lens for cinematic look

jamiebonline · Jun 9, 2015

Hi everyone,

I have recently read some articles about achieving a cinematic look with a lens and I would be interested in your thoughts. I am particularly interested in the use of 28 and 35 mm lenses and how they do on crop bodies. Recently I bought a 19mm and put it on a crop body. This gives an equivalent fov of 28.5, I believe. Now I was thinking, obviously wrongly, that I would get images similar to 28mm on a full frame camera but it seems I am not. The reason I think I am not, is because when I compare the images I took on my 19 with the 28mm as used by Spielberg, for example, the distortion in my pictures is so much more. Essentially rendering them useless for even half body shots of subjects and vertical lines on the edges are not anywhere near straight.

Staying with field of view, what do you think is a cinematic look on a crop body camera? Considering the 28 and 35 formats that seem to be referred to most often.

(I hope this doesn't start another argument about the fact that cropping doesn't changing the focal lengths of lenses

I know it doesn't physically change the focal length of a lens to put it on a crop body but it does change the fov and there is hardly anything more important than that, no?)

J

waday · Jun 9, 2015

The Cinematic Look How To Make Your Photographs Look Like Films Fstoppers

That might help a bit.. You might be able to obtain the look you want via post processing using your current setup than through additional equipment.

MartinCrabtree · Jun 9, 2015

I believe a lot of the cinematic "look" is the precise attention they pay to the lighting.

Not to mention they have visualized exactly what they want to portray and go to great lengths to get exactly that vision captured. It's not all that different from a great photographer.

unpopular · Jun 9, 2015

While it is true that even if you took a $15,000 Cooke or Zeiss cinema lens onto even a full frame camera you would not get the "cinematic" look (whatever that is), I think the issue here is much more fundamental - that a 19mm lens is still a 19mm lens on crop as it is full frame. The only aspect that changes is field of view. However, a 19mm lens will not otherwise emulate a 28mm lens.

The discrepancy between the lens you're wanting and the lens you have seems to, at least from my experience, become more pronounced with shorter focal lengths. A 35mm lens on a crop sensor seems a lot more like a 50, than a 28mm feels like a 45 - and still, I find myself reaching for my 45 or 50, focal lengths I enjoyed while shooting 35mm, before my 35 or 28.

The same likewise goes for large format - but even moreso. a 120mm lens should be normal (iirc), yet feels completely different. I'm sure there are technical reasons for all of this.

As for color, yes. Film makers spend a lot of time color correcting and "grading" footage before you see it. In fact, there is an entire department of "colorists" that do just that. With digital post production, this is much more involved and a lot of time lighting is likewise spent thinking about grading later on. If you look at raw footage from a $15,000 lens on a $50,000 camera, to a lay person it looks pretty bad.

Dave442 · Jun 9, 2015

I think you want to use the 28mm on your crop body, the crop body is probably closer to the Super 35 movie film size. Anyway, you mentioned Spielberg so check what his actual film size was when using the 28mm lens.

Derrel · Jun 9, 2015

I used to be a theater projectionist, and have seen many movies by many directors, and I have no idea,exactly, what you mean by "cinematic look" because there is no one such defined thing as a "cinematic look". Old movies were shot on B&W film, and were shot and shown in the standard "flat" aspect ratio, on a fairly squat, almost square movie screen; the latest movies are often in a super-wide aspect ratio like 16:9, and are shot on ultra high-definition video cinema cameras; somewhere between those extremes there must be a dozen or more cinematic looks, and each and every one apply only to motion pictures, not still photos.

One of the main differences between APS-C and FF digital is the actual working distances that the prime lens lengths allow/enable/force. With crop-frame cameras, you end up moving farther away to use the prime lenses...which changes both perspective, but also depth of field. Perspective is regulated by camera-to-subject distance. Many people are familiar with simple mathematical "equivalence" calculation factors, but they often overlook something very critical, which is how physically CLOSE or FAR the camera is from the subject(s) being photographed.

Prime lenses "force" the camera to be certain distances away from subjects, in order to make traditional images, like say, the full-length formal pose. With an APS-C camera and an 85mm prime, the camera needs to be at 35 feet; with an FF camera and the same lens, the camera needs to be at 20 feet exactly; BOTH shots have an 8.45 foot tall image area. Bottom line: camera-to-subject distance, and perspective, are directly related, and the two different format, APS-C, and FF digital, behave differently. Very briefly: the APS-C format has deeper depth of field on many types of shots and scenes than do bigger formats. The "look" of APS-C is one marked by decent depth of field on many shots; at longer distances, like 25 to 100 feet, APS-C makes it almost impossible to throw a background out of focus enough for it to have a strong foreground/background separation, except with supertelephoto lenses.

Again, I am not sure what you actually mean by cinematic look, because there are multiple "looks" that are possible.

480sparky · Jun 9, 2015

Horror?
Western?
Action?
Chick Flick?
Musical?
Sci-Fi?
Childrens?
Historical?
War?
Disaster?
Romance?
Thriller?
Guy Movie?
Fantasy?
Sports?
Supernatural?
Biographical?
Suspense?

Each one has a different 'look', so there really isn't such a thing as a 'cinematic look'.

Scatterbrained · Jun 9, 2015

jamiebonline said:
Hi everyone,

I have recently read some articles about achieving a cinematic look with a lens and I would be interested in your thoughts. I am particularly interested in the use of 28 and 35 mm lenses and how they do on crop bodies. Recently I bought a 19mm and put it on a crop body. This gives an equivalent fov of 28.5, I believe. Now I was thinking, obviously wrongly, that I would get images similar to 28mm on a full frame camera but it seems I am not. The reason I think I am not, is because when I compare the images I took on my 19 with the 28mm as used by Spielberg, for example, the distortion in my pictures is so much more. Essentially rendering them useless for even half body shots of subjects and vertical lines on the edges are not anywhere near straight.

