gh1 questions?

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devin wheeler

Member
ordered a gh1, and it should be here any day now.

and im wondering what mic to get?

another question is on lens...
is the 50mm f1.4 that everyone shoots with the autofocus version that b&h sells for 399.99

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/12140-USA/Canon_2515A003_50mm_f_1_4_USM_Autofocus.html

i need a good low light lens for wedding receptions; is this a viable choice?

how does everyone feel about the ff from indie focus...

Thank you,
Devin wheeler
 
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Well, that AF lens won't do you any good on this camera. Only a few lenses can do AF with the GH1, and all of them are either Four-Thirds or Micro Four-Thirds lenses.

Any 50mm F1.4 or F1.8 from any of the major camera manufacturers (Canon, Nikon, Minolta, Pentax) will be excellent. 50mm lenses tend to be among the very best of all lenses that they make, probably because 50mm is the workhorse lens in the photo world.

You can find an old manual 50mm for easily under $75.
 
No people usually use the old FD manual lenses from canon.

I use a Nikkor-S Nikon 50mm f/1.4 that works great.

It's true about the crop factor and normal FOV but people use these lenses on the GH1 a lot because of the great DOF, low light performance, and cheap cost.
 
Ben_B said:
It's true about the crop factor and normal FOV but people use these lenses on the GH1 a lot because of the great DOF, low light performance, and cheap cost.
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No, I was responding to what he said here:
i need a good low light lens for wedding receptions; is this a viable choice?
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I can't imagine that a telephoto lens would make a good general purpose lens for event videography. But maybe that's just me.
 
thanks for all the info i knew that price didnt look right for the lens... ill get the 50mm manual

should i also consider the 24 or 28? any recommendations on which models?

im new to the dslr game... thanks everyone for alll your help...
 
$399 is right for a modern, Canon, AF lens. Brand new lenses aren't cheap. There are plenty of new MF lenses that are hundreds of dollars.

Since you want something fast, try to find an F2.0 24mm or 28mm. F1.4 is available but rare, expensive, and soft wide-open. I wouldn't buy one unless you really need the F1.4.

28/2.0 and 24/2.0 are available in both Canon FD and Nikon AI or AI-S, as I recall. They can be found on eBay in the ballpark of $200-$300.
 
yea i had heard that you could get the cannon 50mm for under $200, so when i saw the $399 i was wondering...i just wasn't sure about the af part...

ill probly get the 50mm and maybe the 24 or 28...
thanks again...
 
Ben_B said:
No people usually use the old FD manual lenses from canon.

I use a Nikkor-S Nikon 50mm f/1.4 that works great.

It's true about the crop factor and normal FOV but people use these lenses on the GH1 a lot because of the great DOF, low light performance, and cheap cost.
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Are you referring to the newer Nikkor AF-S 50mm (http://www.techradar.com/reviews/ca...s/nikon-af-s-nikkor-50mm-f-1-4g-623501/review), not the old ones designed for film cameras... From what I read the mount on the older lenses is not compatible with current Nikon mounts without a some custom modifications. The older "film camera" lense had an aperture ring that the newer Nikkors dont have (or so I have read, since I don't have either of these lenses). If you have a newer Nikkor, How do you adjust the aperture? Do you have to connect it to a Nikon camera, lock the aperture and then swap the lense onto the GH1? I don''t have a Nikon camera, so this approach is a no-go for me and I am hoping for another option.

I am aware of the Novoflex adapters coming out soon that have a built in aperture ring (http://www.dpreview.com/news/0909/09091101novoflex.asp), but I am waiting to see how well they work. Are you using another adapter with an aperture ring and if what what adapter are you using?

Thanks in advance from a GH1 user looking for a good faster lens
 
I don't see the point in buying a Nikkor AF-S lens, unless you also intend to use it on a modern Nikon camera. The old MF Nikkors are just as good optically and even better mechanically. Plus, they're pretty cheap by comparison.

The nice thing about Nikon is that they've stuck to a single mount, the F mount, for the last few decades. As far as I know, only the very old non-AI lenses don't quite work. The overwhelming majority of MF Nikkors that you can find are AI or AI-S. Most non-AI Nikkors on eBay have already been modded by previous owners. So as long as you have an AI or AI-S lens, or a modded non-AI lens ("AI'ed"), you will be fine.

I would never buy a Novoflex adapter unless I desperately needed one. They are way overpriced, IMO. For the price of one, you can get a very nice lens.
 
ydgmdlu said:
I would never buy a Novoflex adapter unless I desperately needed one. They are way overpriced, IMO. For the price of one, you can get a very nice lens.
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What adapter do you use? I've never used one, or even held one so I'm not sure what makes a "good" adapter, or if they are all more or less about the same.

