I have been playing around with my Agus35 box and am feeling quite restricted by the lenses.
I have a Nikon 1.8 50mm which is nice and a Vivitar 28-85 f2.8-3.8. The 2.8 lens seems a bit slow, and not as good quality as the Nikon.

I’m wondering what I should know, should I just buy a 1.4 28mm and an 85mm lens and stick to the 3 basics or get a better zoom.

It just seems its hard to get the shots you want with limited focal lengths/budget.

I mean i dont want to be spending all my money on a mini35 type setup when im looking at an HVX-200 later this year. Can i have my optical cake and eat it too?

So whats a good setup for these D.O.F boxes on a budget?



(please don’t even mention zeiss!)

CHeers,
Ben Gurvich

Nikon's 70-200mm zoom lens is looking nice. Primes are expensive and difficult to focus at f/1.4. Plus, zoom lenses are much easier on the 'ol pocket book.

I prefer primes because of the speed and quality, and a f1.4 50mm lens can go a long way as long as you dont mind moving the camera a lot between shots. You can stop down if you need a little more DOF but with the light loss of the adapter itself it can be tough to get enough light into a slower f2.8 lens. I often found myself adding extra 1k's, lessening diffusion, and gaining up to get things well exposed with the adapter. I suppose it really depends what you are doing. If you have the light and space for slow, long lenses, as it can help plus it helps limit what is visible in the background, which can help on low budgets without much production design. I have had problems with extra vignetting and more visible grain on longer, slower lenses, but I'm not sure if that is normal. I have found grain to be less visible in my static GG adapter at f1.4 than my other f2.8 lenses.

I'm trying to figure out what the best adapter is for HD, too. Seems the simplicity of a static GG isnt ideal as grain can even be visible at SD resolutions, so I guess oscillating or wax is a better way to go.