20mm F1.7 Pancake lens -is- fairly noisy

I got mine today from Henry's in Ottawa. But! I got it from the GF1 kit. I am selling the GF1 body on a local website, and already have emails coming in. Saving at least $100 CAD on this 20mm f/1.7... nice.

Autofocus is faster than I thought for video. I can finally use my GH1!

I am posting this sample ad, not to advertise (since I doubt anyone wants the GF1), but just to show how easy it is to buy the GF1 with 20mm kit lens and resell.. Do it people if you can.
 
You're a lucky man with an adorable little girl, DanDOF. This lens seems to "hunt" a bit more than the kit lens and may not be quite as fast.
 
tflak said:
You're a lucky man with an adorable little girl, DanDOF. This lens seems to "hunt" a bit more than the kit lens and may not be quite as fast.
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Thanks tflak, she is amazing.

The lens does hunt for focus a lot when the action changes. I'm trying to figure out which situations that happens in (i.e. backlit with hi contrast or is it low light with low contrast?). The one thing I am missing about my Nikon 50mm f/1.4 AF-D lens is the fast manual focus I could achieve on it (after 1 year of practice).

This Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 focus ring feels like I am turning a motor gear when I manual focus (in fact I am). I am trying to use my finger and thumb to pull focus, with my index underneath and my thumb on top pushing to the right when my index finger has run out. Its kinda akward for now.

What do you guys think of the simple editing. I am trying to learn to cut away shots that just keep going on, but its always hard when I'm personally and emotionally attached to the content.
 
Very clear and sharp lens. Can't wait for mine. I bet there will be another firmware for this lens to speed it up. It's hard to have everything perfect.
 
noelsphoto said:
Very clear and sharp lens. Can't wait for mine. I bet there will be another firmware for this lens to speed it up. It's hard to have everything perfect.
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Firmware 1.2 actually SLOWS this lens down to make it less noisy. I have not yet applied it. I wonder if the lens will stop hunting so much?
 
Oh yes. That's right. I'll let you know when i get my pancake lens.
Would having a separte microphone cut on the lens noise?
 
Like I said in another thread, I should get my lens by Wednesday. I could have been getting it today but I choose the 2 day shipping rather than 1 day. I almost decided to get the free shipping but the though of it taking 5 to 9 business days to get to the house would have been torture.

It almost seams as if Amazon have received more lenses from Panasonic than all of the other retailers in the U.S. combined.
 
If you change the af size to the largest area

If you change the af size to the largest area

Does that help with the af hunting?
 
My 20mm/f1.7 lens arrived today and I tested it out tonight. My first impressions are that the AF motor is acoustically noisy compared to the kit lens and the 7-14mm lens, both of which are essentially silent. The autofocus appears slower than those two lenses. So I'd have to say that it is really more of a stills lens than a movie lens. Low light performance is excellent as expected.
 
I decided to write to Panasonic Canada based on this request:
DanDOF said:
Please Panasonic, update the "fly-by-wire" manual focusing with firmware for the 20mm f/1.7 lens.

It takes too many turns to change the focus manually.

Perhaps firmware could add the ability to select the sensitivity level of the focus ring?
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Adventsam said:
"If you change the af size to the largest area"... Does that help with the af hunting?
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I tried this and actually found I like setting the AF area to the tiniest size. The auto-focus is much quicker now. (Note I have not updated to Firmware 1.2, which slows the auto-focus of this 20mm f/1.7 lens).
 
Fixed Pattern Noise Issue

Fixed Pattern Noise Issue

Do you guys still see banding (low light streaks) in underexposed areas with this pancake lens?

I wonder if it could record indoor videos without the fixed pattern noise issue.

Thanks,

Ricardo
 
I should get mine by friday from Mostly digital here in Canada, just received an email from them after a month of waiting... :)
 
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