50 millimeters is one of the classic
focal lengths because it's so versatile
for a fixed focal length prime lens it
can be wide if you're in open space and
you back up or tell a photo if you move
in closer and use the fancy aps-c super
35 crop mode that's in high-resolution
sensors like what's in the sony a74 now
it's like a 75 millimeter lens today
we're going to take a look at the makai
50 millimeter 1.2 stills lens which of
course i'm going to use for video it's a
premium budget friendly 50 that you
might not have heard of the version i
have is for full frame sony cameras if
you're up for the challenge to go all
manual this lens has a lot of character
i want to show you some examples using
the new sony a74 with things i like
about the lens and things that i think
are maybe some opportunities to explore
unmet potential i'll let you know who i
think this lens is for and some of the
best use cases for the lens and i won't
even use the word cinematic because well
my appreciation of cinema goes much
deeper than a blurry background and
before we jump in i want to say welcome
if you're new here to creative video
tips i'm chadwick and this channel is
about crafting stories that make a
difference and stand out i love teaching
davinci resolve and i've been working in
post-production with some production for
two decades but i also shoot photos
professionally all that to say my
perspective is coming from a video
shooter first i primarily shoot
blackmagic cameras with panasonic lenses
and sony cameras with g master zooms on
this channel i love tech and aesthetics
makeup they sent this lens over to me
for free which it has no tech at all but
it has some really cool aesthetics with
a quasi vintage and creamy shallow depth
of field
depth of field apple likes to simplify
shallow depth of field to call it
portrait mode on the iphone deep depth
of field is what you're used to seeing
in landscape photography where
everything is in focus it's the area
that has acceptable sharpness around a
focus plane you have a distance that's
one third in front of the focus plane
and two-thirds behind that's the depth
of field the three main things that
affect how much is in focus are the
camera sensor size the distance of the
camera to the subject and the aperture
which is what makes this lens so special
it has a huge aperture or hole
that creates shallow focus when you keep
it wide open one benefit of shooting
wide open is that it makes it simple to
separate the subject from the background
like a real busy background and it
cleans up distractions i think it also
looks like abstract art when it gets
super blurry you can create bokeh balls
with light sources and yes i think the
proper way to say it is bouquet but i
like bokeh so i'm sticking to it
pokeballs by blurring out the background
with a fast aperture like 1.2 or 1.4 in
a 50 millimeter you can direct the
viewer's eye to specific part of the
frame and for me this is the part of
shallow depth of field that i love the
most being able to direct the attention
within the frame of an audience's eye
another pro tip is to use a lens like
this meikai 50 1.2 to create shots that
work great to put on a title graphic of
a video or maybe even a youtube
thumbnail just find a medium gray or
darker region compose that background so
you have negative space for a bright
graphic and blur the crap out of it with
1.2
low light another inherent effect of
using this 50 millimeter f 1.2 lens is
that it's fantastic for use in low light
environments it has to do with the
logarithmic nature of how light falls
off in the physics of how aperture works
this 2.8 g master right here this is
good at low light but at 1.2 on this
make eye that's actually two and a third
stops faster and each stop doubles the
amount of light so we're talking about
2.33 squared which is actually over five
times the amount of light that can hit
the sensor this thing sucks up a lot of
light in practice that means you can go
from needing to shoot at iso 4000 down
to iso 800 that's going to give you the
same exposure with much less noise it'll
be a cleaner image with keeping the
shutter speed the same and since you
can't always control how much light you
have to work with it's always great to
have a big chunk of good glass handy
build quality and specs this lens is all
metal make eye they put a red ring
around it which reminds me of canon l
series glass but this one's blinged out
a bit with some shine there's no
electronics it's all manual and it has a
very smooth d-clicked aperture ring
which is nice if you're filming video
and you want to smoothly change how
bright a shot is still the smooth
aperture ring can also be a downside if
you need to match to another camera's
angle settings because it's hard to tell
the exact f-stop that you're parked at
