Damaged parcel box/questions about Pancake lens inside

GHKAM

GHKAM

Well-known member
I ordered a Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 pancake (and another item that was not a lens/not fragile). So I picked up the parcel box that was left in front of my door and it was in bad shape. It looked like it was kicked around like a football. The actual Panasonic box that the lens was inside was fine and the lens itself wasn't cracked or anything. But I am concerned that it was thrown around or something else due to the shape of the box. I normally would just not open a box in that condition and have the carrier return it, but I waited so long for this lens to finally be in stock and decided to take my chances. If I return it, I know I might have to wait again.

Anyway, I ran some tests and want to make sure that this thing is behaving as it should, so I have some questions about the Lumix 20mm f/1.7 pancake lens and if someone who owns it wouldn't mind answering, thanks.

Some things I noticed (aperture 1.7/shutter 50/24p):
-If I move in front of the camera, it does a considerable amount of focus hunting. I heard the lens is fast, but am wondering if it's supposed to do that much hunting.
-If I film an object that's a couple of feet in front of the lens; the autofocus will not focus on the object/the object will be blurred, but it will focus clearly on the window 10 feet behind it. (Is this a fixed distance focus or anything to do with the aperture setting?)
If, before filming/at that same shot, I press the shutter button halfway or press the AF/AE button it locks the focus/focuses on that nearest object and then blurs the background.
-If I manually focus on an object, stop filming and the switch to autofocus - it seems to keep the same focus point as when it was set to manual.
-When filming in autofocus AFC mode, it prompts to switch to AFS.

Other than those concerns, the focused images are very clear.
 
I can confirm the switching to AFS mode.

And everything else sounds pretty normal for the lens. The few times I tried the autofocus with the lens, it was a bit slow and didn't always do what I wanted it to do. So yeah, I'm fairly certain the lens is fine. I think, chances are, the glass would have been damaged before the electronics would have.
 
BrandonT said:
I can confirm the switching to AFS mode.

And everything else sounds pretty normal for the lens. The few times I tried the autofocus with the lens, it was a bit slow and didn't always do what I wanted it to do. So yeah, I'm fairly certain the lens is fine. I think, chances are, the glass would have been damaged before the electronics would have.
Click to expand...

Thanks I appreciate your reply, it's reassuring. That makes sense, would have seen visual damage to the glass before anything wrong with the electronics.

I guess this kind of autofocus is not really the same as a camcorder. The AF on the camcorder I used to have would quickly focus on anything in front of it.

If I press the shutter halfway or AF lock on the GH2, it won't hunt. So, I guess that's not such a difficult thing to have to do before every shot with autofocus. I also do a lot of manual focusing, but just wanted to make sure everything checks out okay under these circumstances.
 
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