I’ve given a lot of thought to lenses this last week. The reason being that I was filming with a 5D mkIII and my longest lens was the 24-105 zoom. I’ve spent most of my filming career using 16mm, various formats of digital video and occasionally 35mm. The long focal length in these formats were readily available or part of the zoom lens on video cameras. The Angenieux 12-120 on the old Arri SR covered wide to telephoto. My use of various lenses in different formats in still photography was pretty average. A 150mm in 4X5, the trusty 50mm on my SLR and the fixed lens on my Rollei was a 75mm.

So what is the point of this post? Well, I really need to think about the format I’m shooting with when heading out for the next shoot. On the wider end of lenses a millimeter or two really makes the difference, but on the long end it will take a lot more. Jumping from film and digital cinema focal lengths to the 5D is a big jump. 100mm is only slightly telephoto. See you soon Canon 70-200mm 2.8.