14mm f2.5...anyone have one?

M

mimirsan

Well-known member
Anyone know how fast/good the AF is on this lense?
Im looking for something my missus can use indoors with good AF.
Im not expecting it to do fast AF like the 14-140mm but faster/ quieter than the 20mm?
As good as say... the 14-45mm 14-42mm AF?
 
I don't have one, but from all the reports I've read it seems to be almost silent and very quick at AF.
There are some less than stellar reviews, but these don't seem to be backed up by a lot of the samples I've seen over the last few days.. it looks like a keeper. I'm hoping to get one in kit with the GF2 when it's released.
 
photography wise, i've only seen heard good about it and seen good examples. They all say its super fast focus, faster than the 20mm. people expect that focus time like the 20mm but its already done because the green box is instant. definitely on my list.
 
I can go try one ina store the next few days, from the brief plays I've had with them so far the autofocus was pretty quick though on the GF2, noticeable faster than the 20mm on the GF1.

Can't compare it to anything else as I've only just got my GH2 a couple of days ago and becoming familar with the 14-140mm
 
I got the 14mm just before I went to India over Christmas. It operates the same as the 14-140mm which I also took with me to India. The AF is extremely fast and silent on both lenses. I never notice it stopping down so I am not sure if the aperture is silent or not.

I bought the 14mm for taking stills with a GF1 so I don’t have very much video with it. My brother took about 3000 stills with it though and he loved it. He is buying the GF2 with that lens when it comes out.
I used the 14-140mm with my GH2 for videos and I have about 400 videos with that combo. I am shooting some video at an indoor climbing comp on Saturday. I will shoot most of it with the 14mm F2.5 since it is in very low light. I can post those samples if you want?
 
The 14mm autofocus is MUCH faster than the 20mm. The 20mm is very slow. It just snaps to focus instantly with the 14mm F2.5.
 
I plan on buying either the 14mm or the 20mm when I (hopefully) pick up a GH2 this month. This will be the first lens purchase of my life!

I'm torn between the two because:

1) This is my first lens purchase and I'm just figuring it out as I go

2) Everyone here loves the 20mm, and the 14mm was just born

I like that the 20mm isn't as wide as the 14mm. But, I'm buying this to shoot video primarily, and the silent AF is a HUGE plus with the 14. If anyone wants to suggest which one between the two to get, I'd love to hear it.
 
Sam Mallery said:
I plan on buying either the 14mm or the 20mm when I (hopefully) pick up a GH2 this month. This will be the first lens purchase of my life!

I'm torn between the two because:

1) This is my first lens purchase and I'm just figuring it out as I go

2) Everyone here loves the 20mm, and the 14mm was just born

I like that the 20mm isn't as wide as the 14mm. But, I'm buying this to shoot video primarily, and the silent AF is a HUGE plus with the 14. If anyone wants to suggest which one between the two to get, I'd love to hear it.
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I have the 20mm and here's my take. It's true that the 20mm makes some sound while autofocusing. However, this will only be an issue when using the onboard mic. The sound is actually fairly quiet when the lens is auto-focusing during recording (I had to place my ear next to the lens to hear it). It's much louder when you press the shutter button to focus. Personally, I don't feel the auto-focus noise is a significant issue. And remember, you can always turn it off and go manual, or just use auto-focus to set up your shot.

However, to my mind, the biggest reason to get the 20 instead of the 14 is the extra f stop of light it lets in. That's twice the amount of light. That means you can shoot deeper into the dark and you can use lower ISO's for all your shots.

Plus, 20mm is a sweet focal legnth to cover a wide variety of subject matter.

Hope that helps.
 
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Thanks guys!
I forgot to point out that I have the 20mm...and want to shoot video with 14mm...so Im asking in relation to AF while recording video.
 
mimirsan said:
Thanks guys!
I forgot to point out that I have the 20mm...and want to shoot video with 14mm...so Im asking in relation to AF while recording video.
Click to expand...
Fast AF is important for photo but not for video. In fact the latest firmware for 14-140 slowed down AFC speed because super fast AFC looked awkward. Also 14mm being so tiny that it will be harder to do MF.

I'd get 20mm pancake over 14mm pancake. 20mm is great for portrait. M43 body uses it for 37mm FOV in 16:9 mode. 14mm is... kinda little long for landscape and little short for portrait. If Panasonic produced 12mm pancake, it would have been a great pair with their upcoming 25mm 1.4 lens. I don't know whether it is going to be a pancake design, but it would be nice to carry a set of 3 pancakes, 12mm and 25mm and 50mm.

A pancake trio to cover wide, normal, short tele. :)
 
stonebat said:
Fast AF is important for photo but not for video. In fact the latest firmware for 14-140 slowed down AFC speed because super fast AFC looked awkward. Also 14mm being so tiny that it will be harder to do MF
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Okay let me rephrase how "accurate" is AF (like the 14-140mm? 14-45mm?) is it faster than the 20mm (seems a yes ) quieter than the 20mm (again seems a yes)
...Ive had the 14-45mm in the past and it had pretty usable AF...so im hoping if the 14mm is as good or better.
The 14-140mm is not bright enough....again owned one.

I have a much loved 8mm samyang thats only good in great light.

14mm coverage is very handy in our small house beleive me.
Currently im having to have my wife use the 20mm with the AF lock. Because of the noise from the lense and the habit it has with hunting.

Fast accurate quiet AF IS important when you have a partner that wants to just point and shoot! ;-)
 
20mm gives pretty sharp picture. So I presume it has accurate AF.

About making a partner happy... I handed E-PL1 with 20mm to my wife. She hated it. She doesn't wanna touch the manual lens cap. Now she's happy with S95. Lately XZ-1 is driving me nuts... it looks so much better than S95, but it has manual lens cap. Oh well.

I got pretty nice indoor photos from 20mm. External flash + light bouncing on ceiling gave darn good results. Usually I step down to 2.0 to get the most sharpness. 17mm gotta step down to 4.0 to get the most sharpness. That's like 2 stops difference. That's what drives people to buy 20mm. It's compact and it's great at 2.0.

But it's your lens. Your choice. Really you can't go wrong with either one. Have fun.
 
Big Question...

I know that the un-corrected image from the 14mm lens has a lot of distortion and vignetting, but that the camera body corrects these problems when shooting stills.

Does the same apply when shooting video ? Does the camera body still apply the distortion and vignetting correction when shooting video, just like it does when shooting stills ?
 
mpgxsvcd said:
The 14mm autofocus is MUCH faster than the 20mm. The 20mm is very slow. It just snaps to focus instantly with the 14mm F2.5.
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mpgxvcd (or anyone else here who knows),

If I may ask, do you know of any links to videos that test/show the 14mm doing continuos AF (not "push AF"?

Is continuous AF on the 17mm at least as fluid as the 14-140 (in good light)?

From the videos I've seen, the continuous AF on 14-140 is barely good enough. It takes about a second to focus, but sometimes "loops around" to find focus (maybe more so in low light video examples). The 20mm appears to take about 2.5 seconds to find focus.

I would be using the GH2 and prime(s) for continuous AF "handheld" with a SteadyTracker Ultra-Lite, to track focus on a moving person (mainly my wife).

I prefer the wider angle of the 17mm. Actually wider still would be better, but not if it means slower aperture.

Many thanks for your time,

Ripple
 
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