The Best Lenses For Sony Full Frame Video A7siii & A7iv

i wanted to put together a video that i wish i could have seen when i was finally investing in a full set of full-frame lenses i'm going to cram in tons of examples that you can get with each different lens from gimbal work to handheld work yes this shot is handheld all of the footage you're seeing today will be graded and my opinions will be rather anecdotal as we're not going to be doing any pixel peeping comparisons in this specific video [Music] hey friend levi here today i want to talk about the best lenses for full-frame video on the sony system and i think my answers are going to surprise you because i don't actually think it's a requirement to go the g master route with all the lenses that you choose so i'm going to talk through four lens options that i'm really happy with today and one of them that i kind of regret buying so if you forced me to only pick two lenses to go with or two lenses to start with i think the very first lens i would get would be the 24 to 105 because it checks the documentary filmmaker box and content creator box and then the 20 millimeter 1.8 as well those are just the two lenses that i absolutely am thrilled with so what do i even mean by best lenses for video on full frame well that comes down to what my specific needs are so there's three categories that were really important to me when i built up this kit for specific jobs this actually wouldn't be the best kit for video and specifically with client work and some of the documentary stuff i do i actually vastly prefer manual lenses where i get control over a nice smooth focused throw i've got a nice big monitor i can see the image i can see if it's in focus and i've got full control but these days a big part of what i'm doing is content creation so things like youtube here i need a set of lenses that can perform well with the autofocus capabilities that we get in these cameras this is my biggest pain point with shooting with my gh5 system were autofocus it was sketchy as can be so that was the big reasoning behind narrowing down my focus to native mount lenses i did not want to do adapters and stuff for my personal kit because let's just be honest here if you're using adapters the amount of lenses that are available and the different styles of image that you can get it's just it's just endless so specifically here i'm talking about native mount lenses that i think are great for video and when you search up lenses which one is the most sharp which one's the most this that doesn't always factor in what does the usability of that lens feel like when you go to shoot with it so a lot of the g master lenses that are available don't actually have internal stabilization in the lens itself and that's actually really important to me as a filmer because so much of what i do now with my documentary filmmaking is handheld i used to take a monopod with me everywhere i went so that way i could get nice stable footage that didn't have that dslr style shake but now that we've got stabilized sensors i'm fired up on that a full frame stabilized sensor with stabilized lenses those two together create a handheld system that frankly i don't like shooting without these days anymore i'll start with my absolute favorite purchase lens so far the best bang for your buck i think for what i'm getting out of it and that is the 20 millimeter 1.8 it's not the g master it's not the 24 1.4 nope it's just a 1.8 and it's a 20 millimeter [Music] okay now this here is a great example of kind of a bread and butter shot for me as a content creator is just the talking headshot straight to the camera and uh it's tight in my production van where i end up filming a lot of these so getting the camera far away from me is not always an option like i can just reach out and touch the lens here and what i found was 24 millimeters is just a little bit too tight in here to get a shot wide enough where i can crop in and out of it to get rid of my uh my my little arms and eyes as i'm talking and just make the the video flow in the edit the build quality of this lens is great to me it almost seems imperceptible from that of the g master variants it's really lightweight and the autofocus works fantastic here i'm going to walk towards the lens and just watch how effortlessly it tracks in on me without any rapid pulsing or anything like that weight wise it's very similar to that of my 55 millimeter prime so when i'm doing gimbal work for client stuff i can often just swap in between the two lenses without doing a full rebalance which makes it really easy for getting lots of coverage but i honestly hardly ever shoot gimbal stuff these days unless it's kind of more the corporate route or a specialty thing i do so much handheld work for those familiar with how i shot with my gh5 in the past the 12 millimeter 1.4 basically lived on that camera so often for me and this 20 mil is kind of the direct replacement for how i then shoot on the a7s and so it's important to note that when i go from standard in body stabilization to active stabilization there's a digital crop so it actually makes the lens end up behaving closer to what you'd be familiar with with a 24 millimeter that's again another big reason why i like that extra bit of width to the frame because i'm so often shooting my handheld stuff at 20 millimeters with active stabilization and my not so secret secret about editing 4k video is that i'm very willing in a 4k timeline to scale clips up to 150 percent and beyond to get a tighter shot even up to 180 200 percent and the reality is once it gets exported out to web video the resolution holds up just