From the course: Creating a Short Film: 07 Cinematography

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Using premium optics

Using premium optics

- Another important attribute of lenses is whether it's a zoom lens or not. A lot of new cinematographers prefer zoom lenses because they allow you to adjust the focal length without changing lenses, so it feels like getting several lenses in one. And while zoom lenses are very convenient, there are also several reasons to use lenses that only have one focal length. Lenses that don't have zoom features are referred to as prime lenses. Now zoom lenses are kind of a miracle of modern science. There's a lot going on in there. So prime lenses tend to be a lot lighter, which can be better for hand held shots. But more importantly, prime lenses tend to have significantly better image quality. Finally, prime lenses also tend to be much faster than zoom lenses. And when we call lenses fast, we basically are saying that their apertures can open wide and let in a lot of light. So, this means that prime lenses typically have apertures that open up much more than zoom lenses. This makes prime…

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