GH2 Fast, wide, c-mount primes from Edmund Optics

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ethan cooper

Well-known member
Anyone know if these lenses by Edmund Optics will work on the GH2? They claim to cover a 1" sensor.
http://www.edmundoptics.com/product...ageNum=1&sort=description&order=DESC#products

If they do, it's complete set of fast primes (8mm, 12.5mm, 16mm, 25mm, 35mm, 50mm, 75mm) for under $3400.

I'm just about willing to be a guinea pig for either the 8mm or 12.5mm if someone can convince me they'll work on the GH2, I'm just not sure about the coverage.

They also have a smaller set of fast primes that are rated for 2/3"
http://www.edmundoptics.com/products/displayproduct.cfm?productid=3070
 
I think it will not work as you expect.
According to wikipedia sensor format page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_sensor_format the 1 inch lenses just cover a 16mm diagonal and micro four thirds is 21,6mm diagonal, so there will be a big vignetting. you must use the crop mode, extend teleconversion mode. in ETC mode the GH@ diagonal is 8,3mm so to be a wide angle the lens must be under 8mm focal lenght. the best inexpensive rectilinear fast wide angle you can find is the pentax 6mm f1.2 c-mount 1/2" lens as reviewed by seb farges here in the forum.
 
the 6/1.2 needs ETC on to fill the frame. Ditto just about any 1/2" sensor and most 2/3" sensor lenses. Wider focal lengths vignette more than normal and telephoto lenses. There are a number of c-mount lenses that don't exhibit any vignetting at all.

There are a ton of intriguing choices out there for 1" sensor, which should have the best coverage area... Fujinon has a fisheye 2.7mm/1.8 (~$450); Navitar has a full set of f0.95 primes (17, 25, 50), about $600-700 each, and a 1" 16-160 f/2 zoom (~$1200)... I'm a little leery of spending that much to experiment, though.
 
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Thanks guys, I think I'm understanding a bit better now. My mistake was thinking the 1" coverage would be better since it was closer to M43 size. Since since you have to use ETC anyway then for wide angles at least 1/2" is better, gotcha.

Edmund makes what they call "low distortion" wides that cover 1/2". Link The 3mm 2.4 sounds pretty sweet but at $625 I'm not gonna bite just for an experiment.

In their "Megapixel" line, they do have a regular 5mm 1.4 that costs $230 & covers 1/2"

They also have a 12mm 1.4 designed for 1/2" in their budget lineup for $75, that might be fun to play around with although it's not particularly wide.

Also of note is a 3.5mm, 4.5mm & 6mm all 1.4 that cover 1/2" each is $300

Just tossing all this info out there in case someone feels like exploring some fast wide options.

Any feedback or further ideas on the subject are welcome.
 
1" will usually be better... though yes, maybe not better enough. A number of 1" and even 2/3" c-mount lenses give full coverage, despite the fact that they "shouldn't." Generally, the wider the lens, the greater the chances of vignetting.

Another bugaboo is that the widest c-mount lenses have the rear element set further back... so much so that in the WIDE-Wide-wide versions, they may attempt to occupy the same space as your sensor (generally a bad thing).
 
fisheye vs rectilinear

fisheye vs rectilinear

The rviews we can see here in the forum threads shows 3.5 and 4mm lenses as fisheyes

Probably the one to chose is the 5mm f1.4 megapixel because it have more chances to be rectilinear
 
Why bother, then, since we already see the Pentax 6/1.2 is good - plus faster and FAR far cheaper.
 
Cheaper, yes, but unless someone grabs a Edmunds 5mm we'll never know which is better. It's slightly wider & you never know, there could be something in the optics that give it an edge. Or it could just be $130 more for nothing.

Who wants to be the first kid on the block with a 5mm 1.4?
 
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