wide angle lenses for dancing
 

I currently use a 12mmf2.0 olympus lens on my gh3 for the dancing part but I often find 12mm not wide enough, it would be like a 24mm full frame lens. Olympus now has the 8mm f1.8 for m4/3, it's not a cheap lens but from what I read seems to perform great and certainly would be wide and fast enough to shoot in a drak cave like venue but not sure how much it would distort near the edges and what effect that would have on people.

Anyone using this lens or a 16mm full frame equivalent? Is that not to close to fish-eye? During the dancing I am often in the middle of the dancefloor just to be close to the action and that 8mm seems like a great focal length to capture anything from upclose.

Re: wide angle lenses for dancing
 

I very often use Canon 14mm and 16-35mm on full frame for steadicam. It is close to fish eye -- you see strange distortion at edges -- though these lenses are supposed to be "rectilinear". But this has seldom bothered me. Your taste might well vary. But I guess, for me, it sort of adds to the craziness of dancing, if that's the mood you're going for. Plus, generally, it can be an eye-catching effect. Plus, just the wide field of view is so helpful anyway, particularly for dancing, and the weird thing, when watching back with brides, is that they like being able to see everything -- you might be looking at the couple dancing in the centre of frame, but the bride is scanning the faces of all the audience, looking at the lighting on the decorations, etc.

No idea about the particular lens you mention.

Don't know if it's helpful... had a quick look around my computer for dancing floor samples, but didn't come up with much. But, for what it's worth, here's some of my general pics at 14mm anyway... Note the distorted people towards sides of first and fourth pic, and distorted wine glasses in second -- anything towards the edge of frame is going to distort, particularly if it's close to you. In the third photo, of the table arrangement, notice how the upright metal water jugs seem to peel away from centre, presumably because I was shooting at a slight angle rather than straight down, but their angle of tilt does seem to be exaggerated. In the last photo, notice the strangely skinny church; not entirely sure why it looks skinny; it's partly to do with the lens somehow making it seem like the nine people at the front of the crowd are the width of the church (which maybe is the same kind of fisheye effect you see with the table arrangement); and I think it's also partly to do with the field of view being wider than the human eye (I might be very wrong, but I think the normal human field of view is probably somewhere around 21mm, with 35mm being the "active" area).

Re: wide angle lenses for dancing
 

I'd consider the 8mm a specialty lens like a macro, more for some very specific parts of the day, I have got a cheaper 9-18mm (18-36 full frame equiv) and eventhough it's a very sharp lens it's way to slow for dark venues. 900 euro is quite a lot of money for a lens you plan on using for the dancing part only though but it might be worth it. A bit more expensive but much more versatile is the OLympus 7-14 f2.8 but f2.8 is too slow for m4/3 when you are shooting in the dark.

Re: wide angle lenses for dancing
 

I've used the 14mm on a full frame or crop factor when I want the head-to-toe dancing - very handy when there is a circle with somebody in the middle... The slight distortion never bothered me.

I think next wedding dance, I'll put the GoPro (4K) on top of the 35mm full frame and see if I like that.

Re: wide angle lenses for dancing
 

The gopro is not sensitive enough to shoot in darker venues, it has plenty of detail but needs light.

Re: wide angle lenses for dancing
 

Hey Noa, is yours a Hero 4 Black?

I met a girl recently, new to video, whose sole business is using a single Hero 4 Black to do promo videos for nightclubs. She uses it inventively as well -- for instance, has made a little dolly using Lego for slider moves on tabletops.

Of course you're right -- a GoPro won't hold a candle to a full frame DSLR or an a7s or an f/1.2 lens or whatever, and it's also true that nightclubs aren't necessarily dark environments, as such, but rather contrasty environments -- bright lights, deep shadows. That said, I was a bit surprised at what her GoPro was able to achieve.

Re: wide angle lenses for dancing
 

yeah I got the black version, it's very noisy at it's highest iso but if you have enough time to run a neatvideo plugin you might get away with it if the dancefloor is enough lit.

Re: wide angle lenses for dancing
 

Noa

Olympus do a 9/18 which is reasonable quality and price, it is however F4 max aperture which may not be enough for you?

Re: wide angle lenses for dancing
 

I have got that lens and yes, it's way too slow :)

Re: wide angle lenses for dancing
 

A 7mm fixed prime lens at f/1.8 or f/2 might be the perfect solution for this problem... maybe Olympus or Panasonic will release a lens like that? I know the Full Frame counterparts have prime lenses at 14mm with fast apertures for full frame sensors at f/2.8. Maybe Olympus or Panasonic will really deliver with bringing out a lens that's even faster at the equivalent focal length?

They brought out the fastest fisheye lens, and little is known about the future of the 'Pro' series at the moment for Olympus, bar patents for f/1 prime lenses, but I think the widest of those is at 12mm. At least it would cover you in speed, even if it wouldn't get as wide as you would like it to be...

Here's the Olympus patent round up:

Maybe they won't go wider than that...

I don't imagine that it'll be long before someone uses the Olympus fisheye in a wedding film for us all to see!

Re: wide angle lenses for dancing
 

Olympus already has a 8mm f1.8!: Olympus M.Zuiko ED 8mm F1.8 Fisheye PRO Lens | Olympus In Europe it's 900 euro

Re: wide angle lenses for dancing
 

Yeah, but it's a fisheye! Would be great for Olympus to release a non-fisheye 7mm prime, such as is at the wide end of the 7-14mm Pro Zoom.

I still think the 8mm Fisheye would produce some great results for you, either way!!!

Re: wide angle lenses for dancing
 

I"m actually not sure if the 8mm would deform more then the 7-14mm when that would be set at 8mm, when I shoot at 9mm with the 9-18 from olympus it also doesn't deform that bad, could it not be that because of the cropfactor it would not look the same as a fisheye lens on a full frame camera?

Re: wide angle lenses for dancing
 

I read the lens has a 180 degree view. Is there a difference between a standard 8mm lens and a fish eyed 8mm lens. I've seen some wide angles described as fish eyed and others that have not. However maybe they left that detail out or maybe some lenses are shaped to get a more rounded view despite having the same focal length. It's always something that's confused me a little.

Re: wide angle lenses for dancing
 

A fisheye is different to a super wide angle lens.

7-14mm images at 7mm:

http://www.cameralabs.com/reviews/Ol...urst_745_2.jpg

Compared to 8mm fisheye:

http://cameralabs.com/reviews/Olympu...st-f22-745.jpg

The fisheye does have a 180 degree angle of view. The 7-14mm is aimed more towards the architecture based photographers. A fisheye is great for fun, but requires correction to straighten the edges. Possible in photos, but not so in videos (as far as I'm aware / wouldn't want to add that to my workflow - you'd have to like the fisheye look!).

The 9-18mm is a super wide angle lens - not a fisheye. I only know this stuff from researching it - and I'm sure others can chime in and help even more than I can. Personally, I don't think a fisheye is going to stop brides from loving the ability to see people on the edge of the frame, regardless of distortion.