First, Thank you!! I Appreciate the kind words!

Yes Guns of Cordis is all shot with the kit lens! i'm just now thinking about branching out because i want to get more creative with my shots. I do, yes use a Canon T5i. As far as how i get my close up shots, I obviously zoom in the entire way. Then from there i'll set the focus so that I can get as close to the camera lens i can, then build the set around it. That can be tricky sometimes though, I do however have a 75-300mm lens that might do it better.

Only reason why I haven't used it is because the lens is so heavy, and when the shutter goes off it does move a bit. But it's in awhile since i tried animating with it! I can make some tests this weekend and upload them If that would help you!

Austin-Frame5 Studios

yeah sure man!

Austin-Frame5 Studios

I'm just gonna stop you right there.... the 75-300 is not going to work. The closest you can get with one of those lens is a couple of feet and it doesn't do much better than the 18-55 kit lens.

TwoGuysBrickfilms Youtube Channel

All stills lenses have focus breathing, it's a total non-issue for still photography. A lack of focus breathing is one of the main reasons cinema lenses are so expensive. So unless you've got a spare $5000 (at least) laying around, you're going to deal with some. That being said, you should be able to find lenses that are less severe. Unfortunately, macro lenses, which are so useful for brickfilmers, tend to have extra bad focus breathing as a side effect of a short minimum focusing distance. So the chance of finding a lens with less focus breathing and a similar utility is slim.

My primary lens for brickfilming has pretty bad focus breathing. Personally I choose to just embrace it as another challenge to work around.

Last edited by backyardlegos (October 24, 2017 (10:33pm))

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So...I would like to have a decent 50 mm lens in my arsenal. I do already have the Canon f/1.8 macro lens (which I quite like for 'normal' photography and video), but it just isn't practical for brickfilming, especially if I use it with extension tubes - the trick of partially unscrewing the lens to stop down doesn't really work because of the stupid focus by wire system .

One option would be to go for the lens that Sloth mentioned in the first post, but I do have an old Minolta X-700 lying around, and it has the kit 50mm f/1.7 lens. Would it be worthwhile to pick up an adapter ($30-40 on amazon) and use this instead?

Also, on the topic of adapters, I've seen a few that have no glass, but are much cheaper. Will the adapter type make much of a difference?

Thanks!

Would you look at that, they are. I believe literally any version of the lens will work. Don't buy a new one though, it's easy to find an old one in really good condition for 1/4 the price, or less.

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You totally can, I use one of these as my primary lens for animation. The Nikon's are popular, especially the 55mm, because they have a magic mix of low price, good image quality, and short minimum focusing distance. There aren't many other lenses with that magic combo, most lenses will give you two out of three. So unless you have a a bit more money to spend, the Nikon is the go-to choice.

My main reason for buying the lens that I did was some misinformation I received from a guy at a local camera shop who was under the impression that F mount lenses had problems focusing to infinity on Canon bodies, which is not the case. That being said I do love the Pentax lens, it has served me well for many years now.

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Hey mate,
I watched your YT video and read all posts here.

Thx for great info!

I am waiting for 55mm nikkor atm. which I ordered few days ago.

I got question tho, I am looking now for something more wide. Do you know any lens like 25, 28 or 30ish mm which can focus at around 8-10 cm and with manual aperture?

Every lens I found (and you was talking about here) got like 20-30cm minimum focus range which is a bit to far for what I need atm.

Cheers!

I know this is a really old post, but  I was planning on buying the Nikkor 55mm lens and I was just wondering about the benefits of using that vs my 18-55mm Canon kit lens. I can get pretty close to the minifigs without losing focus, so I'm not sure if it's really worth buying.