Olympus EM5 Video Method

[Iconoscope]

This is how I get clean video with no focus hunting and a huge depth of focus. First, buy an older 35mm camera lens that has manual focus and aperture settings, along with the appropriate adapter for your mirrorless camera (mine is an Olympus OMD EM5). I bought several older Olympus Zuiko lenses made for the OM system 35mm cameras, with a Fotga brand adapter. I set the lens up with an f11 aperture and a focus scale distance of 3 feet for the Zuiko 28mm f3.5 lens, providing the hyperfocal condition for a large depth of focus. For your lens and adapter these settings may be different, experiment a little! I set the camera for auto iso so that it compensates for varying light conditions. These same settings also work well for casual street shooting of still frames. I set the mode dial for Manual and use either the red video button to take video or the normal shutter button for still frames. The Olympus mirrorless cameras have image stabilization built in to the camera body, so video is pretty well stabilized, but gentle motion is still mandatory for good video.

Comments from other users is welcome and their methods of doing video are of interest as well.

[dje]

The idea of using a large depth of field and fixed focus should be quite effective where the subject is moving a lot, provided you have enough light. The auto ISO will control your exposure but you just need to make sure it doesn't go too high and cause a lot of noise.The other thing you could look at is the shutter speed (if your camera allows you to change this in video mode). Typically, film used a shutter duration of about half the frame duration. eg 1/48 sec shutter speed for 24 fps. This is a reasonable compromise between getting enough exposure and avoiding too much movement blur in each frame. You will get sharper video with a faster shutter speed but less exposure (ie higher ISO in your case).

Incidentally, why can't you use this technique with your modern lenses set to manual control ?

Dave

[Greg Lehey]

Incidentally, why can't you use this technique with your modern lenses set to manual control ?

You can. There's nothing special about old lenses apart from the fact that they don't do automatic aperture or automatic focus. With the E-M5 you could get the same 28 mm focal length with just about any standard zoom lems, with the added advantage that you could change the focal length as you want. All standard lenses go from at least 14-35 mm, and for a given aperture and focal length, the depth of field doesn't depend on the lens. To avoid focus hunting, set the camera to manual focus.

Iconoscope: Yes, I know the manual is horrible, but it's probably worth your while fighting your way through. There's also an MF method which will do a single autofocus when you press the AEL/AFL button, which should be particularly handy in your situation. You might also like to experiment with C-AF.

Greg

[Iconoscope]

You can use modern auto-focus lenses with this method, but it is simpler to just use a manually controlled lens and gain the benefit of some exceptional vintage glass!

[Manfred M]

If you are referring to the old film Olympus lenses, I would suspect that you are going on opinion, rather than any real analysis. The mFT cameras from Olympus and Panasonic have the thickest optical stack in the business (4 mm). The old film lenses were never designed with this technical issue in mind (film has no optical surface in front of it at all). So far as I know, only Leica M Digital cameras with a stack that is less than 1mm, work reasonably well with film lenses.

[Manfred M]

This is how I get clean video with no focus hunting and a huge depth of focus. First, buy an older 35mm camera lens that has manual focus and aperture settings, along with the appropriate adapter for your mirrorless camera (mine is an Olympus OMD EM5). I bought several older Olympus Zuiko lenses made for the OM system 35mm cameras, with a Fotga brand adapter. I set the lens up with an f11 aperture and a focus scale distance of 3 feet for the Zuiko 28mm f3.5 lens, providing the hyperfocal condition for a large depth of focus. For your lens and adapter these settings may be different, experiment a little! I set the camera for auto iso so that it compensates for varying light conditions. These same settings also work well for casual street shooting of still frames. I set the mode dial for Manual and use either the red video button to take video or the normal shutter button for still frames. The Olympus mirrorless cameras have image stabilization built in to the camera body, so video is pretty well stabilized, but gentle motion is still mandatory for good video.

Comments from other users is welcome and their methods of doing video are of interest as well.

I don't know any serious video shooters that use autofocus. Cameras left on autofocus tend to "seek" from time to time, and that results in that "amateur video" look. I tend to shoot almost all my video with the camera on a video tripod with a fluid head, so the whole stabilization mechanism is turned off. On those very rare occasions where I can't use a tripod, I will shoot wide angle lenses and use several techniques that result in minimal detectable camera shake. I will use image stabilization in those instances, but as I shoot with Panasonic mFT gear, I generally use lenses that are stabilized.

[Iconoscope]

Certainly a subjective opinion as I do not have the means to measure the Modulation Transfer Function of lenses. As for the 'stack' I presume you are referring to the sensor, AA filter and IR filter, all of which alter the image to some degree, but do not preclude the use of film camera lenses by any means. In fact, using film camera lenses on a digital camera with a smaller sensor will reduce the image corner aberrations by the simple expedient of sensor size cropping, in the context of blurring at the periphery of the sensor so often seen with lenses made for DSLR cameras. Both Nikon and Canon lenses exhibit corner aberrations unless you spend more for a lens than you paid for the camera. But older film camera lenses of decent quality are available at low cost through such outlets as eBay and are a good choice for the financially handicapped!

[Iconoscope]

If you are referring to the old film Olympus lenses, I would suspect that you are going on opinion, rather than any real analysis. The mFT cameras from Olympus and Panasonic have the thickest optical stack in the business (4 mm). The old film lenses were never designed with this technical issue in mind (film has no optical surface in front of it at all). So far as I know, only Leica M Digital cameras with a stack that is less than 1mm, work reasonably well with film lenses.

Manfred's post prompted me to do a little research and I conclude that he is absolutely correct, the thickness of the sensor stack can be a critical factor affecting the suitability of a lens for a particular camera. An excellent analysis of the problem can be found here: https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/201...does-it-matter. The site also lists the characteristics of commonly available cameras and lenses. My choice of film camera lenses for my digital cameras are not remarkable and I achieve satisfactory results without attempting to analyze characteristics, the images obtained are either acceptable or not acceptable! So use your own judgement and make the best selections for your own use.