Lens purchase for 5D, recommendations

Marcus Marchesseault · July 11th, 2009, 01:02 PM

Jon, don't forget that still shooters will resort to slow shutter speeds like 1/15 if they have image stabilization but we can't do that with video so there is another f-stop lost. Also, it may not be obvious that the difference between f1.4 and f2.8 is the same as the difference between f2.8 and f5.6. How would still shooters like giving up their f2.8 zooms for f5.6 units? I'm getting a prime 85mm to go with my fast 35mm.

Jon Fairhurst · July 11th, 2009, 07:20 PM

Then again, today I was at the Portland Historic Races. I have an ND filter on order that has yet to arrive, so everything was stopped down. A slow zoom with IS would have been really nice. As it is, I lugged a tripod, shoulder rig and camera bag with primes all over the place.

The one nice thing is that with all that gear, people got out of my way. :)

Marcus Marchesseault · July 12th, 2009, 02:57 AM

"A slow zoom with IS would have been really nice."

Read my earlier posts in this thread. I'm already there. I really don't think the Tamron 28-300 VC is a bad lens at all. Even at 300mm the shots look decent. My guess is that some people are reporting it as soft because it is too slow in dim light and their gain/iso is coming up. Either that or the shutter is going too slow and giving motion blur.

I think I'm going with my 35mm f1.4 and ordering a Canon 85mm f1.8 for indoors and keeping the Tamron zoom for outdoors. I might hold on to a few others but it seems clear that primes are necessary for indoors and IS is needed for outdoors/long shots when on the run. Even though the Tamron is slow, it still needs an ND to keep from stopping down so it will be fine for daytime shots. At night, I need every f-stop possible so any zoom lens is out. I have a 35-70 f2.8 that is a beautiful lens but is too slow for night shots (or dim ballrooms) and doesn't have enough range for outdoors. Perhaps it will be good for daytime interiors with mixed lighting?

Besides a zoom with lots of range for daylight exteriors, a wide and short telephoto prime for night/dim indoors, an ultrawide for architecture, and possibly a fast zoom for well-lit interiors, what would someone need? I have an f2.8 135mm which is the fastest affordable telephoto that makes some pretty pictures but other than astronomically priced telephoto primes I can't think of anything else necessary.

Nigel Barker · July 13th, 2009, 12:53 AM

The 24-105mm F/4L IS kit lens is a must have for outdoor shots. We have a couple of 5dIIs & so far I have resisted the temptation to double up on any lenses but this is the one that has tempted me most. I have however just bought a cheaper alternative the Canon 28-135mm F/3.5-5.6 IS which is working well as a walking around outdoors lens. A good buy at just 200 Euros used from eBay. The IS on both these zooms is invaluable. If there were a short fast zoom with IS available I would grab it in an instant.

Chris Barcellos · July 13th, 2009, 12:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marcus Marchesseault

I think I'm giving a tentative thumbs up to the Tamron 28-300 VC I just got.

This lens suggestion begs a question. I currently adapt a lot of Nikon stuff to my 5D. And with recent rumors and reports about a Nikon 1080i 24p coming, should I stick with the Nikon mount ?

I understand I will lose auto focus, which I don't have for my Nikons anyway.

Marcus Marchesseault · July 13th, 2009, 10:40 PM

I honestly don't know about using it in the Nikon version on the 5D. I doubt the VC would get power with a dumb adapter.

I thought quite a bit about the Canon 28-135 IS but felt it may not have enough reach. Considering the decent performance of the Tamron at 300mm, I'm glad I went for the big (relatively) Tamron lens. It stays at f5.6 well into the useful range and I tested it at a church today that has poor light. It is probably the second darkest church during the day where I have previously shot since it has small windows, dark furnishings, and stained wood ceilings. It does have a sliding glass door (just like in a house) at the side so it does get a bit of indirect sun from there. I had bright exposure through the whole zoom range without going to high gain or 1/30 shutter. I think I am going to get a Fader ND now.

