Need advice. Nikon or Canon mount?

[Eric Haase]

OK after a lot of lens comparisons and thought I concluded that for someone with no previous DSLR lens collection it's best to go Canon mount for the Epic (although I consider myself to be a Nikon guy).

As for lens, I think that the Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L looks excellent optically and will suit my needs! Does anybody know what the EPIC's cropping factor does to this lens? The 24-70 is equivalent to what in cinema world?

Its a 24-70. So on your red camera, at 24mm it will yield the same field of view as your red zoom when set to 24mm.

[Miltos Pilalitos]

Cool! :D

I am slightly old school. Ages ago when we were using lenses for 35mm cameras on S16 cameras we had to take into consideration the change in focal length. The canon lens is for a Full Frame sensor so I thought that something similar applied there.

[Stephen Williams]

Cool! :D

I am slightly old school. Ages ago when we were using lenses for 35mm cameras on S16 cameras we had to take into advantage the change in focal length. The canon lens is for a Full Frame sensor so I thought that something similar applied there.

There was never a change in focal length when you use a 35mm lens on S16 in fact with modern lenses they are identical however the extra wide ones only cover S16. A standard set for S16 the no's will be half however!

[Miltos Pilalitos]

Well, the focal length might have stayed unchanged but a lens for a 35mm camera was giving as a narrower field of view on our s16 cameras.

[Aleksandar Colancevski]

Thanks for the offer Aleksandar! That beer sounds tempting. :D

If we leave focusing issues aside for a second, how well do your Nikons perform optically on the Epic?

Well, if you focus it right with 5.6 to 8 stop, you get a decent picture. I don't believe that Canons are worse that much that you will notice.
Then again I think better to be in focus on "worse" lens then out of focus on "better lenses.
I would take Canon 24-105mm which is solid replacement for RED 18-85mm and de noise in post if sometimes the lens it too slow because of its f4 minimum stop.

[nick allsop]

The mm don't change it's just that the field of view changes when used on different sensor sizes. So when shooting 2 k the field of view is like using 16 mm as the sensor crops in. A full frame SLR lens would have the same fov as a pl mount lens on a red. But if you put it on a full frames SLR it would have a wider fov.

[Victor Lazaro]

For your focal lens dilemmas, check this: http://www.abelcine.com/fov/

[Miltos Pilalitos]

For your focal lens dilemmas, check this: http://www.abelcine.com/fov/

Thanks for the link Victor.

[Danai Chutinaton]

I recently acidentally discovered that if you put your follow focus on top rods it will reverse its focus direction. Good cheap solution to those of us who occasionally use nikon lenses without a follow focus that can change focus direction. Just pick up an inexpensive top rod mounting solution from x.

[Danai Chutinaton]

At the moment, I believe the convinience of the electronic Canon mount is the way to go for one man band road trip. Get a lens with image stabilization because that works really well! I just did a shoot with the Canon EF-S 17-55 f2.8 lens. And it was a joy to use hand held. but make sure u bring you camera to test out the lens when you buy as not all lenses are "profiled" so not all of them work perfectly with the canon mount.