Above is a very simple test I’ve done on 3 great 50mm f/1.4 lenses. I often use a Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 and everyone knows that it’s a great lens, although the focusing ring is certainly not the best.  A few months I shot a little test video with Nikon 50mm f/1.4 and I really enjoyed using it. The Nikon 50mm performed really well and this lens along with other Nikons is very popular amongst the DSLR/Large-Chip-Camcorder filmmakers. The third lens in this test is the least popular and the cheapest out of 3, the Olympus Zuiko OM 50mm f/1.4.  It is also the smallest and probably the lightest lens in this test.

The purpose of this test was to determine how well does Olympus stack up against the more (and more expensive) popular alternatives. Below are my own thoughts about the results. You are more than welcome to share your own thoughts and the comments below.

The first test was to determine how nice is the bokeh from these 3 lenses. Wide open all 3 lenses have nice, soft bokeh. The Canon, probably has the softest, Olympus is also really good,  but I would say Nikon was producing the least round out-of- focus circles. I personally prefer round circles. At f/2.0 Canon and Olympus still managed to produce circle bokeh circles, while Nikon was producing heptagon bokeh, which is still fine, but I just prefer circle bokeh. Pretty much the same goes for f/2.8.

Next and much more important test was to determine the sharpness of each lens at different f-stops.  In my 200% timeline video crop test, the Olympus really surprised me. At f/1.4 it appeared to have the best sharpness out of 3. It also handled the highlights from the lights at the fruit stand really well, probably even better than the 4 times more expensive Canon.  Nikon had the most ghosting.

At f/2.0 Nikon has really caught up and actually performed better than Olympus. Canon performed nicely as expected.

As I was stepping down the aperture, Nikon kept getting better and probably performed the best at f/2.8. Canon was very close and Olympus stayed behind, although still a great performance for the money.

To get the better idea what the sharpness is really like I took some photos with each lens and placed on the timeline at the 400% crop. This gave a much better picture of how each lens really perforce. 

At f/1.4 all 3 lenses have very similar sharpness, but Canon actually has the most chromatic aberration.  At f/2.0 Nikon performed better than the other 2.

At f/2.8 Nikon was still slightly ahead of other 2 and I think when stepped down it actually performs the best, which probably explains why Nikons are so popular.

Anyone who would buy the Nikon or Olympus, would probably buy them for video work only as there is obviously no auto focusing on these lenses.  The difference in image quality is not that different, especially in video mode.  Both Olympus and Nikon lenses offer great value for money for video shooters. Both have very nice focusing rings (much better than Canon’s), on-lens aperture adjustment (great for different brand cameras) and they are much cheaper than the Canon (Olympus being the cheapest and Nikon slightly more expensive, but still 3 times cheaper than Canon), so if you are only using your DSLR for video, there is really no point buying Canon EF. The Canon lens is great for photographers, but does not offer such a great value for money for videographers.  All 3 lenses really benefit from being stepped down to at least f/2.0.  For me Olympus is probably the best wide open, so really a great choice for them low light. My Olympus is not even is such a great shape, there is some dust and spots of fungus inside, which might have affected the performance slightly. I wonder what it would have been like if it was in such a great condition as my Nikon. I have to say Nikon was probably overall the best performer for the money.

Conclusion:

Canon lens wasn’t mine; Nikon is great, but focuses clockwise unlike my Canon lenses (which is the pain with a follow focus), so I’m keeping the Olympus to be my 50mm f/1.4 for now.

I highly recommend this lens for anyone wanting to invest into some fast glass at a bargain price.  If you are Nikon person, then Nikon 50mm is a better choice.

Above you can see a quick test I’ve done with this lens while out in a local park. It was really bright and I couldn’t use this lens at wide open aperture, so I think this test footage doesn’t do the justice do to this lens. I really need to test it out in low light next time. At f/2 is should be a great low light performer. I’ve also done some quick tests against the Canon EF 50mm f/1.4, which is a great lens and while Canon produced better results in my test, it wasn’t 10 times better, but it’s 20 times more expensive than Helios, so in my opinion, Helios offers much better value for money than Canon.  

