appropriate.


What I already have:

-Panasonic 14-140mm 4.0 - 5.8 (stock lens)
-Canon FD 85 mm 2.8

[Peter Gjevre]

Actually, you can use Nikon G lenses with the correct adapter.

I use the Tokina 11-16 mm with my Gh1 with a Nikon G adapter----works great.


check on ebay for "Nikon G to Micro 4/3rds adapter"