In the second part of our Get Started series; we're looking at the absolute most important part of your equipment; the lens.
Historically; your choice of film stock made a big difference to the final look of your film but in this day and age (unless you're still shooting on film of course), no matter what camera you use or what other gear you have; the thing that makes the most difference to the footage you shoot is your lens.
You can spend a ridiculous amount of money on a lens but this vital piece of equipment needn't break the bank, there are so many options for a range of budgets and there's many old lenses can give you incredibly interesting looks for very little outlay.
Let's start by taking a look at the two main types of lens, the prime and the zoom.
Prime vs Zoom
Cost effective zooms often seem like an easy way to go, however, little surpasses in quality as a dedicated prime. However, the convenience of a quality zoom needs to be considered, less changing between shots and when mounted the weight shouldn’t be problematic.
Prime lenses
Primes are usually the traditional choice when it comes to cinematic productions, but their prices can soar into the hundreds of thousands if you’re thinking of adding a range to your kit, that kind of money is a dream for most micro-budget films. We examine the difference between the two so you can have a better idea of what you’ll need for your next shoot.
Fixed focal length lenses offer a very traditional way of shooting. Before zoom lenses existed, this was of course the only way to shoot and as such a lot of the cinematic look that we are used to seeing on film today was established by early Directors of Photography using prime lenses. Today, primes are used as much as ever on professional film sets, and we would highly recommend them as part of your kit, especially if you’re going after the film look. The main advantages of a prime lens are:
- Sharper
- Faster Aperture
- Lower Cost
- More Portable
The most important item on this list to me personally is the faster aperture. It’s rare to find a good zoom lens that has an aperture lower than 2.8 which means if you need a low light lens, you are almost definitely going to need to look for a prime. There are loads of affordable prime lenses (like the Samyang Cine Lenses) that offer apertures of 1.4 or lower and will also deliver a sharp image – sharpness being one of the other big benefits on this list. Since prime lenses are only designed to be sharp at one focal length, it’s much easier for the manufacturers to make their prime lenses really sharp, as opposed to zooms which need to be set up to shoot crisp images at variable focal lengths.
If cost is a factor for you, then primes become even more attractive as they always cost less than comparable zooms. It’s worth emphasizing ‘comparable zooms’ because there are still primes that cost tens of thousands of dollars and zooms that you can get for next to nothing, but when comparing the same brand name/optics, zooms are always more expensive. The size of primes also make them ideal for shooting and travelling as they require less glass and are typically much smaller than zooms.
Zoom lenses
Although zooms are less traditional on a film set than prime lenses, they are certainly still widely used on productions of all sizes. Many acclaimed directors and Directors of Photography use (or have used) zooms, and for good reason. They offer a number of advantages over primes including:
- Versatility
- Ease of Use
- Speciality Shots
- Cost (sort of!)
There is no question that a zoom lens is more versatile than a prime lens in that you are effectively getting many different focal lengths in the same lens. This makes it ideal for run and gun shooting situations, documentary shooting, or any other scenario where you can’t stop to change the lens. It will ultimately make your life easier on set by saving you time and allowing for an easier set up between shots. That said, I wouldn’t use zooms only for this reason as they may not be the best option for you scene for other reasons and you don’t want to choose your glass only out of convenience.
Certain types of specialty shots, like slam zooms for instance, are only achievable with a zoom lens. If you have a specific type of shot in mind, or are going after a certain look (for example 70′s cinema which used zooms heavily), then zoom lenses can be a really good option and really the only way to achieve that look. And although prime lenses are cheaper than zooms, you also need to factor in the cost of buying multiple primes, vs one zoom. If your needs are limited and you just need one single lens that will cover every situation, it may be more efficient and cost effective to get a nice zoom lens.
Which do you choose?
And that is the question. Ultimately it comes down to what your DP already has in his kit or his preference for shooting. Each individual shot’s needs should be considered as to quality vs cost and usability for other scenes; this is usually done in pre-production whilst compiling your shot-list. These days a lot of zooms produce cinema-quality footage, for instance the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 IS II USM, which is the favoured lens of the news photographer and paparazzi produces beautiful bokeh, has shallow depth of field and costs around £1,300. When you consider the cost of your top-end cinema primes (which can be anywhere upwards of £15,000 per lens) a quality zoom may be a preferable option. However, there are a lot of cheaper primes that may do the job well and be within your budget; so it pays to do your research.
Now that we've covered the differences between prime and zoom lenses; let's take a look at cine lenses and standard lenses.