Helios 44M is one of the first lenses that started my interest in vintage manual photo lenses for video use.  It is a very interesting lens, not only it is one of the cheapest lenses you can buy, but it’s also apparently a Zeiss Biotar copy.  The lens optics were based on Zeiss formulas, so these lenses are apparently very sharp, considering you get a good copy. Apparently the quality control was quite poor, so optical quality varies. It is possible that the lens I tested against Canon was not the best optically.

The lens itself is very well built, it’s fully metal, with a nice, long through focusing ring (about 270 degrees). I have 4 of these lenses and a few have slightly stiff focusing rings, so that is something worth bearing in mind.

You can find out a bit more about this lens in a great article I found here.  This lens must be the biggest bargain ever. The first Helios 44m I bought, cost me just £3. “Carl Zeiss” quality lens for under £10? That must be the best kept secret in budget filmmaking world, or was I just blinded by “Canon-Only” world around me?  If you didn’t know about this lens, now you know, so don’t hesitate even for a second to get one, at £10-£20 what have you got to loose? In the worst-case scenario you can sell it back on eBay.

I will be giving away a few of these lenses in my next giveaway, but if you can’t wait, just pick one up and you won’t regret it.

Matte Boxes are very useful accessories for film-making. They can help minimize the any unwanted flares and most have filter holders for 4x4 filters, which are used to enhance the image in many different ways.

A few years back Matte Boxes used to cost a fortune, and there was a very little choice on the budget side. There ware just a few Indian ones, that would cost way too much due to the lack of competition from other brands. The things have changed. Nowadays there is so much to choose from with the prices starting under $20/£15.  

I’ve decided it’s time to do a bit of a research and put together a Matte Box Buyer’s Guide with all the best deals on eBay.  Below you will see all matte boxes I decided to include, starting from the cheapest ending with the most expensive, rounding up with my personal recommendations and conclusions. I haven’t included every single Matte Box on Ebay, but only the ones that I personally think deserve a place in this guide. Value for money varies, but even the most expensive ones are still great deals if you think about choice and prices even 2 years ago. I decide not to go above $500/£300 mark, because there is so much choice for less.

The cheapest matte box on eBay is sold by delight-digi. You’ll see it all over ebay, but this is the absolute cheapest deal I found. The price is simply incredible, although the matte box is pretty cheap and very basic. It is made out of cheap plastic and doesn’t have any filter holders. The flags are a bit weird and basic too, but they work. I actually used this MB couple of times when shooting with someone else’s camera and I was actually able get rid of some nasty flares that were hitting the lens, so if you are only starting out and don’t have money for a better MB this is well worth the money, it’s just can’t get any cheaper than this.

The next cheapest MB I decided to include is sold by pell678. This is a decent looking MB, with decent French flags.  Unlike the one above which requires a set of 15mm rods, this MB is fitted directly to the camera lens. This can be a great feature for people who don’t have any rods or/and like to keep their setup minimal. The biggest feature of this matte box, is that is accepts a Cokin P type filters rather than 4x4. Cokin P are much cheaper than 4x4, so it is a very good option for someone on a tight budget.

Next MB worth mentioning is Filmcity M-2. This is where we start to get into more traditional look and design. This MB looks like a perfect match for a DSLR. It’s lightweight and has one 4x4 filter holder, unfortunately not rotatable. I think it’s probably the best MB for under $150/£100 though.

Next up is Proaim V-11. Now I’ve never been a fan of Proaim and personally don’t have anything from this brand, but this matte box seems to offer a decent amount of features for the money. It has 2 4x4 filter holders that can be rotated, by 180 degrees,  but only together, still better than no rotation. On a downside, there is only a top flag.

Next is another Proaim MB, but this one is completely different to V-11.  The Proaim MB-700 is a proper matte box, with proper French flags, interchangeable masks, 2 filter holders (1 is rotating) and plenty of doughnuts. One of the nice advantages of this MB over others is that it can be used both on 15mm rods and clipped on directly to the front of the lens.

Moving on to Chinese stuff now; for under $300/£200 you can now get a high-end style MB from Konovacamera with all the features one might wish for. These include a swing-away arm (really good for a quick lens swap), 2x 360 degree rotating 4x4 and 4x5.65 filter holders (each filter rotates independently), 4 donuts,  adjustable flags and a few other accessories.  At this price, such package is rather impressive.

