I was checking lens prices this morning and I noticed that the Canon 50mm f1.4 has crawled back up to about $450 from about $350 only 6 months ago. That 25% price hike is being blamed on short supply caused by the earth quake Japan.
At that inflated price, it could be a good idea to start taking a look at used Nikon Nikkor lenses. In the video I compare the Canon 50mm f1.2 to the , and the difference isn’t very dramatic, which means the Nikon 50mm f1.2 is as good or better then the Canon 50mm f1.4. Looking on ebay this morning it seems the lenses is selling for around $350 to $500.
The is manual focus which means it might not be the best choice for photography, but if you’re in search of shallow depth of field and creamy Bokeh goodness for your next video project this could be a great choice. The other nice thing is that the focus ring has lots of travel and operates nice and smooth. Making it great for use with a follow focus.
You’ll also want to pick up a . Make sure you buy one that has the auto focus confirmation chip built in. The chip basically feeds the camera some bogus lens information so that when you’re focusing you’ll still get the nice little red dot or square when your target is in focus. I suppose you could live with out it, but it only adds about $1 to the cost of the adapter. So I would say it’s worth it.
If your going Nikon the 35mm f1.4 is also a good one to check out.
How about the Canon FD 1.2 which is around $350. I’ve heard the 1.2 is good for about 1.8 with good sharpness. The 1.4 ($70) is good for about 2.0 supposedly.
I’m not a big fan of canon FD lenses on canon DSLR cameras. They work well with 4/3 cameras like the GH2, but I didn’t find them very useful on a Canon DSLR. The adapters affect the image quality and cause other problems. You can pick up a Nikon nikkor 50mm f1.4 for about $100 and get a lot better performance.
This is the exact info i was looking for. I also saw your other videos on youtube. I was thinking of buying Canon 50 mm 1.2, but since i may not need that shallow depth of field for filming, i can get 3 Nikon lenses for filming.
April 18th, 2011 at 6:52 pm
How about the Canon FD 1.2 which is around $350. I’ve heard the 1.2 is good for about 1.8 with good sharpness. The 1.4 ($70) is good for about 2.0 supposedly.
April 18th, 2011 at 7:54 pm
I’m not a big fan of canon FD lenses on canon DSLR cameras. They work well with 4/3 cameras like the GH2, but I didn’t find them very useful on a Canon DSLR. The adapters affect the image quality and cause other problems. You can pick up a Nikon nikkor 50mm f1.4 for about $100 and get a lot better performance.
May 12th, 2011 at 9:33 pm
Thanks Deejay,
This is the exact info i was looking for. I also saw your other videos on youtube. I was thinking of buying Canon 50 mm 1.2, but since i may not need that shallow depth of field for filming, i can get 3 Nikon lenses for filming.
regards,
Dan