Good Starter Lens

[John Mulhern]

Hey guys! New to the forum and was thinking you guys could help me out!

I've been doing independent film work for the past five years, with the last couple being a little bit slower than I would have preferred. I'm now looking to get back into the game, and with the recent surge of great HDSLR cameras for video, it seems the way to go.

As is the life of most college students, I am somewhat limited on funds. This has helped me land on the Canon 60D, which has a lot of really great video features at a really impressive price. Now comes the hard part, lenses.

Since I'm pretty much spending all my money on the body itself, I find myself looking for a reasonably inexpensive, yet good all-around lens. I'd like to keep it somewhere under $400. Maybe $500 if need be. I'd like to get a lot more lenses in the future, but this way I could get back to work in a reasonable amount of time.

Thank you guys so much for your time, and I appreciate all answers!

[Daniel W.]

What will you be shooting?

[Tom]

Not just lenses.

The in-camera audio sucks. What will you do about microphone? Most guys record separately.

Software?

Stabilization? Believe it or not, those little cameras are not too stable. Unless you want to be filming Blair Witch-type flicks, you need to stabilize it.

For lenses, I suggest going with primes. Because these HDSLRs are pretty much manual focus only, you should use a prime, because you need one hand to hold it, one hand to focus, and then you are short a hand to zoom it.

35mm 2
50mm 1.8
85mm 1.8

All good, relatively inexpensive choices. Plus they will let in 2x to 8x as much light as a zoom.

[tukaniray]

If you want a zoom ... the third party lenses do the video side very well.

Like the 28-70(75) of the Tamron or Sigma ... or even the 17-50(55) of the Tamron or Sigma.

I agree with Thomas ... you will need to have a separate device for audio is you are going to do a big push for the video. Unless you are creating a music video where the BRoll ambient noise isn't necessary.

This is why I still use dedicated HD Pro-camcorders for video use.

Plus the HDSLRs do not record TC. Which for those using it as an ENG camcorder ... you need the TC.

-Ray-