Help me quit wasting money? Purchased a Nikon D5100 with lens and GH2

[rock moves]

With all due respect, let me take a crack at this.

You state you are back at this again and consider yourself a newbie with DSLRs. Nothing wrong with this, we all been there. :-)
You bought a D5100 and the appropriate lens for it (35G) and it worked.
You then bought a GH2 and are trying to adapt lenses to it, that were not designed for the camera, and this is not working.
When you bought the D5100 and lens, you had a great newbie setup as the camera/lens combo was able to do everything, and give you settings to learn from. This is a good first step for a newbie. Let the camera do the initial work, so you can see what aperture,ISO and shutter speed it picks for various situations. As you get more skilled, you will have these early experiences to draw from, as you attempt to go into manual modes. IMO, you were taking the appropriate steps in the learning curve and taking them in the correct order.
With the GH2, you are trying to adapt these lenses you own, but you don't have the prior experiences, the D5100 and 35mm would have given you, as none of your lenses are propitiatory to m4/3. These lenses you wish to adapt, can adapt, but IMO, you are jumping in at a skill level one or two steps ahead of the skill level you currently possess. Having done that myself more times that I care to admit, that is a prescription for frustration and often times, for failure.
Do yourself one huge favor and go buy 1 m4/3 lens to learn from. When used on the GH2, that will give you auto everything and display the settings so you can begin to learn, and from there, then adapting your existing lenses will make more sense to you. One lower priced m4/3 lens that would do this and may be useful to your project is the new Sigma 30mm f2.8. Reviews are decent and price is cheap at $199.

Exactly.

I was reading your reply and thinking, he knows my wife or something... perfect. I was hoping you weren't going to say, "stick with the d5100, as you had no problems with it", which you didn't. Thank you. Instead you tossed me a bone, and I appreciate it. I will look at the sigma 30mm f2.8. This is something I really wanted to know, a lens I can use made for the gh2. I should have renamed this thread to, please give me a few suggestions for start lenses. The learning curve without auto is killing me

[rock moves]

So you bought the FOTGA Nikon G adapter, and you CAN control the aperture of your Nikon lens?

I mention this because there are two types of Nikon adapters, the Nikon F adapter which does NOT control the aperture of Nikon G lenses, and the Nikon G adapter that DOES control the aperture with Nikon G lenses.

I purchased the adapter that could not control the aperture (worked well for my non G lens), and the one you linked. It was the exact same adapter, just on Amazon

[rock moves]

I brought the D5100 in December and the GH2 in May. I enjoy using both cameras and each has its own strength and weakness. If you can afford it I would keep both cameras. And either get one of the Panasonic zooms for the GH2 or a suitable 35mm SLR lens with adapter. Canon FD lens often get recommended.

Very tempting, as I like both panasonic and nikon, but if I wanted to get the 5100, I could do so later. The body isn't that high priced and I assume it will only go down eventually. After seeing all the footage of the gh2, it actually gave me the bug to just go out and shoot. It really is inspirational.

I appreciate everyones help.

[TheDingo]

I purchased the adapter that could not control the aperture (worked well for my non G lens), and the one you linked. It was the exact same adapter, just on Amazon

So the "< Lock Open >" ring doesn't adjust the aperture?

This is strange, as they list it as a Nikon G lens adapter, and most of these use a simple rotating ring that lets you control the aperture. There is one high end adapter ( Adaptimax ) that uses a set-screw to provide very fine control of the aperture: Adaptimax Plus Nikon to micro 4/3 Lens Adapter

[rock moves]

I think you misunderstood me. I originally purchased one that DID NOT have the rotating ring, just an adapter for the old nikon lenses. Today, I purchased the one you linked, it should work as you said. It does have a ring that will manually open the aperture.


I have decied to focus on a lens dedicated to the gh2 camera so I took a big chunk out of my wallet and got the Panasonic LUMIX G 20mm f/1.7. Hopefully this was a good choice. Although the nikon lens looked great on the d5100, I am returning the 35mm lens for now. I still have another G lens to use the adapter with, but I will try to find an older manual 35mm lense instead. I need something dedicated to my camera, like chip suggested.

[Bruce Foreman]

That LUMIX 20mm f1.7 is an excellent choice. The perspective is what I call "slightly wide normal" which will give you a little room to work with without being stuck in "wide angle". The lens will work with the features of the GH2 body and the fast aperture of f1.7 will be a great help in low light environments.

I suggest you start out shooting stills for a few days, set the mode dial on top at P for Program mode and shoot stills. Then the next day set the dial on A for Aperture Priority mode which requires you to set an aperture and the camera will then select a shutter speed and if in AUTO ISO it will select an ISO that will work.

As you see how that works you can then select specific ISO values according to lighting conditions. You are now almost working manually. This will get you started.

That lens may be the best "general purpose" lens you could have selected.

[Blue Bomber]

So the "< Lock Open >" ring doesn't adjust the aperture?

This is strange, as they list it as a Nikon G lens adapter, and most of these use a simple rotating ring that lets you control the aperture. There is one high end adapter ( Adaptimax ) that uses a set-screw to provide very fine control of the aperture: Adaptimax Plus Nikon to micro 4/3 Lens Adapter

That one does. I have it. It's a very coarse adjustment, though, so don't expect to easily set to any specific aperture unless you make markings and spend the time to fine adjust the adapter properly every time you change the aperture. The Adaptimax looks great, except the price. You can probably rig the other adapter to have the same level of adjustability somehow.

[rock moves]

I am getting results! Stuck with my old nikon 50mm 1.4 I am learning to mock the Ia look, except better imo! Quickly falling in love.

[Lpowell]

For future reference, the best-suited lenses for use on both the D5100 and the GH2 in manual-focus mode are Nikon AF-D lenses. These lenses have manual aperture rings that will work properly with your Nikon F-mount adapter for the GH2. You will be able to attach them to the GH2 and use them just like the older Nikon AI-S manual-focus lenses.

Although AF-D lenses will not auto-focus on the Nikon D5100, you will be able to use the focus-confirm light in the viewfinder to focus them manually. The D5100's auto-exposure functions will work properly as well, allowing you the use the camera in any of its P, A, S, or M exposure modes.

In my experience, the D5100 works best in auto-ISO Aperture Priority mode, for both still photography and video. Since it lacks a real-time histogram display, there's no easy way to monitor manual exposure settings. I find it's better to rely on the camera's excellent light meter to adjust the ISO for correct exposure rather than attempt to set all the controls manually. And since I always shoot video at 1/60 sec shutter speed, I need only set the aperture for each shot and the camera does the rest.

Here's a link to a comparison review I did between the D5100 and the GH2. Be sure to read through to the third post where I provide detailed instructions for setting up the D5100 for shooting video:

http://www.personal-view.com./talks/...-panasonic-gh2

[rock moves]

I appreciate you taking the time to reply here lpowell. You are t he reason I bought the d5100 to begin with. I love nikon and its photo quality. When googling d5100 vs gh2,your points sold me. I just can't keep both and maybe I want to do it the hardway. I am learning a lot more this way.

Anyine have any inexpensive solutions to getting better sound?