fine and only the most persnickety uh pixel peeping type people will notice that i did that and to me that's totally fine i'll talk about the various stabilization modes and comparisons deeper in this video in regards to different lens setups and whatnot but something that's really cool is that you can turn stabilization off altogether and then use catalyst browse to analyze the gyroscopic data from the camera and do a post stabilization the 20 mil works fantastic for this again because the extra wide frame and the results just kind of seem like magic it's kind of incredible how good it works and these were all just shot handheld with me on my onewheel and the before and afters the shake difference is just kind of crazy it's wide enough that i can just grab my camera without the need of a switch pot or like you know a gorillapod or something like that to get it really out there so you can fit yourself in frame you just hold the camera right next to you it's nice and light a 16 to 35 f 2.8 isn't necessarily gonna get you a look like this uh so that's why uh running the prime for that wide shot has got a special place in my heart moving right along let's talk about my next all-time favorite lens for the way that i'm shooting and that is going to be the 24-105 f4 optically stabilized this is just a classic focal length in the full-frame world this is what i use when i was shooting on 5d rentals back in the day and the reason for this is that this coverage it's hard to argue with how helpful it is when you're trying to just film things fast it's not always the case where swapping between my lenses is easy so if i can show up at a location filming dock work filming client work i can get my wide shots and then immediately punch into 105 and get a lot of those tighter frames that to me is just massively beneficial for a quickly moving system the performance out of this lens i think most people would be concerned if they're going they just think you know i need depth of field i need depth of field but when you get into these deeper ranges on the lens 50 and beyond at f4 you're you're still getting depth of field [Music] i hope you can tell that i really like this lens and that i'm trying to make a case for it i just think it's a really good value both from a price standpoint and a weight standpoint and when you throw it on your camera you can get your wides and your telephotos with the same lens there's this interesting obsession with those just starting out that every single zoom lens has to be the widest aperture possible and in my experience especially with zoom lenses that just isn't the case take the 24-70 g master for instance that lens is f 2.8 and over twice the cost of the 24 to 105 and i would argue it's actually at a disadvantage in some ways for video because it doesn't have internal lens stabilization and doing my tests between these two lenses i was very happy with the performance of the 24-105 the 24-70 is definitely going to do better on stills but again stills is not my priority i would much rather have the slightly extended telephoto reach of the 105 and internal lens [Music] stabilization another benefit about the lens being so light is that if i use it on a gimbal i can zoom the lens in and get some tight shots without rebalancing and the motors on the rs2 can keep up with it as long as i'm not moving too aggressively we just used this setup recently on a helicopter shoot we were doing for a client we filmed a whole behind the scenes of it that's going to be available on the atomous channel the footage this is just the tease the footage is so good so this is the 70-200 that nick has this is a 2.8 this is an absolutely gorgeous lens and arguably i should have it in my kit investing in this one how much is this this is thousands of dollars canadian at three grand this is close to three grand canadian so this is a specialty lens the the photos that you can get with this the stuff that nick shoots with this is just stunning and honestly getting to that 200 mil for photography is amazing in video there's less times that getting to that 200 mil is super helpful for me if i wanted super telephoto range i might even be more inclined to go the 100 to 400 millimeter route so that way i can really get in there for me if i'm running all my lenses out of one backpack and i'm trying to make decisions about what other equipment i'm taking with me there's a weight and size difference that's happening between these two lenses and let me just say i've made the mistake in the past when i've rented in full frame lenses for video shoots uh i just i tend to go we're renting let's just get the lowest aperture let's get the best lenses and when those f 2.8 lenses come in and they're these big chunky boys and you're trying to pack that into your bag and suddenly you're realizing you're at like a 50 pound bag and half of that is glass it makes you start to question your life choices when you've got that when you've got to now hike that in for several days we've got two more lenses that we're going to address and also some variants and some other tests coming but i want to talk about another piece of my kit as a content creator that is very helpful for getting good results because we can't just do a video on lenses without acknowledging a massively important part about video which is lighting learning how to film and light yourself well can definitely level up your projects and it's often quite a bit easier than most people expect and i actually do get questions about this setup in here and how you can achieve something like this at home quite often and the biggest factor is it's not quantity of