Brad Crawford – Strata Studios A Canadian Filmmaker's view of the industry

Equipment, Part 2-1: Lenses (Ultra Wide-Angle)

Lenses; this is one topic where I could write a thousand pages and still not cover everything.

I'm going to assume you understand the basic principles of camera lenses such as focal length, aperture and field of view as well as the fact that Canon and Nikon and Pentax and Sony all have different mounts and so you should buy the ones that work best with your camera (adapters exist and will be mentioned).

I will just talk about lenses that I either personally own and am using right now or have used in the past. If I haven't physically touched it, then you probably won't see it mentioned here. So to start us off I will quickly list the lenses that I use and if any of these interest you, feel free to continue reading. Keep in mind I am using these primarily for video on my Canon 60D, not for still photography.

From widest to longest.
Tokina 11mm - 16mm f2.8 (Nikon mount/constant aperture zoom/auto-focus with Nikon)
Nikon 17mm - 35mm f2.8 (Nikon mount/constant aperture zoom/auto-focus with Nikon)
Nikon 35mm f1.4 AIS (Nikon mount/prime lens/manual focus only)
Nikon 50mm f1.4 D (Nikon mount/prime lens/auto-focus with Nikon)
Nikon 85mm f1.4 AIS (Nikon mount/prime lens/manual focus only)
Tamron 90mm macro f2.5 (Nikon mount/prime lens/manual focus only)
Tokina 80mm - 200mm f2.8 (Nikon mount/constant aperture zoom/auto-focus with Nikon)

As you can see, I do not own a single Canon mount lens... not necessarily by design. I've been a Nikon shooter since I began to take photography more seriously and older manual Nikon glass is great for video, but i'll get to that.

What I use is a Nikon to Canon lens mount adapter from Cinevate.com, for $40 you can attach any Nikon lens to a Canon camera and be ready to shoot. Of course, you can only manual focus, though aperture priority auto-exposure still works fine, but not shutter priority since the camera cannot control the aperture of the lens.

I do not use or own a "kit" lens (aka the lens that comes packaged with the camera). As I find them too slow and these lenses do not have a constant aperture, that is to say, as you zoom in with the lens, the aperture goes from perhaps f3.5 to f5.6 this isn't that big of an issue when shooting still photos (though still not ideal) but it presents a large problem with video applications.

You certainly wouldn't want to zoom while recording with a lens like this (not that I condone zooms much anyway, we're out of the 70's here people) as the lighting levels would noticeably change and it would read as very odd in a movie, also if you decide you want to zoom in for a tight shot of a scene, since your aperture changes, you would have to either re-light or bump your ISO to compensate, neither are very attractive options.

But I digress, in short: Kit lenses, great for people who want to learn and play around on the cheap, not great for professional applications.

In the interest of post-length, I will separate each lens category starting with the Ultra Wides.

Now let's get to the fun part!

When using a camera such as the Canon 60D or T2i, essentially any mid tier Digital SLR, the sensor size of the camera is what we call

APS-C, it closely resembles 35mm film (movie). If you're used to thinking of lens focal length  in terms of still photography then you want to consider that this size of sensor would have a 1.6x (Canon) or 1.5x (Nikon) crop factor.

For example a 50mm lens resembles the field of view of approximately a 75mm lens.

So these cameras require you to get some fairly wide lenses to really get that extreme sense of space.

I've chosen the Tokina 11mm - 16mm f2.8

This lens is relatively new, it has been on the market since about 2008. It has a constant aperture of f2.8 which means you can zoom from 11 to 16mm and your aperture will not change.

Right from its initial announcement, this lens has garnered a lot of interest and is still quite sought-after today. The fast f2.8 aperture and extreme wide-angle are very attractive to photographers and film-makers alike.

This lens has been adapted to cinema standards by numerous companies, most famously by Duclos and if you have the cash, you can pick up one of these re-housed cinema editions.They can be found with PL mounts and fully geared Focus, Zoom and Iris rings.

I picked up my copy used from Henrys.com a photography website. I saw it one day selling for about $500 which in Canada is a great deal. They typically sell for around $786 new. Though in the USA you can buy the same lens brand new for $599, oh Canada...

If you are buying used, beware that the original release of this lens was hit or miss in terms of sharpness and contrast so try before you buy, I'm very happy with my copy.

The Tokina 11 - 16 is a rectilinear wide-angle lens, which means it shows very little distortion even though the image is extremely wide. The opposite of this is what is referred to as a Fish-eye lens where the image is distorted at the edges.

The other options lens wise that are straight competitors with the Tokina are Nikons 12mm - 24mm f4. ($899.95) This lens has a better zoom range (though not quite as wide) and can be more versatile in terms of focal length. The Nikons maximum aperture, however, is f4 so you lose a stop of light. For me, f2.8 is necessary, and while the Tokina is not EXTREMELY sharp at f2.8 it is very serviceable and by f4, pristine. This outweighs the loss of zoom range for me, and is the main reason why I picked up this lens.

Next we have Canon's offering, the 10mm - 22mm f3.5 - 4.5. ($799.95) I love the zoom range of this lens, a great wide-angle of 10mm all the way to 22mm. The problem is its variable aperture, at least the Nikon has a constant f4. By the time you get to 22mm on this lens the slow aperture of f4.5 is going to cause you some trouble, half a stop is still half a stop and when you're comparing that to f2.8 it can mean having to bump up your ISO to undesirable levels.

Finally we have Sigma's 10 - 20mm f4 - 5.6. ($479) The most affordable, for a reason. The range is good, but not the best, and it has the slowest aperture. It isn't known as an overly sharp or excellently performing lens but on a budget it will get you a very wide image, in my opinion however the Tokina beats this with Canon's 10 - 22mm being my next choice.

Finally, I just want to mention the build quality. Tokina is my favorite 3rd party lens manufacturer, i've owned 4 of their lenses over the years, the 11-16, the 16-50, the 20-35 and the 80-200 all constant f2.8 zooms and all of them have been built like tanks. I have never had an issue with any of them and all have been excellent values. Canon and Nikons lenses are almost always built and perform very well albeit at a higher price while Tamron usually has excellent performance in terms of optics but suffers in the build quality and Sigma can be so-so optically but usually built fairly robustly.

In closing, all of these lenses are great options for your ultra wide, however, this wouldn't be my first purchase. An ultra wide lens is a fun tool to have but unless I need that extremeestablishing shot or i'm going for the "Wes Anderson" look then it will probably stay in my bag.

One place that a lens like this can really help is shooting hand-held, the wider the lens you're using, the less "camera-shake" shows up. Throwing this lens on a dolly or cheap steady-cam can yield pretty decent results.

A quick test video I shot on my Canon t2i when I first got it, running through my apartment primarily with a wide lens.

I hope this informs you about the extreme wide-angle options out there, a new comer to this category and one that I have only heard of and not seen or used in person is the Samyang lenses, they have a few different options which are showcased in this "interesting" trailer. (Possibly NSFW) Take a look!