Cine vs still lenses
Cine lenses (or cinema lenses) are specifically designed to meet the specific demands of filmmaking. They record continuous motion and offer exceptional video quality, which makes them perfect for cinema production. A true cinema lens is highly superior to still photo lenses in terms of design, features, and construction. Thus, any lens that possesses the true capabilities of a cine lens will potentially cost a fortune, with a price tag ranging anywhere between four to six figures.
Cine lenses offer a number of advantages over still lenses including:
- Professional design
- Sturdy build
- Precise focus control
- Light and aperture control
- Internal zoom control
- Exceptional optical quality
Professional design
Cine lenses definitely look more serious than professional photo lenses, thanks to their exterior markings and manual adjustment rings for aperture, zoom, and focus. But of course, apart from its exterior appearance and controls, the cine lens has a sophisticated design that allows it to bypass many of the problems that photographers often encounter when shooting with still lenses.
Sturdy build
These special lenses are built for heavy use. Typically, a true cine lens has a durable, all-metal body that makes it good for shooting even in the harshest weather conditions. It is noticeably bigger and heavier compared to photo lenses, and comes in one standard or fixed diameter as this allows the shooter to use a wide range of accessories (and even cameras) with every lens. If using matte boxes, the standard diameter allows you to use different lenses without having to worry if the front lens diameter will fit.
Precise focus control
One of the best and most important features of a cine lens is its ability to maintain focus on moving subjects or smoothly switch focus from one subject to the other. Moving subjects in a movie scene are kept in focus by slowly rotating the focus ring and “following” the subject. This is a difficult feat with regular still lenses, as their focus rings have no hard stops and will require extreme precision on the user’s part to achieve proper focus while following a moving subject. On the other hand, a cine lens has a focus ring with clearly visible markings and hard stops at the beginning and at the end. This makes it much easier to get accurate and smoother focus pulls every time, even without the help of a follow focus system.
The focus ring on the cine lens allows the rotation of past 270 degrees, from the minimum focusing distance to infinity, for more focus throw. Focusing is also steadier, which means that focus breathing is significantly reduced. If you’ve worked with still lenses before, then you’re likely familiar with “focus breathing.”
Cine lenses are also parfocal lenses. These are lenses that are able to keep their focus locked on subjects even when you zoom in on a particular scene. With a non-parfocal lens, the simple act of zooming in or out may change your focus, requiring you to refocus your shot. And since zooming is an unavoidable part of cinematography, a cine lens (a true cine lens that is parfocal) will allow you to smoothly zoom in or out without losing focus.
Light and aperture control
Unlike other lenses, cine lenses don’t just control the aperture. Cine lenses have iris rings with T-stop markings (as opposed to f-stops) that give you the exact measure of the amount of light that actually passes through the lens, instead of how wide the lens opening is.
This cine lens-only feature offers high-precision manual control over the exposure and allows you to maintain your exposure in every scene, regardless of the weather and ambient exposure. The iris ring is also click-less, so you can adjust the aperture much more smoothly and change the exposure without taking your audience out of the story.
Internal zoom control
As with most professional lenses, you can zoom in and out with the cine lens by rotating the zoom ring on its body. However, it doesn’t expand or change in length as it adjusts the focal distance internally. This offers great convenience for filmmakers, especially when their camera rig is on stabilizer systems that can be thrown off balance by a slight change in focal length.
And like cine lenses’ focus and iris rings, the zoom ring is always smooth and delivers the smoothest transitions between different focal distances.
Exceptional optical quality
The optical quality of a lens is highly dependent on the glass. A premium still photography lens is usually made of high-end glass and is therefore a viable options for video in terms of optical quality alone. And while the optical performance of a cine lens and still lens may seem similar under regular filming circumstances, it is when the lighting is difficult where cine lenses truly shine. Cine lens glass allows it to shoot under difficult lighting conditions, such as under direct sunlight or even scenes with high contrast.
Although there may be slight differences in color and contrast between lenses of different brands, same brand cine lenses will usually have consistent image output.
A cine lens is also built to ensure complete sharpness across the frame (even in corners). They also reduce or eliminate chromatic aberrations, barrel distortion, and vignetting—all of which are highly noticeable in video.
While not a requirement for most filmmakers, cinema lenses also produce beautiful out-of-focus blurring (bokeh) and attractive light flares when combined with a shallow depth of field.
Best of both worlds
In order to enjoy some of the benefits of cine lenses without overspending, many go for carefully selected or cine-modified still lenses.
There are a good few standard lenses that work beautifully for film work and there are also a few that have been designed specifically for this so whilst they don't offer the bullet-proof build quality or standardised design, they can give you the best of both worlds whilst keeping your bank balance healthy.