lights or those kinds of things it's actually just controlling where the light comes from and shaping it yourself so i encourage people to make sure that they're filming in a room that they have control over the light so you'll often see you know i'm putting up my window covers i'm not letting light come in from outside because i want to be able to tell the light to come from somewhere and so all i've got right now is one light right here threw some diffusion on my face and that's what gets us this look and when i get questions about what lights do i use and what can i get on a budget what do i get when i'm starting out what can i travel with i'm often flustered a little bit because a lot of the lighting equipment that i've invested into is for the production company so it's this bigger larger more expensive systems and so for this shot right here i actually lit this with a nice little uh tiny portable light that's actually brought to you by the sponsor this video so let me tell you about it it's uh from lume cube and they've got this little thing called the broadcast kit and this is the panel go so they've got this credit card like light or i guess it's more like an iphone size but it is it's shocking how tiny this light is it's really small and it has a built-in battery and this is the bi-color panel so this little panel is actually what's letting me right now i'll tell you how i achieve that in a sec but this little thing is sweet and so it's usb-c rechargeable and it's geared towards just being flexible so if you want to run it on your camera and get some product shots or use it as a documentary light for filling in when lighting is sparse they've got this little fold-out stand where you don't need all this extra lighting grip equipment you can just pull out this little stand run the light off that and get it off your camera to side light an object to get some rim light going and if you want to jump up another level i really like these fold out soft boxes that's what i'm using right here this one's called the defuse and you can put that over basically any small light and it's going to really expand the light source makes your light nice and soft so you don't get those contrasty lines on your face and then you can also take it from your zoom setup at home at your desk and then you can go out with whatever it is that you're making with your camera it's just a really flexible addition to your kit um i'm quite impressed with these and uh thanks loom cube for sponsoring this video check out the link down below for more loom cube lights and i recommend the broadcast kit okay so we've covered the 20 mil and the 24 to 105 purchases that i'm very happy with i explained my reasoning now let's talk through my last two lenses and uh especially why one of them i'd swap out for a different variant to cover the same range the 55 millimeter f 1.8 maybe you're starting to sense a theme here with my prime lenses f 1.8 and the reason why i went with this primarily is because it's lighter and it's auto focusing video is really good [Music] [Applause] [Music] this did feel like the biggest risk out of any lens that i had purchased for my kit so far primarily because i'd personally had zero experience with it and i didn't know anybody else that had this lens in their kit so i was basically just going primarily off online reviews and there's a lot of 50 millimeters that are available it's got the name nifty 50 for a reason it's kind of the go-to starting point lens for a lot of people and there's some really affordable options in this range that you can get stunning images with down to like 150 bucks you can get a 50 millimeter lens so was it worth it going almost close to a thousand dollars for this little guy yes and no but mostly yes it is hard to understate how tiny this guy is just throwing this on a small camera and running around with it it's so inconspicuous light and fast and easy to use it's awesome optically it's stunning and the autofocus works really really well which this was my biggest concern with some of the other 50 millimeters that you could buy was with the larger lens elements and the f 1.4 versions i was just worried that the focus motors might be not as smooth in tracking subjects up to the camera it is a prime lens and that's where the in body active stabilization on the sony becomes really handy it actually does a great job canceling out the handheld jitters of shooting with this handheld again i used to always use a monopod for shooting with the 50 and the fact i can get these stable shots handheld with this prime is really exciting to me running this lens on a gimbal is really fun and that auto focus being able to track a subject matter while gambling is just such a treat the main downside of this lens is that it's close focus distance like it can't like right there we're out of focus so here i'm trying to focus on this flower right there and it's too close to the lens so if i back up a little bit back up a little bit there it is so for me to this flower this is how far away i have to be from an object to get it in frame and in focus okay i want to show you what the different stabilization modes look like right now we don't have any turned on so you can see some of that nice handheld shake we're going to go to standard so this is just the sensor really smooths things out and then we'll go up to active and you'll see it punch in there's the punch in so active is using some digital and it really makes it oh we're going to focus shift because i'm on auto focus nice in my experience good lens stabilization is superior to in-body stabilization however when you have both in-body and