I also think the positive reviews of its VC/IS may be true. If I can hold it fairly stable, even handheld, it locks in like the lens is stuck to the subject with chewing gum. With my stabilized monopod, it will make for great non-moving shots. I don't think it will work well walking around but I mostly need stabilized monopod shots. This would probably be best on a steady rig with vest since it loses its fix abruptly. Within its movement range it feels strange to have it lock in on something.

Here are two shots I just took of the parking area out front at both 300mm and 28mm with iso400 at f6.3 and 1/100 shutter. The sky is bright but the sun has gone down behind the valley wall. This would probably be considered early evening light after the sun has gone behind trees on the mainland. In the daytime, I would need to go to low iso and maybe an ND filter to go down to 1/100 shutter. The sign is the focal point but a bit overexposed since it is white.

Chris Barcellos · July 13th, 2009, 11:38 PM

"I doubt the VC would get power with a dumb adapter."

That answers a lot for me. I had thought the lens might have separate power.

Simon Denny · July 26th, 2009, 01:05 AM

Ok, I have had a play around today with the 5D and now I’m wondering what lens to get with this camera.
The Canon f4, 24-105 mm lens can come bundled with the body but with lenses I’m not up to speed and at a loss in this subject. Can someone suggest some lenses to look at on line which might suite both stills and video.

Thanks

Chris Barcellos · July 26th, 2009, 01:11 AM

There have been many discussion regarding lens selection like this one:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/canon-eos...endations.html

Simon Denny · July 26th, 2009, 01:15 AM

Thanks Chris,
I missed that one.
Hope you are Feeling better.

Regards

Zsolt Gordos · July 26th, 2009, 01:32 PM

Simon, you cant go wrong with the Tamron SP AF 28-75 F/2.8 XR Di LD IF. I have never been a fan of anything else but Canon L until last year 3 of them have been stolen from me in Greece. So I took a look at the cheaper end to avoid losses.
This Tamron is much more serious than it looks. Light plastic feel but tack sharp and nice bokeh. It is 2.8 which is not bad. It is very light and we shall not forget that we do mostly videography, no stills. So weight is even more important.
I own the 28-300 L Canon cannon and if I feel like skipping the gym I use that instead... :)

Other than that some vintage stuff is also worth a look.
I bought this old Zeiss Flektogon 20mm prime, very nice "zeissish" look. Little distortion, no purple fringing. Its all manual and requires a low cost adapter (ebay is our friend).
I hope it helped.

Marcus Marchesseault · July 26th, 2009, 07:45 PM

The 24-105 f4 is a very decent lens but I don't think any zoom lens is fast enough for work in low light. The difference between f4 and f1.8 or even f1.2 is dramatic. I got an f2.8 zoom and it is not enough in low light though it does look great with enough light.

I decided to go in two different directions. I got a Tamron 28-300mm f3.5-6.3 with VC image stabilization for doing "video" work in decent light. This zoom range covers just about everything but this lens is not fast enough to use at night or in a dim room. The wide zoom range also means some compromise in image quality but there are some situations where getting the shot with decent composition is more important than perfect sharpness.

To compliment the versatile zoom lens which is useless in low light, I have three prime lenses that I really like. I have an f1.4 35mm Nikon, a Canon f1.8 50mm (only $90!), and an f1.8 85mm Canon. I also have a 28mm Nikon that I may modify for use on the Canon but the 35mm is nice because it has little perspective distortion and is very fast. The 85mm f1.8 is the fastest affordable telephoto lens and just about right for work indoorsor out. A longer telephoto indoors will probably not be fast enough as even my f2.5 105mm Nikon is a bit too slow. Part of the reason for that is apparently focusing much closer than infinity kills some of the light coming in so a shorter lens focused near infinity gathers more light.

