It's the cost that makes it a revolution, and a boon for indie filmmakers. With $25,000 worth of SLR lenses, Laforet and his small crew were able to perform comparably to what would take at least several hundred thousand dollars worth of motion picture camera lenses (and some of those you can't even buy). He even said some of the most expensive ones were unnecessary.) Here's a rundown of the lens they used (with rough price estimates):
? 7.5mm lens (custom)
? 15mm fisheye ($650)
? 16-35mm f/2.8 ($1600)
? 50mm f/1.2 ($1100)
? 85mm f/1.2 ($2000)
? 135mm f/2 ($1000)
? 200mm f/1.8 ($4500)
? 400mm f/2.8 ($7000)
? 500mm f/4 ($7000)
That and a $2700 DSLR body. A testament to its ease of use is that Laforet is a photographer; he has no professional film experience and had never used the 5D Mark II before, yet was able to storyboard, cast, shoot and edit the clip in just two days, with less than 12 hours notice. In particular he noted that dumping the MPEG-4 video takes way less time than it would with an actual HD camera. The only issue that would stop a person from shooting a TV pilot solely with this camera is sound matching, he says. If that's covered, you're gold.
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