What focal length should I shoot videos with, and what should be my aperture settings? These are the two most common questions newbies search for, and we are here to address these queries.
Content creation through photography and videography, at their core, revolves around the focal lengths of your camera lens. This number is related to your camera’s field of view; in other words, it shows how much your lens captures in a scene and how well it can render an object in that particular frame.
In technical terms, it is the distance between the optical center of your camera lens and the sensor inside the camera body when focused at infinity and is measured in millimeters. This number is also linked to the perspective compression, meaning how the objects located in the foreground are related to the background in a particular field of view.
A quite common question, of what focal length should I shoot videos with, is asked because many get confused about which scene requires the most suitable focal lengths without missing the subject. To answer that, we have to divide the common ranges of these focal lengths and analyze which one is suitable for every kind of shot.
What focal length should I shoot videos with?
1. 8mm - 35mm
Typical for wide-angle lenses, this focal length is used for capturing the maximum possible view of an environment and setting the scene. It is quite popular among those who want to capture first-person perspective shots, especially in tight spaces where one wants to capture as much as possible.
2. 35mm - 70mm
These focal lengths are considered specifications of normal lenses and are highly versatile as they provide depth of field and a balanced field of view for their users. You can use this focal length for a variety of medium shots to full-body shots, which also convey a sense of intimacy without any distortion in the field of view. One of the most popular and widely used focal length ranges to date.
3. 70mm - 135mm
These numbers are typical of mid-telephoto and portrait lenses, which are used to generate a more compressed perspective in the field of view. A narrower field of view while giving a nice, smooth, shallow depth of field is one of the highlights of the lenses designed with these focal lengths.
4. 135mm and above
This focal length belongs to the lenses that can perform magnification and compression while bringing the object closer in the field of view. This also results in a very shallow depth of field in the background, which also results in strong blurring out of backgrounds. Camera shakes easily happen at such focal lengths, so you should consider investing in a good tripod.
You can use such a focal length for wildlife and sports photography where close access is not available. People also use such focal lengths to capture creative B-roll and add it to normal footage with normal focal lengths.
So, to better answer the common question of what focal length should I shoot videos with, it should be understood that each focal length represents different user cases, and there is no one perfect focal length that will give you perfect shots in each case. You have to identify which range suits your use, and then you have to decide to invest in a lens designed for that particular range.
But there is a small problem: the market is flooded with a plethora of lenses in such ranges, and selection can be quite overwhelming. Some zoom lenses perform well at one focal length but suffer at longer distances. This is why we recommend investing in a professional and high-performance prime lens series that can deliver consistent results in all these focal lengths we mentioned above.
The SIRUI Venus Full-Frame Anamorphic Cinema Lens series is one such lens series that is designed to deliver ultra-crisp results in commonly used focal length ranges and is our ultimate recommendation for video content creation in 2025. It features a next-generation advanced optical design, which maintains edge-to-edge sharpness and offers Hollywood-level visuals at an incredibly low price.
