R5 C: Are non-L primes good for indoor studio video work?

1. pknittel wrote:

I just picked up a R5 C on sale and I'm looking forward to moving to the Canon ecosystem. With my R5 C, I will primarily be doing controlled, indoor studio video work; at a variety of focal lengths from 24mm to 85mm.

For a lot of shoots I do, corner quality can be important. But I'll also be using the R5C for photography as a hobby, where IQ isn't that important (but convenience and range is).

I will film in 8K and crop+downsample in post. Low-light or bokeh is not super important; thus I will be usually shooting with f4, f/5.6, or higher.

Given this, I am thinking a set of non-L primes are a good solution for me, which delivers strong image quality at the aperture ranges I actually shoot at. Specifically:

* RF 35mm f1/8

* RF 50mm f/1.8

* RF 85mm f/2

I can pick up a set of these three brand new for AUD ~$1600 (inclusive of 10% sales tax), taking advantage of a sale. Unfortunately, the RF 28-70 F/2L (AU$4800) is not part of the sale, but the RF 24-70 F/2.8L is for AU$2790.

Additionally, I will probably eventually buy the RF 24-105 f/4L (AU$1600), and the upcoming RF 15-30mm for my photography hobby.

My question: are my purchases sensible? Will I get strong image quality, including corner sharpness, at f/4 or f/5.6 with my set of primes? Would you recommend something else? (I am okay to adapted lens if they are worth it!)

Thanks,

Paul K

Depends on how sharp you want the corners to be. Check out the reviews on Optical Limits. To me they are all “sharp enough across the frame” at f4 and f/5.6, but I don’t know what your standard of sharpness is.