I've read and learnt way more than I need to about every aspect of pretty well every prosummer camera there is. Yet oddly enough the glass on the front seems to get very little attention. Now until my last shoot I guess I hadn't though that much about it either, well OK I had but as I thought it'd never had a noticable impact on my work it was all theoretical.
So there I was shooting a two way discussion in low light from the back of the room, many undesirable things to cope with but the most noticable thing is how poor the images look when I'm in tight.
I was shooting with the venerable PD150 which does have good low light performance however it's quite noticable how soft the image is when the iris is wide open and the lens is at maximum focal length.
The wide shots look great, this makes sense, the lens is pulling in more light. But the thing that really struck me last night thinking it over is this is the type of video many of us have to shoot, the kind that pays money. Not many get paid to take pretty shots on bright sunny days, you don't find many CEOs delivering the state of the nation on a beach or in the mountains! It's almost always long shots with less than optimium light.
Now that means two things, the lens is working hard, any lens out wide should perform well, at minimum iris it'll look even better. But also the DOF is very shallow and the autofocus rarely hits the mark so you're back to manual except the viewfinders aren't really up to the task either. Sure you could use an external monitor but you oftenly don't have the space for that.
Now I know only too well, you get what you pays for and everyone is gushing over Sony giving us ever so many more pixels in the new HDV kit but how come no ones asking for better glass on their cameras? Ah, I think I know the answer to that one. How many consummers go into a camera shop and try long shots in low light? About none, they take the camera outside and think Oh boy such pretty pictures. In other words really good glass costs a lot of money and doesn't sell cameras!
So, OK, to get better results I can forget any of the consummer cameras, lets say I start thinking DSR 570 and a lens, how much better are the say $5 lenses compared to the $20K lenses? Having done some still work over the years with 35mm still camera lenses the extra bucks buys you a lot more light sucking ability, I don't notice quite the same thing with video lenses or have I missed something?
Bob.
So there I was shooting a two way discussion in low light from the back of the room, many undesirable things to cope with but the most noticable thing is how poor the images look when I'm in tight.
I was shooting with the venerable PD150 which does have good low light performance however it's quite noticable how soft the image is when the iris is wide open and the lens is at maximum focal length.
The wide shots look great, this makes sense, the lens is pulling in more light. But the thing that really struck me last night thinking it over is this is the type of video many of us have to shoot, the kind that pays money. Not many get paid to take pretty shots on bright sunny days, you don't find many CEOs delivering the state of the nation on a beach or in the mountains! It's almost always long shots with less than optimium light.
Now that means two things, the lens is working hard, any lens out wide should perform well, at minimum iris it'll look even better. But also the DOF is very shallow and the autofocus rarely hits the mark so you're back to manual except the viewfinders aren't really up to the task either. Sure you could use an external monitor but you oftenly don't have the space for that.
Now I know only too well, you get what you pays for and everyone is gushing over Sony giving us ever so many more pixels in the new HDV kit but how come no ones asking for better glass on their cameras? Ah, I think I know the answer to that one. How many consummers go into a camera shop and try long shots in low light? About none, they take the camera outside and think Oh boy such pretty pictures. In other words really good glass costs a lot of money and doesn't sell cameras!
So, OK, to get better results I can forget any of the consummer cameras, lets say I start thinking DSR 570 and a lens, how much better are the say $5 lenses compared to the $20K lenses? Having done some still work over the years with 35mm still camera lenses the extra bucks buys you a lot more light sucking ability, I don't notice quite the same thing with video lenses or have I missed something?
Bob.