Stepping just over $300/£200 we are coming back to an Indian MB, probably made my Proaim, this one is called MB-900. This one like the one above has a swing-away arm, flags, 9 donuts (that’s a lot) and 3 filter holders (2 fixed 4x5.65 & 1 rotating 4x4), flags. This is pretty much everything one could wish for. My only complaint is that one 1 filter holder is rotating, but for a lot of people that might not be a problem at all.  This MB one of a few that can be used with bigger cine size lenses (lenses with front element up to 105mm)

Next up is a Trusmt D100MB2. This is a matte box that I bought myself some time ago. This is a one very cool MB, especially the CF version with Carbon Fiber flags. There is also a cheaper AL version with standard aluminum flags. Like some other MBs above it has a swing away arm and 2x 360 degree independently rotating 4x4 filter holders and a set of 4 donuts.  The built quality is really good and at the time when I bought it, it offered absolutely the best value for money. But very recent addition of MBs like the one from Konovacamera the Trusmt MB doesn’t seem to offer such a great value. If Konovacamera MB is as good quality as Trusmt, then there is really not much that can justify the price difference. However if you don’t want to risk and just get a quality MB for under $500/£300, then the D100BM2-CF could be a great choice for you.

For virtually the same price as Trusmt you could get the Cinematics MB. This a very cool looking MB with most of the features found in Trusmt D100MB2, except the CF flags and only it only has 1 rotating filter holder (the other is fixed). But it has it’s own interesting features. The first interesting feature of this MB is that it has a mount for bottom flag (I think it even comes with an extra flag); don’t know if it is a useful feature, but an interesting one. Also, the swing-away arm design is quite unusual but actually is really cool and I’m not sure why it’s not found in other MBs. Basically with all standard swing-away arms the arm is fixed on one side only, so the other side (usually the left one) is not fixed to anything, which can result in some unwanted movement when camera is moved with a lot of force. With Cinematics MB, the swing-away arm is fixed on one side, but locked on the other side, so there is no chance of any movement when the MB is locked. Also unlike the standard swing-away arms which hold all the weight and pressure on one arm, this one is supported on both sides, so there is much less chance that such arm will break. I think it is a great feature and it certainly stands out.

It is really difficult to recommend just one matte box, because like with the other gear it is all about your budget.  The ones that stand out to me include the cheapest one sold by delight-digi, the price is just crazy and if you are just starting out and are on a very low budget you can still afford one of this and start to get familiar with the use of a matte box. If you have a bit more money, then the Filmcity M-2 is a great little MB. The other MB that really stands to me is the one by konovacamera and identical ones sold by other sellers. These MBs offer a very good value for money and have all the features one might wish for.

I hope this guide was useful to you and will help you save some money on your gear.

If you read my post on my Helios 44-2 58mm f/2 lens, you will know that I decided to giveaway this lens.  It’s a great little prime. It is a really old lens, so cosmetic condition is not great, but optically it's still fine and performs just great. It has both lens caps and a very easily adaptable M42 mount.

It’s is not an expensive lens and might not be a highly desirable prize, but it’s very simple to enter and it will only take a few minutes of your time.

There are 3 ways: YouTube, Facebook & Tweeter.

Youtube:

• You must be subscribed to my page: www.youtube.com/user/alanbesedin
• You need to Like and Favorite this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBKz9EA7EAM
• Once the above steps are complete you need to post a comment on the video above to confirm your entry.  From that, I will be able to take your username and put it into the raffle.

Facebook:

• You need to like the BudgetFilmmaker page: http://www.facebook.com/BudgetFilmmaker
• You also need to like the actual post about this competition. Again from that, I will be able to take your username and put it into the raffle.

Tweeter:

• You must be following Budgetfilmmaker there: https://twitter.com/#!/BudgetFilmmaker
• You will also need to tweet this message from your profile: Please RT, Great Change to win a Helios 44-2 58mm f/2 prime lens.  Check out the details here: http://www.budgetfilmmaker.co.uk/1/post/2012/02/win-a-helios-44-2-58mm-f2-lens.html #Heliosgiveaway1
• I will be able to track you down by the hash-tag and add you to the raffle.
  

You don’t have to enter in all 3 platforms, you can use only 1, but if you enter in all 3 your chances will of course increase. It makes sense to do that anyway, because you most likely have different profile user names on each site anyway and you could cheat this way anyway and enter 3 times. Even if you have exactly the same names on all 3 sites, you name will still be counted 3 times.

