This video is sponsored by Squarespace,
the all-in-one platform to build a beautiful website for your business.
If you’re into cinematography, photography or capturing images at all you’re probably
aware that there are two types of camera lenses - prime lenses
and zoom lenses. o
Primes have a fixed focal length, which is measured in millimetres.
This means that when you put this lens on a camera, the angle of view of what it sees,
how wide it is, or how much the image is magnified is set at one distance and cannot be changed.
Zooms have a range of variable focal lengths. So by moving the zoom ring
on the barrel of a lens you can change how wide an image is - in some cases all
the way from a very wide angle to a close up telephoto shot.
As is the case with all film gear,
there are a number of reasons for and against using prime lenses.
In this video I’ll go over five reasons that make primes superior to zooms - and follow it up with a
later video from the other side of the argument about why zoom lenses are better than primes.
So if you like this content, consider hitting that
subscribe button so that you can view the follow up video. Now, let’s get into it.
We can think of the width of a frame, or a focal length, as offering a perspective on the world.
This close up, shot with a wide focal length, sees a lot of background
and places us, the audience, within the same world as that of the character.
This close up, shot with a longer focal length, isolates the character more from the background,
blurs it, and compresses, rather than distorts the features of their face.
The great thing about a prime lens’ fixed focal length, is that it also fixes the perspective
or feeling of an image. When you choose what prime to put on the camera
you are therefore forced into making a decision about perspective.
This isn’t to say that you can't do the same with a zoom, but when you work with a variable focal
length lens it’s far easier to just plonk down the camera at a random distance from the subject
and then zoom in or out until you get to the shot size that you want.
If you’re using a prime, you need to first decide on the focal length you want and then are forced
to reposition the camera by moving it into the correct position. As they say in photography,
it makes your legs become the zoom. This is especially useful as a teaching device
for those learning about lens selection and camera placement.
So, prime lenses force you more into thinking about the focal length that you chose,
which may elevate the visual telling of the story by making it a deliberate decision,
rather than an incidental decision.
The practical reasons behind choosing a lens are important,
but so too is the look that the lens produces. Due to their design, prime lenses are considered
to possess a higher quality optical look than most equivalent zooms. This is mainly because
the construction of primes is much simpler and the design more straightforward than that of zooms.
Inside a lens you’ll find different pieces of curved glass.
Light passes through this glass to produce an image. Because prime lenses only need
to be built as a single focal length they can use less of these glass elements - and,
the glass elements inside the lens don’t have to move in order to zoom.
Less glass means less diffraction of light, which usually means sharper images. Also, prime lenses
only need to be corrected for optical aberrations like distortion and chromatic aberration for a
single focal length. Zooms need to do this for multiple focal lengths, which is trickier to do.
Therefore, your average prime lens will be sharper with less distortion,
or bending of the image, and more minimal colour fringing between dark and light areas.
I should add as a caveat that modern, high-end cinema zooms are constructed to
a high degree of optical quality that is comparable to many prime lenses,
but you pay a pretty penny for that level of cutting edge engineering. When you’re looking
at zooms and primes in a comparable price range, primes usually have the winning, optical edge.
So, two down and three more to go, but before I get to the next reason let’s
take a moment to thank the sponsor who made this video possible - Squarespace.
Every business nowadays needs a website. And, because as a filmmaker you are your business
you can’t be without one. You need an online presence for clients to browse your work, a page
to bring all your social accounts together and a contact point for collaborators to reach you.
Squarespace is an all-in-one platform that you can use to easily create a stylish and
functional website. This is why I used Squarespace’s drag and drop features
and professional portfolio template designs to make the In Depth Cine website for this channel.
Every week I use their blogging tools which allow me to categorise,
schedule and integrate my YouTube videos along with a written article
on my site, so that I can stay organised and on top of uploading new content for you guys.
You can also use Squarespace’s libraries to display any of your creative work such as
photos and videos to show the online world examples of what you can do.
So, head to Squarespace.com for a free trial, and when you’re ready to launch,
go to squarespace.com/indepthcine to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
A lens’ aperture is the size of the round opening at the back of the lens that lets
in light. A large opening, which has a lower T or F stop number, like T/ 1.3, means that more light
is let in, while a smaller opening, with a stop such as T/ 2.8 means that it lets in less light.
Once again, because of the extra glass and more complex design required to build zoom lenses,
primes tend to have a faster stop.
When it comes to cinema glass, each extra stop of light that a lens can let in
is precious and demands a higher price tag. Shooting with a wide aperture comes with
a few advantages. It means you can expose an image in dark, lower light conditions.
It allows you to create more bokeh - the out of focus area that separates
the subject from the background and is generally considered ‘cinematic’.
This allows you to also be more deliberate about what is in
and out of focus and is a way of guiding the audience's gaze to a certain part of the frame.
So for those cinematographers or photographers that want fast lenses, primes are the way to go.
If you’re working in wide open spaces, with a dolly that holds a heavy cinema camera,
then the size of the lens is less of a concern. But the reality is that more often than not that’s
not the case and having a physically smaller lens attached to the camera makes things much easier.
By now we know that zooming requires extra glass and extra glass requires a larger housing.
This means zooms are heavier, longer and wider than primes.
Cinema rigs that need to be precariously balanced - like drones,
a gimbal or a Steadicam - are often unable to take longer cinema zooms because of their excess weight
and length. Some of the bigger zooms are so large that they can’t be effectively operated as a
handheld camera on the shoulder and are limited to only being viable for use on a dolly or a tripod.
So, if you need to work in a confined space, want to move the camera on a lightweight rig,
or shoot with a handheld camera then a big zoom lens may not be for you.
The fifth and final reason not to use a zoom lens is because of its focusing limitations.
Every lens has a range of distances that can be rendered in sharp focus
and a range that will fall out of focus.
Cinema and photo lenses can focus on objects far away up to infinity,
but they are limited as to how near they can focus on an object. This limit is called close
focus or MOD - minimum object distance. Generally, zooms have inferior close focusing capabilities.
For example, the closest that an Angenieux 24-290mm zoom can focus,
set at a 50mm focal length is 4’. A Zeiss Master Prime 50mm lens on the
other hand can render objects in focus up to only 20” away.
So, if you want to shoot a close up of a face or a detail,
you can get much tighter with a prime lens than with a zoom lens before you lose focus.
Additionally, when it comes to many zooms built for photography, because the glass shifts when
you zoom in, the focus also changes. So if a person is in focus at 70mm and you then zoom
into them to 200mm without touching the focus ring, the shot may go out of focus and be soft.
Most cinema zooms are able to remedy this and maintain sharpness across
the entire focal length range, however for simpler, pin sharp focus that doesn’t shift,
and a superior MOD - primes beat zooms.
So, that brings us to the end of another video. As I mentioned I plan on making a
second part to this video that flips the argument in favour of zoom lenses so stay tuned for that.
Otherwise, a big thanks to everyone who supports the channel
and until next time, thanks for watching and goodbye.