Preferred focal length or field of view

Curious what focal length/field of view people shoot video at most. It is probably a matter of where you dive and personal preference.

For myself, I mainly shoot medium angle/portrait of marine animal life. I use wide angle mainly for setup shots.

A lot of photographers love wide angle and fisheye, but for video, I find it a specialty shot. Wrecks, people, fish schools, the rare times I can get very close to a large animal, lush reef landscape scenes.

I ask because I just got a new camera for video. As you know, wide angle underwater lens and ports are expensive. I am debating the expense vs. how often I will use it.

If you don't want to do macro the for me always is better because you can be closer of the subject than with a semi wideangle. I use the Canon 17-40 and it is perfect.

CarlesCastillo.com

If you don't want to do macro the for me always is better because you can be closer of the subject than with a semi wideangle. I use the Canon 17-40 and it is perfect.

 

CarlesCastillo.com

Good point. Getting closer will give clearer footage. Only problem it is not always possible to get close to marine animal life. I think macro, medium and W/A, all have their place. For me, medium angle is the easiest and most useful for video. My opinion could very well be the minority.

I shoot video mainly in ship wrecks and caves. I use a Canon 16-35mm lense with a FF camera. Normally, I preset the lense at around 20mm focal length because that seems to give a visually pleasing compromise between minimizing the effects of the water column and not having too much distortion in the picture. In cramped spaces I might zoom to 16mm in order to fit the entire view. But, for example in mines, the shortest focal length spoils the perspective and especially mine tunnels do not appear anymore "tunnel like". Due to diving in waters of limited visibility, I rarely use a focal length longer than 24mm.