I've been getting more into video as of recently and am looking at some new lenses. Currently have my 15-85 up for sale and looking to replace it with a combo of third party lenses or picking up an L prime and buying a kit lens to cover my wide angle for family trips/vacations. Just wanted opinions from those who are more experienced with video if the manual focus lenses are much better for video than the autofocusing canons as far as focus throw and manual apertures are concerned. Would I be better off using an L prime for video and retain AF for stills? Obviously it would eat up more of my budget. I'm really leaning towards option 1 or 2 but have heard many good things about 3 and 4 also. I'm shooting crop sensor btw.
I find the AF on the 50L to be well dampened and fairly linear. From the videos I have taken I find it beneficial to prefocus the shot and shoot that clip (especially on wide aperture shots). I'm currently looking at different versions of focus stops (some kind of focus puller unit) that would allow me to make a precise (pre adjusted) focus pull between two subjects during the clip. It is fairly easy to adjust aperture while shooting on the newer cameras so I would not want this to be manual for my uses but it is really a non issue if your looking to save money.
RogerC11 wrote:
I've been getting more into video as of recently and am looking at some new lenses. Currently have my 15-85 up for sale and looking to replace it with a combo of third party lenses or picking up an L prime and buying a kit lens to cover my wide angle for family trips/vacations. Just wanted opinions from those who are more experienced with video if the manual focus lenses are much better for video than the autofocusing canons as far as focus throw and manual apertures are concerned. Would I be better off using an L prime for video and retain AF for stills? Obviously it would eat up more of my budget. I'm really leaning towards option 1 or 2 but have heard many good things about 3 and 4 also. I'm shooting crop sensor btw....Show more →
I'll only add this, as it pertains specifically to shooting video with a DSLR ( I use a 1Dx for that purpose) ...whatever lens you settle upon, invest in a quality ND filter. The ability to eliminate blown highlights, before the fact, is very important in video, as it is basically impossible to repair after the fact.
The new DSLRs are so sensitive, faces in particular are very challenging to render naturally without being able to dial things way down.
Thanks for the suggestions guys. I actually just went ahead and ordered the new sigma 35mm 1.4. I have high hopes and expectations for this lens! From the initial reviews, it's better and cheaper than the 35L.
