Need help picking lens for 5d Mark II!

T

Thrash632

I have decided to purchase a 5d Mark II (thanks to some advice from this forum). Now I need to pick a lens.

I want a lens that will give me really good bokeh. I loved the bokeh in the movie Silent House, but they used a $3,000 lens. My price range is under $1,000. Is there a lens at that price range that will give the same bokeh in the film Silent House?

I would prefer to have a lens that has an adjustable zoom. I plan on doing a lot of close, macro shots, but will probably end up getting a macro extension tube, so the lens itself doesn't need to shoot macro on its own.
 
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Yes, they can be. Too many factors at play in that question though to give you a definitive answer.

DOF is effected by the imager size, aperture, focal length, and distance from camera to subject. 5D's imager is as good as it gets for shallow DOF. All else being equal lower apertures will give you shallower DOF - so the f/2.8 will be shallower than the f/4, but a prime lens at f/1.4 (no zooms that low) can be shallower than either. With the 5D it's entirely possible to be too shallow though - at 1.4 you might get an inch of stuff in focus, so a person's eyes can be in focus while their nose isn't. It's almost impossible to keep a shot like that in focus, if your actor shifts back a few millimeters their eyes may go out of focus.

So for shooting medium to close-up people I rarely go below 2.8 anymore, and I'll often use 4 or 5.6. This keeps the person fully in focus, but still allows the background to go soft - and how that looks depends entirely on the background. A white wall two feet beyond the actor will look pretty boring. A nighttime cityscape over their shoulder will look great.

Here's a simple example of shallow DOF from both lenses in a project I'm working on - top is the 24-70, bottom is the 24-105. Both shooting at f/4 under existing lights.

canon_lenses.jpg
 
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That depends on which Canon 50mm f1.4 you're talking about. There are 4 that I know of. I'm guessing you're referring to the EF 50mm f1.4 USM that retails in the $350-$400 range. If so, I haven't heard of the auto focus motors or gears going out on them, and I know a number of professional photographers that use them as their go to lenses on aps-c sensor cameras. As a general rule, I tend to stay away from any lens with a plastic mounting flange (the cheaper one has a plastic flange).
 
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