I would recommend something like the 24-105 kit lens plus a couple of prime lenses. Old Nikons are cheap as well as the 50mm f1.8 Canon. I would also get a fast wide of f2 or faster and a fast short telephoto like the 85mm f1.8. Get decent but affordable lenses that can cover a wide range of use and learn what you really like before investing thousands of dollars per lens. Lenses hold their value used so buying a couple of decent lenses won't bankrupt you since you can sell them later when you feel like upgrading or changing focal lengths.

John Woo · July 26th, 2009, 09:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dan Brockett

Just as a caveat, I have been using a Tokina 12-24 DX F4 in Nikon mount on my 5D MKII along with Nikon AI lenses in 50mm 1.4 and 85mm 1.8. Just beware that the Kawa adapters, while they work fine, they do totally throw off your focus scale. You have to religiously use the 5X and 10X zoom to check focus, which works fine, but for tracking moving subjects, this makes it very difficult to follow focus, even if you measure distances.

So Nikon lens users, your lenses are very useful but those adapters do some weird things with the flange to focal plane distance.

If I keep shooting the 5D MKII, I will be buying some more Canon lenses. I just ordered the 17-40 F4 L and will probably get the 50mm 1.4 and the 70-200 F4.

Dan

Dan, what is the usable range of the Tokina 12-24 on 5DM2? I heard is 16 or 17mm. Did you see black borders at 12mm?

Chris Hurd · July 26th, 2009, 09:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris Barcellos

There have been many discussion regarding lens selection like this one: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/canon-eos...endations.html

Threads merged.

Nigel Barker · July 27th, 2009, 12:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marcus Marchesseault

I would recommend something like the 24-105 kit lens plus a couple of prime lenses. Old Nikons are cheap as well as the 50mm f1.8 Canon. I would also get a fast wide of f2 or faster and a fast short telephoto like the 85mm f1.8. Get decent but affordable lenses that can cover a wide range of use and learn what you really like before investing thousands of dollars per lens. Lenses hold their value used so buying a couple of decent lenses won't bankrupt you since you can sell them later when you feel like upgrading or changing focal lengths.

I agree with much of this.

The 24-105mm F4L IS USM kits lens is a super lens in good light. The image is sharp & the zoom range with constant aperture is perfect for use as a general purpose 'walking around' lens. The extra bonus with this lens is the Image Stabilisation which is invaluable for handheld shooting.

I bought a whole bunch of mainly Nikon manual lenses cheap from eBay just to experiment & discover which ones suited what I was filming. Now that the 5DII firmware update has gievn us manual aperture control I prefer to stick with EF mount lenses as fast AF is very nice to have for stills & the ability to take great stills & great video at the same time is an enormous advantage of this camera.

My primes are the Canon 50mm F1.2L (amazing for filming in low light) & the Canon 24mm F1.4L which works so well for interiors with no additional lighting.

I don't as yet have any great use for a telephoto longer than the 24-105mm zoom.

July 11th, 2009, 07:20 PM	#17
Jon Fairhurst Inner Circle Join Date: May 2006 Location: Camas, WA, USA Posts: 5,513	Then again, today I was at the Portland Historic Races. I have an ND filter on order that has yet to arrive, so everything was stopped down. A slow zoom with IS would have been really nice. As it is, I lugged a tripod, shoulder rig and camera bag with primes all over the place. The one nice thing is that with all that gear, people got out of my way. :) __________________ Jon Fairhurst

