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Video on CMos APS-C sensor, using Leica glass


IkarusJohn

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I've been playing with video using Leica M lenses on an APS-C sensor camera. I'm no videographer, but I've found some things that might be of wider interest.

 

With a 1.5 crop, your lenses become effectively longer (15->22; 21->32; 35->52; 50->75; 75->112). This means that camera shake and vibration becomes more critical. It's really about wides.

 

Also, with longer effective focal length and smaller sensor, depth of field gets shallower.

 

No zoom; you only have primes.

 

You do get to select your aperture directly, and manual focus is fantastic (with peaking focus confirmation - it's very nice).

 

With a fixed focal length, you need to be careful about point of view. It can become very static, and if you move, it can be jerky.

 

So, I'm finding that old fashioned planning with pencil and paper, thinking ahead and staging each shot segment becomes more important. Using an electronic view finder (rather than the LCD screen) makes a huge difference.

 

With a reduction from 16 MP's to 2 MP's, I'm not confident of the quality yet. But, for home quality 1080 HD, it actually looks like it will be lots of fun.

 

Cheers

John

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Which camera are you using? I've often flirted with this idea in the past. I wanted to shoot a short film on a GH1 (or whatever the most current model is) and a set of 24, 35, 50, Summilux lenses.

 

But eventually the practicality factor just put me off. Pulling focus on such a petit rig is just too much of a pain. Also, these Leica lenses (as amazing as they are) are not built for video and it shows: lens "breathes" too much, focus shifts when changing apertures, definitive aperture settings as opposed to a fluid ring, etc etc.

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