Please no cheating though, just one entry from each platform. If I see that the profile was created just few days ago and it’s empty,  I’ll have to ignore such entry, as such page would like the profile was just created to enter and might be one of a few my the same person.

I will be happy to send this lens anywhere in the world for free, so no restrictions in that sense.

You can enter until the midnight on Sunday, the 4th of March. I will announce the winner on Monday, the 5th.

Good luck to everyone entering. If you don’t win this time there will be many more opportunities in future. I’m not rich, but I will try to do 1 giveaway each month, so stay tuned.

Above you can see some test footage which I shot with a Helios 44-2 58mm f/2 lens.  In my opinion this vintage Russian lens is very special. It has a very nice look to it and when shooting into the sun it creates very interesting flares that add a lot of character to the footage. It’s not suitable for every scenario, but I think it definitely adds a very cool oldschool film look the footage shot with it.  I personally really like the result I was able to achieve with this lens and it’s not just about the flares. The lens is really sharp and close focusing ability makes it a really good lens for close-ups (see 0:49 of the video). The colors are really good too and the maximum aperture of f/2 is great for low light shots. One of the nicest things about this lens though is the fluid aperture adjustment.  This not something that is usually found in photo lenses. It lets you adjust the aperture in a smooth way, so you can easily fine-tune your aperture while recording without a sudden change of brightness. This feature was very handy when I was filming the BMX riders coming into the bright daylight and back under the roof where it was much darker. I was able to adjust the aperture very easily and smoothly without it being obvious in the shot. This a feature that is usually reserved to Cine lenses, so it is so nice to see it in this budget lens. The focus ring on my copy is really smooth and has long through, which meant I was able make really smooth, subtle focusing adjustments, which is what you would usually want from a lens used for video.

A lot of modern auto-focusing lenses have a very short through, which helps the autofocus motors achieve the focus quicker for photography needs, however for video this is actually a big downside, so good old manual lenses are so much better for manual focusing. They also have hard stops, which are important if you use a follow focus and focusing marks. Again, some modern lenses, Canon EF in particular don’t have any hard stops.

I keep telling people that the reason why modern lenses are so much more expensive that the old glass is not only because they have great optics, but also because they have great, fast auto focusing motors, which obviously makes a massive impact on the price. After all, these are photography lenses made for modern sophisticate cameras with fancy auto focusing systems. I said it before and I’ll say it again: if you are only doing video work with you DSLR then there is really no need to buy modern Canon, Nikon, Panasonic, etc glass. You can get so much more for your money if you invest into manual lenses and they don’t have to be as cheap as this Helios. Even very popular manual Nikon and Zeiss lenses will cost so much less that a modern equivalent which will not necessarily be better for video work.

If you are on a tight budget though, I highly recommend this Helios 44-2 58mm lens. It is a great mid/close up lens and it is so cheap that anyone can afford it.

I have 2 of them and I will be giving away one shortly. Stay tune for more details.

_Today I found a new FF on eBay. It’s a new follow focus from VARAVON. Initially I got very excited about this one. It certainly looks nice a glossy; nice looking parts and loads of logos.  Lens rings also look really nice. This unit features adjustable hard stops and quick release system. Like other VARAVON gear it is expensive, but is it actually any good. After looking at it for bid I realized some parts look very familiar. The focus knob and more importantly the gearbox are exactly the same as ones found in a very cheap RJ follow focus. Now RJ is not terrible FF, the one I’ve tried actually had very little play, but RJ is a budget unit and priced accordingly. This makes me wonder it this VARAVON FF is actually more or less an RJ unit, but dressed up to look high-end. After all, the most important part of the FF is the gearbox, all glossy stickers and nice adjustment knobs are pointless if the gearbox is crap. The RJ gearbox is not the worst, but would you pay 5 times more for glossy stickers and fancy knobs? I certainly wouldn’t. It is possible that the VARAVON FF has a different gearbox, but I highly doubt it, it looks the same and the focus knob once again confirms that this FF is based on RJ. Check out the images below to make our own mind up.

_My conclusion is that VARAVON is a complete rip off. I'm sure they will sell loads of these because they look good, but they are definitely not worth the money. You will be be better off with RJ, or some other FF.
Check out my Follow Focus Buyer's Guide for some of the best deals on eBay (by the way all cheaper than VARAVON).

