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By eatstoomuchjam · Posted
For me, it's not even an argument. Or if it is an argument, it's a silly one and I want to stay as far away from it as possible. There was a time when zooms were noticeably worse optically than primes - potentially made worse with the release of lenses like the Nikkor 43-86 (that said, I have and kind of love the 43-86, though I have yet to convince anybody to let me use it on set). But since sometime in the 80's, high quality zooms have existed. The 24-70/2.8's and 70-200/2.8's from Canon/Nikon have been fixtures in the bags of nearly every professional photographer since then. They're sharp, fast enough, and extremely convenient. I've used them on set dozens of times. When shooting by available light or when going for more extreme subject isolation, I might move to a faster prime... but when I do, I'm rarely like "wow, this is so much better." I'd even go so far as to challenge most of those people to tell the difference between the 24-70/2.8L II at 50mm stopped down to f/4 or f/5.6 and the EF or even RF 50/1.2L stopped down to f/4 or f/5.6. There might be a different character in the bokeh from the RF, but that's more of an ultra-modern design vs still-pretty-modern design concern vs a zooms vs primes one. I'm pretty sure that's what I just said. 😉 This goes with another of my parlor tricks when on someone else's set - pointing out things to them that will be a problem in their scene simply by looking at the lens on the camera and where it's pointed - I usually have a good idea of what their frame is without having to look at the screen. "You sure you don't have the sound engineer's pack in the frame on the right edge? With that 35mm lens, I'd think you'd see it." (pause) "Oh, yeah. Could you take a step back?" It can be useful for making a guess at the price/quality ratio of the lens (also based on the widest aperture). Finding a good quality f/2.8-f/4 lens that's a 2x or 3x is usually relatively affordable. 4x less so. At 5x, you're either going to be forking over a lot of money, getting a slower lens, or mounting a coke bottle to the camera. That said, I still check prices on the EF 35-350 sometimes in a fever dream since I'd like to see if it can be "good enough" in many cases - and the same with the more useful EF 28-300, but its used price is staying stubbornly high. Once it hits $700, I might buy one in a late-night drunken rampage or something (I barely drink these days so there are fewer opportunities than there once were). Kubrick was fully correct! As he often was! -
That Kubrick story is a fine example because it puts the whole thing in very practical terms. It is not about fetishising focal lengths, or saying one lens is more “cinematic” than another. It is about the fact that the moment you decide whether to move the camera or change the lens, you are already making a directing choice, not just a technical one. Much as with the recent example I gave from Leonel Vieira’s A NOITE, which was based around specific focal lengths, the 75mm and 100mm lenses I mentioned. That is not just a preference for a certain look. It is about camera distance, pressure, and the way actors are observed inside the frame. Different names, different contexts, but the same practical truth: once the choice is made consciously, focal length stops being just a number on the lens and becomes part of the mise-en-scène. -
By eatstoomuchjam · Posted
I really wanted to like the PDMovie. I had the previous version (Air 3 Smart? Something like that) for a bit and ended up selling it after trying to use it just a few times. The weird batteries were a little annoying, but I could have lived with them if not for the complete lack of ability to choose what it focuses on. As far as I could tell, the focus would always be on "whatever is closest" With DJI focus, the hand grip has a little screen where you can at least tell it where you want the focus to be - and it'll successfully focus on that thing about... well, 85% of the time. For me, the systems that fake out PDAF are more exciting. I hope that someone comes out with one for RF mount sometime - or even better, for EF mount. Otherwise, the ones with a little motor are kind of neat - though moving the lens back and forth is not quite the same as adjusting the focus (though usually it's a relatively petty distinction). -
By eatstoomuchjam · Posted
This is exactly why I ended up selling my fp and fp-l. I tried just about everything to keep the kit small for raw recording. And kept coming back to how big they got, even with the smallest possible external SSD (one of the DPL SSD cases in their mount). By the time I added that, I had a camera the same size as my Canon R5, but also less capable than the R5. If Sigma would release the exact same camera, but able to record compressed 12-bit raw to SD card (Canon did it on the C70 and they do it in raw lt on the C80!) - or with a CFE slot that can record the existing uncompressed raw, I'd be strongly considering it again. The default size for the fp is just so good. Similarly, once the price of the bf gets to "not silly" level, I'd be apt to get one. Anyway, the ZR seems to be almost everything that I wanted the fp to be - it's another one that I'm likely to get someday after prices drop more (or there's a crazy good sale). -
Interesting to see this thread again in 2026. Back then the idea sounded a bit futuristic, but now it feels like we are finally getting there from a few different directions. The iPhone LiDAR side is still interesting, especially with things like LidarAC, but what really caught my attention more recently is that we now have dedicated systems actually trying to turn manual lenses into something much closer to AF behavior. DJI Focus Pro is probably the most serious example so far. PDMOVIE is trying something similar too, though it seems a bit more compromised in how it decides what to lock onto. So in a way the original idea in this thread was right, just early. It was never only about using the iPhone as a clever measuring tape. The bigger idea was using LiDAR / distance mapping / external motors to bring some level of autofocus logic to manual lenses and cine setups, and that definitely seems real now. We are still not quite at “perfect native AF for any manual lens”, but compared to where this discussion started, it is no longer science fiction either. Has anyone here actually used one of these newer systems on a real shoot rather than just testing it at home?
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