lens stabilization they are working together in tandem for even better results that being said i have not had great experience using adapters to different lens mounts to get this dual image stabilization effect okay the last lens uh and the one that i regret and so i try steer you otherwise if you want to cover this focal range 16 to 35 f4 this is the optical steady shot version so i opted for this over the 16-35 g master because the g-master is really expensive it's bigger and i thought optical steady shot on this lens is going to be more helpful than it is uh truth is optical steady shot on a really wide lens like this just it's not that helpful if you have internal stabilization already so i'm not getting tons of benefit from this lens trying to stabilize in my opinion so this lens was a compromise to try get that optical stabilization and the lighter weight both compromises which turned out to actually not be that great and my whole theory about not needing f 2.8 zoom lenses kind of falls apart if you're wanting any kind of depth of field with a wide angle so if you're unfamiliar with lenses and mechanics in the way that the focus plane works your focus plane is a lot deeper naturally on a wide angle lens so f4 at 16 millimeters that focus plane is going to be much deeper than it is at 50 millimeters on a zoom lens this is something certainly to consider if you're wanting to get any kind of background separation with your subject matter while using the 16 to 35 if you're shooting it at the wide end you're not going to get much background separation at all whereas with the 16 to 35 g master you do get some of that background separation and that blurry look [Music] now turn off of the g master version again is that it's quite expensive so another option that i should have considered here and i'd recommend to you is the tamron version which a lot of people have had some really fantastic results with i wish that i had chosen this lens over the 16-35 f4 that i got and i know sony just did release that super wide prime with the low aperture i think it's a 14 millimeter something like that problem with that is you're getting into a rounded front element that you can't put filters on and for me being able to run filters on the lenses is kind of a make or break because uh i'm not going to always be putting on a big map box when i'm out on the field so being able to put screw-on filters is really important to me so that's why i probably wouldn't go that route myself but man that lens would be amazing for shooting astro photography this this lens is not that great for astrophotography it can sort of do it but it's not that great so i guess in closing if you're still watching this if you're the kind of person who has been doing some research on lenses or maybe you've followed my work for a little bit and you're wondering what kind of lenses i've been using if you've been in the head space that you've got to have those 2.8 zooms that you've got to have the most expensive version of each prime i would say you don't um and no the the lenses that i'm shooting with aren't budget uh there's still hundreds and hundreds of dollars uh some of them over a thousand dollars like they're expensive lenses nick's bumping my tripod uh but the thing is is that when you're like you don't there's i hope i've communicated here that there actually is some benefits to the smaller versions as well and you're saving money and i think in the video world those cons that you're thinking of it's cost benefit right it's always the pros and cons when you're deciding what to carry with you but if i'm upping all of my lenses to that next step up the size gets bigger my cost up front gets bigger i'm losing stabilization on some of them in summation of the kit that i've been shooting with for the last eight months i've been really pleased with the a7s iii for basically being a content creation machine and a documentary machine it works really well when i show up for my client work it's doing what i'm asking of it and also i feel like you've been able to notice in some of the videos i've made in the last eight months like some of them you know the production value is going up and that's opened up by a kit that the autofocus is just so dependable the lens choices are awesome my low-light capabilities are opened wide up especially i think a good example of that is the one wheel video that we've been showing you some footage from like the low light one wheel gimbal shots with the 55 on there like that's just some really cool style of shooting and the autofocus worked amazing so is anything gonna fly away off that table i'm scared it's gonna flip over that is where i'm at with my a7s3 i'm really happy with that investment i don't review cameras on the channel very often or overview them so i'm sorry i don't give more updates on the tech stuff if there is tech stuff that you're interested in we could maybe consider making some more follow-ups but i just kind of wanted to cram that all in here at the end if you've been curious about what levi's been using for his kit because i know i've seen those questions and i haven't done a good job of answering them that's it for this video thank you for watching and following along we'll catch you in the next one if you're interested in adventure filmmaking stuff certainly check out the adventure film academy links below the education stuff that we do that we'll catch in the next video remember life's better when you make stuff

Channel: Levi Allen

Views: 217,757

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Id: DwTxg7QLYoo

Length: 22min 47sec (1367 seconds)

Published: Sun May 23 2021