July 13th, 2009, 10:40 PM	#21
Marcus Marchesseault Trustee Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Honolulu, HI Posts: 1,961	I honestly don't know about using it in the Nikon version on the 5D. I doubt the VC would get power with a dumb adapter. I thought quite a bit about the Canon 28-135 IS but felt it may not have enough reach. Considering the decent performance of the Tamron at 300mm, I'm glad I went for the big (relatively) Tamron lens. It stays at f5.6 well into the useful range and I tested it at a church today that has poor light. It is probably the second darkest church during the day where I have previously shot since it has small windows, dark furnishings, and stained wood ceilings. It does have a sliding glass door (just like in a house) at the side so it does get a bit of indirect sun from there. I had bright exposure through the whole zoom range without going to high gain or 1/30 shutter. I think I am going to get a Fader ND now. I also think the positive reviews of its VC/IS may be true. If I can hold it fairly stable, even handheld, it locks in like the lens is stuck to the subject with chewing gum. With my stabilized monopod, it will make for great non-moving shots. I don't think it will work well walking around but I mostly need stabilized monopod shots. This would probably be best on a steady rig with vest since it loses its fix abruptly. Within its movement range it feels strange to have it lock in on something. Here are two shots I just took of the parking area out front at both 300mm and 28mm with iso400 at f6.3 and 1/100 shutter. The sky is bright but the sun has gone down behind the valley wall. This would probably be considered early evening light after the sun has gone behind trees on the mainland. In the daytime, I would need to go to low iso and maybe an ND filter to go down to 1/100 shutter. The sign is the focal point but a bit overexposed since it is white. Attached Thumbnails

July 13th, 2009, 11:38 PM	#22
Chris Barcellos Inner Circle Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Elk Grove CA Posts: 6,838	"I doubt the VC would get power with a dumb adapter." That answers a lot for me. I had thought the lens might have separate power. __________________ Chris J. Barcellos

July 26th, 2009, 01:05 AM	#23
Simon Denny Trustee Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Australia Posts: 1,409	What lens for the Canon 5D lens, suggestions please? Ok, I have had a play around today with the 5D and now I’m wondering what lens to get with this camera. The Canon f4, 24-105 mm lens can come bundled with the body but with lenses I’m not up to speed and at a loss in this subject. Can someone suggest some lenses to look at on line which might suite both stills and video. Thanks

July 26th, 2009, 01:11 AM	#24
Chris Barcellos Inner Circle Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Elk Grove CA Posts: 6,838	There have been many discussion regarding lens selection like this one: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/canon-eos...endations.html __________________ Chris J. Barcellos

July 11th, 2009, 01:02 PM	#16
Marcus Marchesseault Trustee Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Honolulu, HI Posts: 1,961	Jon, don't forget that still shooters will resort to slow shutter speeds like 1/15 if they have image stabilization but we can't do that with video so there is another f-stop lost. Also, it may not be obvious that the difference between f1.4 and f2.8 is the same as the difference between f2.8 and f5.6. How would still shooters like giving up their f2.8 zooms for f5.6 units? I'm getting a prime 85mm to go with my fast 35mm.

July 12th, 2009, 02:57 AM	#18
Marcus Marchesseault Trustee Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Honolulu, HI Posts: 1,961	"A slow zoom with IS would have been really nice." Read my earlier posts in this thread. I'm already there. I really don't think the Tamron 28-300 VC is a bad lens at all. Even at 300mm the shots look decent. My guess is that some people are reporting it as soft because it is too slow in dim light and their gain/iso is coming up. Either that or the shutter is going too slow and giving motion blur. I think I'm going with my 35mm f1.4 and ordering a Canon 85mm f1.8 for indoors and keeping the Tamron zoom for outdoors. I might hold on to a few others but it seems clear that primes are necessary for indoors and IS is needed for outdoors/long shots when on the run. Even though the Tamron is slow, it still needs an ND to keep from stopping down so it will be fine for daytime shots. At night, I need every f-stop possible so any zoom lens is out. I have a 35-70 f2.8 that is a beautiful lens but is too slow for night shots (or dim ballrooms) and doesn't have enough range for outdoors. Perhaps it will be good for daytime interiors with mixed lighting? Besides a zoom with lots of range for daylight exteriors, a wide and short telephoto prime for night/dim indoors, an ultrawide for architecture, and possibly a fast zoom for well-lit interiors, what would someone need? I have an f2.8 135mm which is the fastest affordable telephoto that makes some pretty pictures but other than astronomically priced telephoto primes I can't think of anything else necessary.

