Camera Lense HELP!

[benzo41190]

I Googled around and looked at some "wide angle" lenses and I am a little confused.

 

-What is the difference between a "Macro" lanse and a "wide angle lense"

-how do you make your video look professional? I mean look at the Mirbilandia video on the Bonus disk on the Japan DVD, then look at a normal video. I has that professional look to it........does that have to do with a filter?

-do you have to spend $150.00 on a wide angle lense?

-If you buy one, can you gey multiple sized threads?

 

I looked but couldnt find any answers

 

--Thank You

[robbalvey]

I Googled around and looked at some "wide angle" lenses and I am a little confused.

 

-What is the difference between a "Macro" lanse and a "wide angle lense"

 

I honestly have no idea. I use a stock Sony wide angle lens for my camera. Model # VCL-0625

 

-how do you make your video look professional? I mean look at the Mirbilandia video on the Bonus disk on the Japan DVD, then look at a normal video. I has that professional look to it........does that have to do with a filter?

Not sure what you mean. I just shoot and edit. There is no other filters or magic or anything else. What do you mean by "normal video." And what is the "professional look" you are talking about?

 

-do you have to spend $150.00 on a wide angle lense?

The Sony one I have is about $50

 

-If you buy one, can you gey multiple sized threads?

Yes you can buy adapters for them.

 

Hope this all helps!

 

--Robb

[benzo41190]

I mean if you look at a normal video without editing, it looks like a home movie. Then you look at other ones like.....

-Mirbilandia

-Top Gun

-Bumps and Bruises

-Sea World

they all look differnt from a normal home video. That was why I was wondering if that had to do with a filter or not.

 

Also, if I do buy a Wide Angle lense, and I buy an adapter to fit my camera......would it have a "fish eye" effect because it is not made for that camera.....I have a Panasonic I know there was one video that had a fish eye affect, and the picture looked rounded and warped.

 

 

Thank You for the help.

[WalrusMan]

Photo geek here to clear up the Macro and Wide Angle Lens issue.

 

A Macro Lens has a 1 to 1 ratio, if you're using 35 mm film then the object you are photographing will have to be smaller than that piece of film to use true macro mode.

 

A Wide Angle Lens is a lens that has a shorter focal length than your normal lens. It compresses your photo so you can get more of what you're shooting into the photo.

 

The opposite of the wide angle lens is the telephoto lens. THe telephoto lens expands the photo so you get less of what you're shooting.

 

Complicated kinda those last 2, I hate remembering those.

 

Also the fish eye effect is only achieved on VERY wide angle lenses.

[benzo41190]

^Thank You

 

But now, if I do get a 30mm Sony Wide Angle lense (VCL-0625) , and put it on a 27mm Panasonic camera......will it look differnt or change the picture of what it should be? Also, do these adapters affect the effect of the Wide Angle lense...or....will it still be "wide angled"?

[robbalvey]

I think what you are seeing in some of those other videos (Miribilandia, etc) is the PAL to NTSC coversion. It's shot on the same type of DV tape, but the video standard is different.

 

Personally, I think PAL does look better than NTSC.

 

--Robb

[Meteornotes]

^Agreed, and considering that many TV engineers thing that NTSC stands for "never the same color", I think many people agree PAL looks better.

 

Of course, HDTV kicks the ass of everything. I'm looking forward to HD cameras getting cheaper...

 

dt

[Real]

^Good luck waiting. They are starting at like 2G's right now. They do look STUNNING though.

[WalrusMan]

^Thank You

 

But now, if I do get a 30mm Sony Wide Angle lense (VCL-0625) , and put it on a 27mm Panasonic camera......will it look differnt or change the picture of what it should be? Also, do these adapters affect the effect of the Wide Angle lense...or....will it still be "wide angled"?