Staying with field of view, what do you think is a cinematic look on a crop body camera? Considering the 28 and 35 formats that seem to be referred to most often.

(I hope this doesn't start another argument about the fact that cropping doesn't changing the focal lengths of lenses I know it doesn't physically change the focal length of a lens to put it on a crop body but it does change the fov and there is hardly anything more important than that, no?)

J

What do you consider a "cinematic" look? As MartinCrabtree pointed out, a lot of what makes movies look the way they do is the precise control over lighting, set pieces, and the color palette as a whole. Cinematographers use whatever focal length they need to get the scene they want.

jamiebonline · Jun 9, 2015

Thanks for your replies

I release light and colour are very important. I was only talking about focal length. I thought there was a focal length standard, more or less but it seems not. Nonetheless, if you google 'cinematic look in photography' you get articles mentioning different focal lengths typical and photographs that look, to my eyes, like stills from movies but I thought I'd put it here to get other feedback and also considering the crop factor. Maybe focal length is not very relevant...

Scatterbrained · Jun 9, 2015

jamiebonline said:
Thanks for your replies

I release light and colour are very important. I was only talking about focal length. I thought there was a focal length standard, more or less but it seems not. Nonetheless, if you google 'cinematic look in photography' you get articles mentioning different focal lengths typical and photographs that look, to my eyes, like stills from movies but I thought I'd put it here to get other feedback and also considering the crop factor. Maybe focal length is not very relevant...

Bear in mind that the term "cinematic" has become quite the buzz word in photography lately. I think there are some people who literally describe their work as "cinematic" simply because they used their own lights for the shot. What I have found however is that many photographers who consider their work "cinematic" tend to employ some sort of color grading, shoot horizontally, and tend to shoot with normal to wide angle lenses (think of the range on a standard zoom). Meanwhile, if you study cinema, you'll see all sorts of focal lengths employed.

binga63 · Jun 10, 2015

hmmm anamorphic lens may give you the feel I think that you mean....Shooting with an Anamorphic Lens on an Ordinary DSLR

Dao · Jun 10, 2015

19mm is quite wide and in general you will see the distortion like you described regardless of the recording medium. Of course, the level of distortion varies from manufacturer to manufacturer. I do not think there is away around it with your situation. If you need a 35mm lens, you just need to get a 35mm lens. The field of view varies with recording medium size. However, the optical property of the lens stay the same.

bribrius · Jun 10, 2015

great thread. I have tried this as well.

bribrius · Jun 10, 2015

Derrel said:
I used to be a theater projectionist, and have seen many movies by many directors, and I have no idea,exactly, what you mean by "cinematic look" because there is no one such defined thing as a "cinematic look". Old movies were shot on B&W film, and were shot and shown in the standard "flat" aspect ratio, on a fairly squat, almost square movie screen; the latest movies are often in a super-wide aspect ratio like 16:9, and are shot on ultra high-definition video cinema cameras; somewhere between those extremes there must be a dozen or more cinematic looks, and each and every one apply only to motion pictures, not still photos.

One of the main differences between APS-C and FF digital is the actual working distances that the prime lens lengths allow/enable/force. With crop-frame cameras, you end up moving farther away to use the prime lenses...which changes both perspective, but also depth of field. Perspective is regulated by camera-to-subject distance. Many people are familiar with simple mathematical "equivalence" calculation factors, but they often overlook something very critical, which is how physically CLOSE or FAR the camera is from the subject(s) being photographed.

Prime lenses "force" the camera to be certain distances away from subjects, in order to make traditional images, like say, the full-length formal pose. With an APS-C camera and an 85mm prime, the camera needs to be at 35 feet; with an FF camera and the same lens, the camera needs to be at 20 feet exactly; BOTH shots have an 8.45 foot tall image area. Bottom line: camera-to-subject distance, and perspective, are directly related, and the two different format, APS-C, and FF digital, behave differently. Very briefly: the APS-C format has deeper depth of field on many types of shots and scenes than do bigger formats. The "look" of APS-C is one marked by decent depth of field on many shots; at longer distances, like 25 to 100 feet, APS-C makes it almost impossible to throw a background out of focus enough for it to have a strong foreground/background separation, except with supertelephoto lenses.

Again, I am not sure what you actually mean by cinematic look, because there are multiple "looks" that are possible.

I have tried it. Paused a bw movie on the tv and tried to process to mimic the "look". Thought about trying color more than once too. To be quite frank though, i am not that good at processing to come up with the same "look". I found it exceptionally difficult and gave up. I will probably try again though, just as i am in to that sort of thing. The looks changed as film changed. Duplicating something with whatever film from 1940 or 1950 or whatever, seems very challenging. I couldnt even pull off the bw one to any large varying degree of success never mind color. Really just a carry forward of trying to mimic period photography. Right up my alley personally. Great thread! I kinda of wish they made more types of still film so i could pick whatever i wanted from whatever period look it might equivocate to and just shoot it film. In my dream world that would be ideal.

vintagesnaps · Jun 10, 2015

If you look up Cinestill film that would give you an idea of how a cinematic film can look. But of course that doesn't give you a super wide shot (and I don't know what would work best with the crop factor) and I would think it could take some post processing to get the look digitally.