Shooting video with your DSLR or mirrorless camera and ready to invest in a set of your own lenses? Start building your “glass” kit with a trio of cine-style lenses chosen to suit your current shooting style and to keep for years to come. Choose from a classic 24/25, 50, and 75/85mm set, a trio of longer lenses to compress your depth of field for dramatic, intimate closeups, or a trifecta of wider focal lengths for travelogues, establishing shots, or immersive closeups. Here are a just a few selections from the array of digital cinema lenses available at B&H Photo, presented in order from entry-level options to serious investment choices.
Cine-Style Lenses
Each of these traditional cine-lens style lenses incorporates features like multicoated elements to improve contrast and reduce flare, a high iris-blade count for smooth bokeh, a wide degree of barrel rotation for precise focus pulling, and consistent gear placement to reduce time spent adjusting your matte box and follow focus system during lens changes. Some feature color matching across their series, the same size front element across their sets, luminous focus marks for easier viewing in dark environments, and focus marks on both sides of the lens barrel.
SLR Magic
If gimbals are your thing, pick up a wider trio of 12, 18, and 25mm MicroPrime Cine MFT lenses from SLR Magic to capture smooth walk-and-talks, expansive travel landscapes, or full coverage of concerts and other events. The robust, compact MicroPrime Cines feature a similar weight to lessen recalibration time, a common 85mm front, and an 82mm front thread for mounting a filter without the weight of a matte box. The MicroPrime Cines are also available in additional focal lengths up to 75mm in Fujifilm X-mount and Sony E mounts to cover larger sensors.
Rokinon
Cine DS: Rokinon’s entry-level-priced full-frame Cine DS line offers 11 focal lengths, ranging from 10 to 135mm. The Cine DS range is available in Canon EF, MFT, Nikon F, Sony A, and Sony E mounts, but note that not all focal lengths are available in all mounts. Try this B&H kit of longer Cine DS 85, 100, and 135mm primes in Canon EF, Nikon F, MFT, or Sony E-mount for a shallower depth-of-field look, for intimate interviews, or for closer wildlife shots.
Xeen
Or step up to Rokinon’s popular full-frame Xeen line in Canon EF, MFT, Nikon F, PL, and Sony E mounts with eight lenses, ranging from 14 to 135mm. Start your collection with the relatively wide 24mm, a classic 50mm, and a longer 85mm, available as pre-packaged trios in Canon EF and Sony E mounts, individually in all mounts, and as part of some larger sets. Each of the full-frame Xeens feature an 11-blade iris, 200° of focus rotation, and a common 114mm compatible with many pro matte box systems.
ZEISS
“Futureproof” your full-frame lens kit with interchangeable lens mount CP.3 primes from lens powerhouse ZEISS. The CP.3 (compact primes) lenses feature the crisp ZEISS look, color matching, a consistent T2.1 across most of the series, smooth focus gear rotation, and a common 95mmm front diameter. Choose a classic 35, 50, and 85mm EF-mount kit to start or select your own trio from the 10 lenses ranging from 15 to 135mm in Canon EF, MFT, Nikon F, or Sony E mounts. Separately available mounts like this Lens Mount for CP.3 15/50/85mm enable you to transform your CP.3 primes to an industry-standard PL mount when you advance to using compatible cameras.
Mount Type
Keep in mind that Canon EF and Sony E mount lenses can make the transition to many larger, cine-style Canon and Sony camcorders respectively, enabling you to build a library of lenses as you upgrade your camera. For Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K and Panasonic GH5/GH5S aficionados, Micro Four Thirds (MFT)-mount lenses are a great match, but fewer dedicated video cameras use the MFT mount, namely, the Z CAM E2 and the JVC GY-LS300. Lens adapters like this FotodioX Canon EF Pro Lens Adapter with manual iris adjustments or the Redrock Micro LIveLens MFT Active Lens Mount with electronic aperture control can be used to adapt EF-mount lenses to MFT-mount cameras.
The Metabones T Speed Booster not only adapts full-frame Canon EF lenses to MFT-mount, but boosts the aperture by one stop and reduces the crop factor. Closely read Todd Vorenkamp’s Understanding Crop Factor on the B&H Explora site for more on the subject of crop factors.
Let us know what your first cine lens choice was, and be sure to explore all the cine lenses available on the B&H website and check them out in person at the B&H SuperStore when you’re in New York City.