Thanks
 
I don't use a Nikon adapter. I bought a 5D first, so all of my lenses are adapted to Canon EF. I use a Canon EF to Micro Four-Thirds adapter.

Here's a listing of Nikon adapters on eBay: http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_tr...w=nikon+gh1+adapter&_sacat=See-All-Categories

They're pretty much all comparable, but what separates a good adapter from a bad one, other than whether or not it's up to spec, is how much wiggle room is allowed when a lens is mounted. Ideally, the fit should be as tight as possible. The seller "jinfinance" is perhaps the most reputable maker of adapters for Micro Four-Thirds on eBay.
 
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ydgmdlu said:
No, I was responding to what he said here:

I can't imagine that a telephoto lens would make a good general purpose lens for event videography. But maybe that's just me.
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because it's not a real telephoto lens. the focal distance is still 50mm and it's aperture is 1.4. just because it crops the image does not increase it's focal distance. there is no magnification.
 
Car3o said:
because it's not a real telephoto lens. the focal distance is still 50mm and it's aperture is 1.4. just because it crops the image does not increase it's focal distance. there is no magnification.
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No, that is not accurate. We're not talking about cropping or magnification. We're talking about focal lengths in relation to image format size. We're talking about field of view or angle of view, which is what gives the words "normal," "telephoto," and "wide" meaning when talking about lenses.

50mm is a focal length that falls within the "telephoto" range for the Four-Thirds format. That's because its angle of view is narrower than "normal" human vision. It doesn't matter if the lens is designed for full-frame cameras (resulting in a crop) or if the lens is specifically designed for Four-Thirds (no crop). If you don't understand this concept, then you don't really understand the meaning of "crop factor." The term only has meaning when using another format as reference. When no other format is referenced, then there is no such thing as crop factor.

Tell me, what focal lengths are considered "wide," "normal," and "telephoto" for 16mm? Do you still talk about crop factor when you talk about lenses for 16mm?
 
ydgmdlu said:
No, that is not accurate. We're not talking about cropping or magnification. We're talking about focal lengths in relation to image format size. We're talking about field of view or angle of view, which is what gives the words "normal," "telephoto," and "wide" meaning when talking about lenses.

50mm is a focal length that falls within the "telephoto" range for the Four-Thirds format. That's because its angle of view is narrower than "normal" human vision. It doesn't matter if the lens is designed for full-frame cameras (resulting in a crop) or if the lens is specifically designed for Four-Thirds (no crop). If you don't understand this concept, then you don't really understand the meaning of "crop factor." The term only has meaning when using another format as reference. When no other format is referenced, then there is no such thing as crop factor.

Tell me, what focal lengths are considered "wide," "normal," and "telephoto" for 16mm? Do you still talk about crop factor when you talk about lenses for 16mm?
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hehe
 
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All right, according to Wikipedia, a "telephoto lens" is a lens of a specific type of design with particular optical properties. That is the most technically correct and precise definition of "telephoto." If that is what you had in mind, then you are right. A 50mm lens designed for a full-frame camera is not a "true telephoto lens" when mounted on the GH1.

However, the most common way that the word "telephoto" is used is to describe lenses with focal lengths that are longer than what is considered "normal" for any given image format. A lens is considered "normal" only because of the field of view that it provides, regardless of any other optical properties. So to say that I can't call a 50mm lens mounted on a "GH1" a "telephoto lens" not only robs me of a commonly used way to express FOV characteristics, it also means that you should be correcting everyone who uses the word "telephoto" informally, just for the sake of consistency, you know?

So what term would you prefer me (and everyone else) to use for referring to longer-than-normal lenses?
 
"the telephoto shot appears to compress the distance between objects due to the perspective from the more distant location." Cropping doesn't have that effect. A cropped view is the same as looking through a small hole at the scene beyond. If there was anything "tele" about that, there would be no need for telescopes, and looking out of a very small porthole would be all an intrepid mariner would need to do in order to spot a distant shore. As it is, everything looks normal out of the porthole, but the hazard is you can't see the damn great rock off to the left beyond the cropped field of view.
 
That may be true about cropping, but a 50mm lens on a GH1 still looks essentially the same whether it's a true telephoto lens or just a cropped lens. The focal length is what matters above all else. All of the properties that you're describing are a result of the focal length.

From what I've read, the only benefit of true telephoto lenses is that they offer longer focal lengths at physically smaller sizes.
 
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