Of course; we're not saying that you can achieve the same look as if you were using true cinema lenses as they're made for a reason you know, but you can spend your money carefully in order to save you replacing your lenses sooner than later or to give you incredibly creative looks.
One thing to be sure to confirm is that you can control the aperture of the lens you're looking at as many still lenses do not have manual aperture control and mount compatibility can differ between cameras and adapters.
Samyang VDSLR lenses
Samyang produce the XEEN range of budget cine lenses which are well regarded given their performance and price point. However; each lens costs around £1,500 which still keeps them out of grasp of the budget filmmaker; however, Samyang also produces the VDSLR range which are around £450 each.
This range of lenses offers professional film markings on the lens, smooth aperture control and focus with proper hard stops. The lens has also been designed with focus and aperture gears build in for use with follow focus systems.
Not only this; but the VDSLR range shares basically the same optics as the XEEN range though some claim that the XEEN offers slightly better colour and a little more sharpness which is probably due to better coatings on the XEEN range.
The main issues with the VDSLR range compared to the XEEN range are covered above as they don't have the build of their equivalent cine lens though they have threads to attach standard filters that are much cheaper than cine filters and come with lens hoods as well so they don't technically need a matte box (though as noted in our previous post, you should really have one).
We have the Samyang VDSLR range in our equipment store at 3studio and have been really impressed with their performance.
Same glass?
Using basically the same optics isn't unique to Samyang, many lower-end cine lenses are constructed around pretty much the same glass that you find in their still lens ranges so if you find a lens that you like the look of; be sure to research it carefully as you could potentially get near enough the same look for much less, albeit with the tradeoffs that come with using still lenses for film.
Classic lenses
There are a number of classic lenses that give you incredibly creative options when it comes to cinematography, these lenses have hard stops, manual aperture control and can often be picked up pre-modified for film work.
Classic lenses can give you a very particular look; the Helios 58mm is highly regarded as it gives interesting bokeh whilst the Helios 28mm can produce incredibly sharp images. Both of these lenses and many other interesting classics can often be picked up for less than £50 or more if you want pre-modified for film use with adapters included to fit more modern cameras.
Watch out for focus breathing
If choosing lenses wasn't already a minefield; if you're choosing still lenses then you'll also have to look out for focus breathing.
Focus breathing is term that is used to describe the small change in focal length of a lens that occurs as the focus is adjusted from infinity to MFD, or vice versa. If you look through the viewfinder of your camera and rotate the lens’ focus ring from one extremity to the other, you will see that the lens appears to zoom in or out very slightly. This change is called focus breathing.
For still photography, focus breathing won’t make any difference at all, when shooting video though, focus breathing can begin to be a distracting issue. As focus is adjusted throughout a video shot, you will notice a visible, if slight, zooming motion to the shot. Cinema lens optics are far more precise than those of still lenses, and when they are designed, they aim to have no focus breathing at all.
When choosing a still lens be sure to check out filmmaker reviews as to whether the lens suffers from breathing as this information can rarely be found otherwise. You don't want to pick up a beautiful looking lens to find out that when shooting it has horrible issues.
Small is sometimes better
One of the benefits of using standard lenses is that they are smaller and lighter than cine lenses which could be important when you're using gimbals, drones or Steadicam rigs but also when you're working with small cameras, cine lenses can be incredibly cumbersome and difficult when fitted to small rigs.
Non cine, cine lenses
As noted above; smaller is sometimes better and there are cine lenses out there that don't use the cine lens form factor meaning you can get hold of purpose made, quality glass in a smaller package.
There are a number of options available like the Veydra Mini Prime range and lenses from SLR Magic are highly regarded.
Which primes do you need?
Even though we're already at a super lengthy post, we should at least give a hint at which primes you'll need if you was to look at getting a set of them.
A "normal" lens
If you were forced to choose only one prime lens to have in your kit, then it would be a “normal” lens. A lens is considered normal when it produces images with a similar angle of view and perspective as human vision, thus resulting in a natural, true-to-life feel. Shorter and longer focal lengths result in wider or narrower angles of view, respectively, while also distorting perspective.
So what focal length is considered normal? The answer isn’t necessarily a straightforward one, as it is determined by the size of the image sensor, as well as personal taste. On a full-frame 35mm-sized sensor, a 50mm lens is often considered normal, but there are many shooters who prefer a wider focal length, such as 35mm. On smaller-sized formats, such as Super 35 and Super 16, you’ll need a wider lens to get an angle of view equivalent to the full-frame normal lens.