July 13th, 2009, 12:53 AM	#19
Nigel Barker Inner Circle Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Norwich, Norfolk, UK Posts: 3,531	The 24-105mm F/4L IS kit lens is a must have for outdoor shots. We have a couple of 5dIIs & so far I have resisted the temptation to double up on any lenses but this is the one that has tempted me most. I have however just bought a cheaper alternative the Canon 28-135mm F/3.5-5.6 IS which is working well as a walking around outdoors lens. A good buy at just 200 Euros used from eBay. The IS on both these zooms is invaluable. If there were a short fast zoom with IS available I would grab it in an instant.

July 26th, 2009, 01:15 AM	#25
Simon Denny Trustee Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Australia Posts: 1,409	Thanks Chris, I missed that one. Hope you are Feeling better. Regards

July 26th, 2009, 01:32 PM	#26
Zsolt Gordos Major Player Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Budapest, Hungary Posts: 414	Simon, you cant go wrong with the Tamron SP AF 28-75 F/2.8 XR Di LD IF. I have never been a fan of anything else but Canon L until last year 3 of them have been stolen from me in Greece. So I took a look at the cheaper end to avoid losses. This Tamron is much more serious than it looks. Light plastic feel but tack sharp and nice bokeh. It is 2.8 which is not bad. It is very light and we shall not forget that we do mostly videography, no stills. So weight is even more important. I own the 28-300 L Canon cannon and if I feel like skipping the gym I use that instead... :) Other than that some vintage stuff is also worth a look. I bought this old Zeiss Flektogon 20mm prime, very nice "zeissish" look. Little distortion, no purple fringing. Its all manual and requires a low cost adapter (ebay is our friend). I hope it helped. __________________ Sony XDCAM EX1r, Canon 5DMkII, Røde NTG2, Røde NT1000, Røde Stereo Videomic, Sachtler DV6 SB on Gitzo 1325V, Steadicam Merlin, Omnitracker, Hackintosh 3.5Ghz Quad 8Gb RAM

July 26th, 2009, 07:45 PM	#27
Marcus Marchesseault Trustee Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Honolulu, HI Posts: 1,961	The 24-105 f4 is a very decent lens but I don't think any zoom lens is fast enough for work in low light. The difference between f4 and f1.8 or even f1.2 is dramatic. I got an f2.8 zoom and it is not enough in low light though it does look great with enough light. I decided to go in two different directions. I got a Tamron 28-300mm f3.5-6.3 with VC image stabilization for doing "video" work in decent light. This zoom range covers just about everything but this lens is not fast enough to use at night or in a dim room. The wide zoom range also means some compromise in image quality but there are some situations where getting the shot with decent composition is more important than perfect sharpness. To compliment the versatile zoom lens which is useless in low light, I have three prime lenses that I really like. I have an f1.4 35mm Nikon, a Canon f1.8 50mm (only $90!), and an f1.8 85mm Canon. I also have a 28mm Nikon that I may modify for use on the Canon but the 35mm is nice because it has little perspective distortion and is very fast. The 85mm f1.8 is the fastest affordable telephoto lens and just about right for work indoorsor out. A longer telephoto indoors will probably not be fast enough as even my f2.5 105mm Nikon is a bit too slow. Part of the reason for that is apparently focusing much closer than infinity kills some of the light coming in so a shorter lens focused near infinity gathers more light. I would recommend something like the 24-105 kit lens plus a couple of prime lenses. Old Nikons are cheap as well as the 50mm f1.8 Canon. I would also get a fast wide of f2 or faster and a fast short telephoto like the 85mm f1.8. Get decent but affordable lenses that can cover a wide range of use and learn what you really like before investing thousands of dollars per lens. Lenses hold their value used so buying a couple of decent lenses won't bankrupt you since you can sell them later when you feel like upgrading or changing focal lengths.