the aperture goes from 1.2 wide open
with several marks on the lens all the
way down to f22 for when you want
everything on the planet in focus
the closest you can focus this lens is
0.6 meters which is basically two feet
so you're not going to get big macro
shots but you can always use the aps-c
mode on this camera or crop it later in
post to bring a unique perspective to
objects if you shoot at f 1.2 at this
close focus distance there's only a half
inch of depth of field so regardless
it's going to look abstract and dreamy
the focus ring is also smooth and it
rotates around 90 degrees from close
focus to infinity as a filmmaker i would
prefer the focus throw to go a little
bit further so it takes more rotation to
get critical focus just a slight
movement is a considerable change in the
focal plane with this lens i should note
there actually are focus distance
markings in both feet and meters on the
lens which are not common to find on
autofocus lenses these days it's very
helpful when you want to shoot at a
hyper focal distance for street
photography now the lens comes with a
hood which might prevent some flares but
i like the use of hoods instead of uv
protective filters to protect the lenses
front element there was this one time i
accidentally tossed one of my first
dslrs pulling out of the trunk running
to a chute with a loose strap it had a
50 millimeter 1.4 lens on it with a hood
on it and the camera hit the pavement on
the ground after flying 10 feet across
the parking lot and the only damage was
some scratches to the lens hood in the
battery grip
the lens it's about 72 millimeters long
which is about the length of a samsung
t7 ssd and it weighs about 620 grams
overall the lens build quality and feel
is very premium and it balances
excellent in your hand on a sony
full-frame camera like the sony a74
all manual lens because this is a 100
manual lens it's gonna force you to
learn the exposure triangle of aperture
shutter speed and iso and use the
built-in camera's light meter when
shooting photos in manual mode i
generally shoot at around 1 200th of a
second shutter speed to freeze most
moderate action and eliminate that
handheld camera shake for sports you
should have a faster shutter speed then
for video i use the 180 degree shredder
rule so when filming 24 frames per
second i'm using a 150 this second
shutter speed this shutter speed gives
smooth motion blur that you're used to
seeing in movies now one thing to
consider if you're filming video outside
at 1 50th of a second is that you're
going to need to add a neutral density
filter to cut down on the light even
further when you open that lens up you
could quickly need as many as 10 stops
of nd depending on the time of day and
weather having these set shutter speeds
helps simplify things because i'm only
balancing aperture for how blurry i want
the background against the iso which is
how sensitive the sensor is to get a
proper exposure
a couple of sony camera settings that
are going to make using an all manual
lens a little easier are this first
since there is no image stabilization
inside the lens itself it's super
helpful to use steady shots sensor
stabilization that's inside the camera
but the trick is that you need to tell
the camera what focal length is attached
to work correctly to manually set this
go to menu
shooting tab image stabilization
steady shot adjust
manual and set the focal length to 50
millimeters the steady shot focal length
will show in the main display once you
turn it on to either standard or if your
camera has it active which is ideal for
video work one thing that's worth
pointing out is there is no sony
catalyst browse gyro data for video
clips with this lens because there's no
electronics the next features the sony
cameras have will help you perfect your
manual focus
you want to have a button set to do
focus magnification to punch into the
frame in your viewfinder and then also
turn on focus peaking focus peaking
highlights the sharp edges with a color
i have mine set to red but you can pick
yellow blue or white if that works
better
and if you choose these two features in
combination i would use focus picking
set to high to really get critical sharp
focus with a shallow depth of field
it's not a fast process but it gives you
the perfect detail where you want it for
filming a video with manual focus a pro
tip is to start your video shot with
this subject all dialed in then move the
camera away from it then in
post-production you can reverse the clip
in davinci resolve or your editing app
of choice
you might know the a74 has a cool new
feature for focus breathing composition
and also focus map to use instead of
focus speaking but neither of these
functions work with all manual lenses
like the mekai 51.2
sharpness to test the sharpness of the