 

I'm assuming you're meaning the width of the lens? The camera should have a normal focal length (50 mm on a 35 mm camera I believe) and then you can determine the wide angle focal lengths (shorter) and telephoto focal lengths (longer). For instance, I have a 28 mm wide angle lens and a 70-210 telephoto lens. (I know I'm talking all about regular still photography here but the focal lengths still matter.) If you're talking about using a 30 mm width lens and putting it on a 27 mm width camera, you would have to use an adapter, effectively englengthening (did I just make a new word?) and creating a normal focal length lens.

 

After looking into it a bit, the 30 mm is the focal length for the lens. If you're putting it on a camera that has a normal focal length of 27 mm then the 30 mm lens would create a telephoto effect. You'd have to go to a lens less than the 27 mm focal length to get a wide angle lens.

 

 

 

Phew....I think that's my longest post here ever.

[Jew]

^^Keep in mind those "cheap" HD cameras are all HDV recording cameras. Since HDV is mpeg-2 based, it's good for some things, but the compression makes it completely useless for other things (such as coaster videos...fast motion+HDV=death).

 

The new Panasonic P2 based camera is a step in the right direction, but the P2 cards are still really expensive to offset the cheap cost of getting to record in the DVCPROHD (100mbps) codec.

[benzo41190]

but I looked around and i could not find any lenses that were smaller then 27mm. And if they were, they were like 150.00-300.00 and that is way too much. I did find a page were they put a 30mm wide angle lense on differnt cameras and saw what it looked like. When they put the lense on the camera I have, it didnt do anything. I was said that it was just an extra peice of glass.

 

So I guess that 30mm lense is out of the question.....

 

I think what you are seeing in some of those other videos (Miribilandia, etc) is the PAL to NTSC coversion. It's shot on the same type of DV tape, but the video standard is different.

 

so is that done when you edit the video? Also, would you have to get a certain program for you to do that....I have some home video (not coaster footage) that would look good with that conversion.

[robbalvey]

PAL is the video standard used in Europe. NTSC is what we use here in the USA. You would need to buy a PAL video camera from Europe to shoot in PAL.

 

I had to convert it to NTSC to be able to put it on our DVDs and have it play on your TV set, otherwise it doesn't work because the two systems are not really compatible. This is the program I use:

 

http://www.dvfilm.com/atlantis/

 

--Robb

[benzo41190]

$200.00 :shock:!!!!

 

Now that is PAL to NTSC, do you have to convert it to burn a DVD?

[WillMontu]

If you capture it into your PC, you can select if you want to capture PAL or NTSC footage. Once it's in your PC, it doesn't matter. It's just a video file.

 

On a side note: Does anyone know of any [free] program that converts movie files to DVD video? I have Nero, but it refuses to actually burn DVD movies.

 

Also another question: I got a $30 wide angle lense from Best Buy, but the included connectors do not fit my camera. Where can I buy an adapter? It works fine with duct tape, but I'd prefer a more permanent solution.

[benzo41190]

what kind of camera do you have?

what is the size of your current lense?

what is the size of the wide angle lense?

what sizes were the adapters?

how was the picture when the wide angle lense was placed?

 

Sorry for all the questions but it will help me.

 

 

Thank you for your help

[slick]

Just an update on the whole "NTSC" and "PAL" thing...

 

Like Robb said, it's basically that PAL is used across Europe, Australia and what not, but the two key differences between PAL and NTSC is the black and white colour system and the fact that NTSC runs at an uber lame 29.99 frames per second compared to PAL, which is 25 frames per second, the same as academy version film (movies in the cinema, which are also 25 frames a second).

 

That's propably how you're picking up that "professional" feel about it, because the eye doesn't notice the 5 frames of difference anyway, but it gives the same sort of feel as a cinema version film. Kind of hard to explain but yeah.

 

Also, that's the reason why NTSC televisions won't run PAL (even though alot PAL TVs can do NTSC) is that the 5 frames difference and that colour system can do nasty things to a television if the feed its getting is different.

 

Enjoy!