When we shot this with the awesome Tim Smith from Canon Co. out of their LA offices, they had at the time 3 cinema primes available (note: all only in EF mount – the 24mm, the 50mm, and the 85mm).
Let me tell you, these lenses are fantastic. People don’t really understand lenses terribly well. Sharpness, resolution, at the end of the day often doesn’t matter. An images sharpness often depends more on how well composed, lit, and styled it is than the lens used to make it. What matters about a lens most is its character. How it intuitively makes you feel and how it makes you want to work and photograph things. Yes, when photographing, you need to start with the ideas and vision you are trying to service in any given shot, scene, or sequence. But sometimes there is a level of “feedback” from the lenses you have because of their character (included in the “character” you feel are: distortions, colour rendering, sharpness, aberrations, out of focus renderings, contrasts, flares, ghosts and a certain amount of intangibles) they will influence your choices and how you choose to photograph. In this way a sort of relationship develops between you and the lens and it can impact the look and feel of your project.
That being said, if you’d ask what the character of the Canon lenses is, I can’t tell you. I haven’t used them enough. But what I can tell you is that they are damn, damn good engineering for a damn, damn good price. At around $4,500 per lens these are amazing. They all go to roughly T1.4 which is bloody well fast. They have good weight. Construction is fabulous and the gearing blades are all top-notch. You’re getting a true cinema-grade lens for a fraction of the cost of anything else on the market, especially when you take into account how fast they are. Think about it. These on a C300 or a new Dragon sensor….if you’re shooting wide-open and at a reasonable 3200 ISO rating you’ll be able to shoot in available light at night, pretty much anywhere there’s a street light or a bulb and get SOMETHING usable. That’s something we didn’t have until this day and age, period. Especially not a consumer prices.
If you’re in the market and considering a set of primes, they now have a 14mm and 135mm added on (though not as fast), they will probably have an 18, 35, and 65-75 coming out soon, check these things out. They’re seriously good value on the money and you won’t regret them.
Their limits only go as far as your imagination and if you DO respond to the character of the lenses, which you can only know by testing them, then you’ll be set for many projects to come!
Products listed on this page:
Canon CN-E 24mm T1.5 L F Cine Lens
Canon CN-E 50mm T1.3 L F Cine Lens
Canon CN-E 85mm T1.3 L F Cine Lens
Canon EOS C300
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