_ I love bargains and this website is all about bargains and getting the most for your money, but sometimes the cheapest indeed means the worst.

In the first edition of my BIG LED LIGHT GUIDE I recommended the china_lighting 520, 1000, 1900 lights, all of the same design. These are sold by other companies too, but all look exactly the same. All of them appeared to offer the best value for money, so I bought the one that I thought gave me the most for my buck, the 1900LED. Unfortunately I turned out to be a big disappointment, even though it’s cheap. I foolishly thought that 1900 will give be almost 4 times more power that a 500LED that I bought before it. Well, the LEDs on 1900 are much smaller that the ones on 500LED, so don’t except crazy power from it. It’s no more that twice as bright. This is nothing really comparing to the other problems with the light.

_ Welcome to my BIG LED GUIDE (Second Edition). The main reason for making a new edition on my now 3 months old B.L.G (First Edition) is because I bought one of the lights I used to recommend the most and unfortunately it turned out to be crap, so the whole guide had to be changed, because all the similar lights got scraped from the guide. Some others are not available any more and I’ve added a few new ones. Overall, I think the Second Edition is much better than the first and it also has all the latest prices and best deals at the time of writing. Hope you’ll find it useful.

_ LED Into: LED lights are really “hot” nowadays. They are lightweight, heat-free, low on power consumption and also quite cheap, making them great value for money. I’m a big fan a I have a few myself. The cheapest around come from China, Honk Kong and India. A lot of them seem to be exactly the same, just branded under different names. I’ve now tried quite a few, so I can recommend, some others should be avoided. 

How this guide works: You will find links for every light below (everything in red or just click the picture).  Some are general search links, others specific links of the best priced deal I found at the time of writing. Chances are that some of the listings will end by the time you read this, so just do a search on the particular shop to see if it got relisted the item or search for similar elsewhere on Ebay.

I haven’t tried all of these lights, so my guide is mostly based on features and prices as well as my personal experience on the ones I tried and also the advice from other filmmakers.  Treat this guide as a starting point and make your own decision depending on what you need.

_ I absolutely love DSLRs, their size and portability. In last few years we saw loads of products being specifically designed for them to enhance the wonderful video features they have.  I invested in a lot of these accessories myself including some really cool dolly sliders. These are basically short (usually around 1m) metal rails, that allow one to recreate a sweeping action usually crated by dolly. I love these things and I used to have 2, but I always loved the proper long dolly motion that couldn’t be recreated by a slider, so about half a year ago, after a lot of research, I bought myself a Swift Dolly.  Around 6 months later I finally got around to doing a review (above).  The review is quite long and I’m not going to repeat everything in the video.  I just want to go through a few points that stand out to me.

Weight & Portability:  I used to associate dolly with something  that is only used on bigger shoots with loads of people handling large, heavy equipment. One of the main reasons I went for this particular dolly, is it’s portability and very low weight. All the bags have handles so the can be carried around without much trouble.  The Swift Dolly not that cheap, considering that there are plenty of DIY tutorials on Youtube that will help you build a dolly at a fraction of the price, but what I hate about DIY stuff is that it’s usually not portable at all.  That is why I usually try to but as cheap as I could but a proper product that is well designed and can be taken anywhere, not only because of the portability, but also because it actually looks like a proper equipment unlike some DIY stuff. Of course if you don’t have any money at all and you shoot only personal projects than DIY is your only and probably a decent choice. 

Value For Money: This is very much connected the stuff above. DIY will always be cheaper, but not necessarily better value for money in a long run.  I’ve used my quite a few times now and thanks to its great packaging it’s still like new, so it holds its value really well. If I would have decided to sell it now, I’m sure I would get a lot of my money back, not that I want to just yet; this thing is essential for some of my shoots, like the low budget feature I’m currently working on (some footage is in the review).  A Dolly adds a lot of production value to the shots so it is a great investment even for a DSLR user like myself. There aren’t many cheaper dolly options out there, especially with a track, so the Swift Dolly offers a great value for money.

Conclusion: If you can afford a dolly, this or any other decent one, go for it. Treat it as a long term investment, because unlike cameras that chance ever year, dollies stay pretty much the same and you will be able to use it for many years to come. Over the years it will definitely pay itself off by helping you produce great shots which will hopefully earn you some money along the way.

_