meikai 51.2 i took what mark robert
calls a boring ipad made out of trees i
taped it to the wall and i shot at all
the different f-stops at iso 100
therefore i only changed the f-stop and
shutter speed to maintain exposure i put
the camera on a delayed timer on a
tripod to get the most accurate results
the sweet spot to get the most detail on
most lenses is actually to stop it down
close the hold down two to three stops
sharpness on any lens is always best in
the middle of the frame so everyone
always looks to the corner so we'll do
that but guess what i never put my
subject in the extreme corner so i don't
care if it's not that sharp out on the
edges of the frame i also couldn't
resist doing the same thing on a wall
outside to confirm those results with a
little bit more distance
chromatic aberration chromatic
aberration is when light can't entirely
focus on high contrast areas and you end
up with colors usually purple fringes
that didn't exist when you shot the
image one type can be fixed really
easily in post with a checkbox in adobe
lightroom still the other they call it
loca it's longitudinal chromatic
aberration it's trickier to remove
because it happens on different planes
of focus the thing to remember is that
most folks they gunk up their images so
much with artistic intent so regardless
of how much chromatic aberration a lens
has it's miniscule compared to the
instagram filters that most
photographers slap on an image
flare this lens certainly does flare
even though it uses some sort of
multi-coating but i view that as the fun
part of the character that makes this
lens unique point it to a bright light
or the sun and yeah it's going to flare
and this is what it looks like
if you don't want to see the flare just
don't backlight your subject however if
you want an image with more depth than
to look more filmic notice i didn't say
cinematic always back light when you
have the opportunity it just looks
cooler to see shadows in front to define
a shape
cons the first thing i had trouble with
was letting go of some lens muscle
memory because of my sony lenses the
focus ring right up here is in the same
spot that the aperture ring is on the
mekai so when i think i'm going to grab
the focus i'm actually changing the
exposure which slows me down as i learn
that the focus ring is actually closer
to me like the zoom ring is on the 16-35
the other most significant opportunity
to explore unmanned potential that's a
mouthful is that i want the throw on the
focus ring to change a little bit i want
to turn the focus more for minor
adjustments that way i can nail a focus
pole at f 1.2 maybe the cinnamon lenses
from makai have more distance to travel
and this is really only a negative for
shooting video and yes this was designed
as a stills lens
the last couple of cons are pretty minor
there's no weather ceiling so if your
camera's out in bad weather cover it up
and there's no built-in stabilization to
the lens so make sure you're using it
with the camera that has sensor
stabilization like the new sony a74
or have it on a tripod
who's it for i think for video this can
make an excellent lens for filming
interviews but i would stop it down to
at least 1.8 maybe even more if your
subject moves very much but i think it's
great for anyone that wants a unique
perhaps less clinically correct sort of
retro artistic vibe to the images they
create the image quality is excellent
it's perfect for photography and
cinematography students looking for
their first manual lens to learn how to
control exposure depth of field and
composition it's for someone that
doesn't mind slowing down a little to
craft their images that match their
vision
sometimes automatic features get in the
way of our own creativity and this lens
takes you back to the basics so while i
wouldn't use this to cover a one-time
only event that needs a ton of coverage
of moving pieces
i would not hesitate to take this on a
photo walk or film some specific b-roll
with it now it's incredible for the
price which is around 360 dollars in the
us the sony g-master 1.2 cost more than
four times this eye lens and sure the
sony gm lens is terrific and you
generally get to pay for but the sony gm
it might not be in everyone's budget
certainly not in mine right now good
glass doesn't change or age and the
meikai will be one of those timeless
bits of kit you're gonna be glad you
have for those right moments so even if
you don't plan on using this one all the
time it's going to be a good investment
for many years to come i'm going to
leave a link down below if you want to
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links thank you so much for watching and
stay tuned for more davinci resolve tips
coming at you next week and because
there is so much more to learn i'll see
you in that next video