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Advice for a fast prime lens setup for the Canon 5D MKII
  • gamebgameb

    I need advice for a friend from Uruguay, who needs a setup of luminous lenses 35 (28), 50 and 85mm for his Canon 5d MKII. He will start to shoot a feature film with a lot of night scenes. He is now in Europe and wants to buy the lenses here. I thought of Leica R Summilux, Zeiss or Voigtlaender, maybe the Minolta 58mm 1.2?. But as a GH2 user I don't really know what works well on a 5D MKII. Anyone could give me some advice? Does the Metabones adapter work onthe 5D?

  • 13 Replies sorted by
  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    May be just set of cine Samyangs?

    http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/4029/samyangrokinon-cine-lenses#Item_179

    Their 35mm, 24mm, 16mm and 85mm are very good.

  • vicharrisvicharris

    If it wasn't for all the night scenes I would suggest the Samyangs. They're are almost unusable at even 2. They really need to be at 2.8 to get away from the softness but I've never shot with a 5d. This is just based off of GH2 and Black Magic Cameras. The Voights and SLRs beat the Samyangs till around 2.8 or a 2.8/4 split.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    The Voights and SLRs beat the Samyangs till around 2.8 or a 2.8/4 split.

    I think that are pretty sharp for 1080p at even wide open. I am not sure about BMPCC, but for FF or APS-C it is so.

  • kellar42kellar42

    I use the Samyangs all the time at F1.4 and love them, not sure what @vicharris is talking about. The 85mm, maybe, but that's kind of an on purpose portrait thing.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    The 85mm, maybe, but that's kind of an on purpose portrait thing.

    85mm is slightly dreamy :-) But on FF and with some added sharpness it must be ok in 1080p.

  • vicharrisvicharris

    @kellar42 Well I'm just speaking on shooting with these lenses for over a year on 3 different cameras and EVERY review that's been written about them. At 1.4 or 1.5 they all get a fair to poor rating in terms of sharpness. This is a repeated statement by known and trusted review sources.....and what I see with my own eyes.....as well as many other top contributors here. But like I've said before, everyone sees things different. One man sees sharp, one sees blurry. BTW, if you don't think the 14 is soft then there's just no way we'll ever have a conversation about this. That lens sucks.

  • eatstoomuchjameatstoomuchjam

    Leica R lenses aren't a bad choice and are more affordable than some of the other options. I have a 50/2 and a 90/2 and they're both really great lenses and they're totally decent at f/2. I assume that if he's shooting on 5D Mark II that budget is a concern.

  • endotoxicendotoxic

    R O K I N O N S A M Y A N G +

    DO NOT HASITATE

  • vicharrisvicharris

    @Vitaliy_Kiselev I'll have to disagree with you. As you know I'm a huge fan of these lenses and praise them all the time but the more I shoot with them the more I really see how soft they are wide open. Once again, maybe shooting with them on a GH2 is different but in the BM cameras, I can see the softness easily.

  • endotoxicendotoxic

    @vicharris T1.5 IS NOT FOR THIS LENSES . T2.4 IS SWEEt SPOT. i begins to show its character. You may say the whyto buy this if there are other lenses at 2.4 that are better. Cos this is new lens, modern optical design and have low light capability,ohh not to say the are suitet for video :)

  • vicharrisvicharris

    What? I can't understand what you just said.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    24mm and 85mm are softest from the set. But. They are soft at full resolution.

    16mm and 35mm are sharper

  • mrbillmrbill

    I know there's a lot of affection for the samyangs here, but if you're on a tight budget, canon's 50mm f1.4 and 85mm f1.8 are amazing bits of glass - had them before I switched to m4\3 and panasonics for video. I would also recommend contax zeiss c/y glass with a decent eos adapter from someone like fotodiox - I use these all the time on my Gh2 and GH13, and bokeh, colour and contrast are beautiful with these lenses.

    Has your friend bought a mosaic engineering anti-aliasing filter?

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