NAB comes once a year and manufacturers use the event to show off products to customers that gather in Las Vegas from all over the world. With the way the motion picture industry has been going, products are conceived, announced, and delivered within months. It’s become an extremely volatile industry for manufacturers and users. Almost every camera that was available at NAB last year including the Sony F3, FS100, Canon 5D MkII, RED Epic, and many others, have been replaced by newer, better models. This can be extremely frustrating for professionals looking to purchase a camera to make a living with.
RED always talked about making their cameras “future proof” but that was just a moderate way of saying that they’ll have upgrades available which is probably the closest to future proof. other companies like Sony are quick to release a basic model and shortly follow it with a professional version with improved features.
Now, take a look at lenses. Every single once of these cameras needs lenses. There have been a lot of new lens announcements over the past year, but none of the lenses from last year or the year before are any less competent than the new crop. I fact, lenses produced a decade ago are still working on feature films and haven’t been made obsolete. Go back even farther than that and look at professional cinema lenses like the Angenieux 25-250mm HR or Zeiss Ultra Primes and you’ll find a large number of professional projects are still using these as their go to optics. Sure they aren’t razor sharp and may exhibit a few minor flaws, but they’re far from obsolete. My point is, investing in a high end zoom lens or a set of primes will be beneficial for a much longer time than the newest camera.
There are only a few features that keep a lens future proof these days; an interchangeable mount doesn’t hurt. That way, whatever camera suits your needs, there’s a good chance you’ll be able to mount it. It’s also nice if the lens covers a full 35mm still frame. That way if your project calls for something like a Canon 5D or when RED releases and full frame sensor camera your lenses will be able to cover the full sensor.
Don’t be fooled by consumer marketing terms used to sell lenses. There is no “4K Compatible” or “Designed for Digital”. There are features such as tele centric (light exiting the rear of the lens is parallel) that will help give a slightly better image or lenses that will resolve a certain amount (line pairs). But a fifteen year old professional motion picture lens will still provide top of the line results thanks to high quality materials and mechanical-optical design superiority.
There will always be newer better cameras. Lenses can last a lifetime.
