Advantages of better glass?

[Les Wilson]

Sorry. Misspelled it. It's Bokeh.
Bokeh

[Steve Oakley]

and you are all missing all the great vintage glass thats out there with real metal bodies, smooth focus rings, manual iris rings. yes its a different look, but for video its fine. in fact I spent a day shooting with the vivitar 35-105 3.5 for stills and got some really great results from it. I've got a pile of vintage glass including a vivitar 28 1.9, 24 F2 and a kiron 28 f2.0 which I'm gearing up to do a shoot out with.

I did just get to use a samyang 35 1.4 and its a great modern lens... probably on my buy list along with the 24 1.4. that said, I do have the tamron 17-50 2.8 and use it all the time. its a perfectly sharp lens for video or stills, in fact maybe too sharp. what I will complain about is its backwards focus ring, and 45 deg focus rotation that makes it incredibly sensitive to even the smallest bump if you are working wide open.

on a recent 3 camera 60D shoot with 2 17-50's and S 35 1.4, they all looked the same in most respects. nothing so different to worry about.

s

[Alex Payne]

Thanks again for all the help.
Let's change directions a little bit (if you don't mind)...
I'm certainly going to continue to increase my lens collection for my own purposes. And I think I'm well equipped to make decisions for a great amount of work I'm going to be doing now and in the future... but at some point I want to shoot features for theatrical distribution.
So let's start discussing... what's the bottom level, the floor glass wise, of what I'd be looking at for features? (And if I should look at renting instead... I know MOST people tout renting over buying for most hardware, for my purposes I prefer buying, but if it would make sense to build my collection with cheaper lenses and rent the big stuff for a feature, let me know! Then again, if I'm going to be spending the money on lenses anyway, maybe I would save more buying the best in the first place)

A common response to this type of inquiry is usually "try it out and see for yourself"... but I'd be looking at it on my 15" computer monitor, not a giant movie theater screen. So again, it would probably be best to just look at the minimums for what would be needed for theatrical distribution.

[John Stakes]

I think you have about as good of an answer that can be given. As mentioned, more expensive isn't always better image quality, but improvement overall. If you are looking to upgrade the lenses mentioned here are where you should start. The Canon 50mm, Tamron 17-50, Tokina 11-16 all great lenses... Start thinking of what you need in terms of weather sealing, focusing and range. You have to have this information along with a budget if you want to narrow it down to specific lenses.

JS

[Les Wilson]

Originally Posted by Alex Payne

Let's change directions a little bit (if you don't mind)... but at some point I want to shoot features for theatrical distribution. So let's start discussing... what's the bottom level, the floor glass wise, of what I'd be looking at for features?

There's a webisode series you may find interesting called FilmFellas:
FilmFellas

It was made by Zacuto and it's 39 episodes consist of round table discussions with both young and old producers, DPs, cinematographers and directors. Every so often equipment comes up. Anyway, if you haven't seen it, you may find it puts a lot of this in perspective.