If you were to ask several directors and DPs what their normal and most-used lens is for motion-picture 35mm, you’ll get answers ranging, roughly, from 24mm to 50mm.
Now add a wide and a telephoto lens
While you can shoot an entire project with just your normal prime lens, that isn’t often practical or desirable. You’ll want to put together at least a basic three-lens kit by adding a wider lens and a longer telephoto lens to go along with your normal lens. A three-lens kit is a pretty versatile package, and more often than not can get you through an entire shoot. Let’s quickly look at the benefits of wide-angle and telephoto lenses.
A wide-angle lens is useful for exaggerating distance between subjects, to emphasize and separate a character in the foreground from the world behind him, or to give a room/location a sense of presence. It can also be used to create some interesting effects with close-ups, such as distorting an actor’s face, creating a sense of confusion or disorientation, or to give the lens a presence, where the audience feels the close proximity of the lens to the actor.
Beyond effect, a wide-angle lens is also often required for practical reasons. Walk into a tight interior location or alley with only a normal or wide-normal lens on hand and you may not be able to get the master shot that the director wants. Not good. The wide-angle lens is also a great choice for Steadicam or other stabilization systems when following action.
In contrast to wide-angle lenses, telephoto lenses have the effect of compressing distance and making the background appear closer to foreground subjects. Telephoto lenses also have a shallower apparent depth of field than a normal or wide-angle lens will have when matching framing and aperture, making them good at singling out an actor or object. The most common use of a telephoto lens in film production is for close-ups, as a slight telephoto effect is pleasing on the face by “flattening” or compressing facial features. A common focal length for close-ups is 85mm, but the focal length can be shorter or longer based on personal preference and on what your normal lens is.
Fill in the gaps and extremes
Once you have your wide-angle, normal, and telephoto lenses selected, you can being to fill in the gaps between your focal lengths, as well as the extremes. While your normal lens is the workhorse lens, there may be times when you want to get a bit wider or a bit longer without going all the way to your chosen wide or telephoto lens. Filling in these gaps gives you a more versatile 5 lens kit.
Now you can fill in those gaps even further to make a bigger lens kit, or you may find that there's another focal length that you just really like working with.
Other considerations
So we've covered primes, zooms and cine vs still lenses pretty well so far, but what else should you consider when buying lenses specifically for filmmaking?
Get fast lenses
Once you know what focal length you want, you’ll want to consider the speed of the lens. A “fast” lens is one that has a wide maximum aperture, which is measured by a low f-stop number, such as 2.0, 1.8, and 1.4.
How fast do you need to go? Go as fast as you can afford.
There are two main benefits of faster lenses. The first, and perhaps most important, is that the wider the aperture opening, the greater the amount of light that is passed through to the sensor. This allows you to shoot in more dimly lit settings without having to increase the ISO and potentially add unwanted image noise. The second main benefit of fast lenses is increased control over your depth of field. As the aperture opening increases, the depth of field becomes shallower, allowing you to you isolate your subject against an out-of-focus background.
If you can, try to purchase lenses that have a similar maximum aperture, because you’ll need to be able to cut between them within a scene without having to increase or decrease the amount of light. At the very least, you’ll want your core lenses (wide, normal, telephoto) to offer a maximum aperture of f/2.8 or faster. That way, if your ultra-wide or longer telephoto lenses are a little slower, you still have a set of lenses that can cover a scene.
Get the right mount
There are many different mount options so we're not going to go into the pros and cons of these and so forth. The lenses you buy will no doubt be based on whatever mount your camera has but if you have plans to switch to a different camera or mount standard in the future you may choose to buy lenses with that in mind and use adapters to start rather than struggle later on.
There are also specialist adapters known as speed boosters which can give a focal length multiplier as well as increasing the lens speed which you may want to consider. We'll cover the speed booster in a later post so won't go into detail just now.
Read the script
This is probably something the less experienced filmmaker won't think of and it's quite a simple one; there’s no point in spending money on lenses that won't be used straight away, get the things you really need for the shoot and it's often not about how many lenses you have in your kit.
As a cinematographer reading the script, you’re concerned with all visual aspects of the film, as well as the gear needed to make it a reality. While reading, you should be taking note of any special requirements that might influence lens selection, such as Steadicam or crane shots. Also consider the overall tone and time period of the film, which may lend itself to a specific series of lenses or allow you to use some interesting classic lenses. With notes in hand, you can then meet with the film’s director to discuss their vision, which might be similar or different than yours. You should walk away from this discussion with a fairly good idea of what lenses you will and won’t need.