GH1 telephoto solutions

R

rrobin

New member
I need to increase the GH1's telephoto range for video to a 35-mm equivalent of about about 600-700 mm. The kit lens gives a 35-mm equivalent of 280 mm. My idea is to get the Lumix 45-200 and attach a Olympus TCON-17 or a Sony VCL-HGD1758 1.7x extender. That would give me a final 35 mm equivalent range of 150-680. Everything I see online says the Lumix 45-200 can do video, albeit more slowly and more noisily than the kit lens.

In the past I have always used prosumer dedicated video cameras. So I have never had to adapt lenses. Three questions:

1. What do I need in the way of adapter rings and tubing for each?
2. Is there a big difference between the two extenders
3. Is this plan crazy?

Some will say wait for the Panasonic 100-300 lens, but that won't be out until spring or summer 2010, right?

Thanks in advance for any insights!
 
Why not get a Canon or Nikon adapter and get some second hand teles while you wait for the Panasonic one? I got my Canon FD adapter from this guy, it's excellent, and my mate who got the Nikon one is equally happy. Just bear in mind that you probably have to have some support for the lens so you don't break the GH1.

http://shop.ebay.com/ciecio7/m.html

Or get Panasonic's Micro Four Thirds to Four Thirds adapter and then a Four Third lens. You got a 50-500 mm puppy there. Or even 300-800!

http://www.four-thirds.org/en/fourthirds/telephoto.html

The adapters are on this page: http://www.four-thirds.org/en/microft/lense.html
 
I concur with Martti. Get a Canon or Nikon or Olympus to micro 4/3 adapter and use cheap old manual telephoto lenses. A 300mm zoom becomes a 600mm! You'll have to focus manually, but when rolling video I think the autofocus is worthless anyway...I don't like seeing that focus twitter. If I'm not mistaken, adding a teleconverter is going to make you lose light. The lens will be slower. So your Lumix 45 to 200 when you're at 200mm, instead of f5.6 is going to be more like f8 or f11! That's a light hog! Get a cheap f4 to f5.6 zoom for less than $100 plus an adapter and you're ready to go.
 
rrobin said:
I need to increase the GH1's telephoto range for video to a 35-mm equivalent of about about 600-700 mm. The kit lens gives a 35-mm equivalent of 280 mm. My idea is to get the Lumix 45-200 and attach a Olympus TCON-17 or a Sony VCL-HGD1758 1.7x extender.
Click to expand...

Extenders can really give very mixed image quality. They are really best used when one is designed for a certain lens. Canon, for example, offers extenders for its pro "L" series Telephotos that are so good that you can't tell the difference between the images from the lens with or without the extender, the only real difference being the decrease in light. However, extenders that work with "any" lens tend to not deliver very good results. I am sure there are exceptions, but all in all, they tend to be inexpensive, and lacking in overall image quality.

What sort of video are you looking to shoot with the GH1?

If you are looking to get a 35mm equivalent of 600-700mm, you're going to need some very good stabilization, and frankly a tele-converter on a long consumer zoom like the 45-200 is not likely to yield really good results...one, it's going to be very slow since at 200mm that lens will be at F5.6, multiply that by the extender (1.7x), and you're going to be shooting just under F/11 even with your lens wide open - the camera will almost certainly not be able to autofocus at F/11 (most can't) so you lose the only real benefit I can see from this lens if you throw on an extender, and even then you'd only be able to use it in extremely bright conditions.

I think you'd be much better off getting a Canon FD adapter as the previous poster said and picking up a Canon FD 300mm f4 or f5.6 or the 400mm f4.5 FD lenses.

The 400 4.5 often goes for very little on eBay, and it's a great lens.

You can find either of those for between $100-250 on eBay if you watch for a bit, and of course there are other Canon FD primes and zooms availble too, so it would give you the ability to use some other inexpensive lenses on your GH1.

Not only that, there are Canon extenders available for these lenses, that were really *designed* for them, they are relatively inexpensive due to the fact that the FD platform has basically been abandoned, but they will work really well with either the 300 or 400mm fixed lenses, which opens up even more possibilities for you if you need to get into really super-telephoto. Heck, sometimes you can even find old Canon FD 300mm f2.8s for $400-500, which is a super steal!

You just won't have autofocus with these...but you wouldn't have that with your 45-200 + extender either, I don't believe, but I could be wrong on that. But most AF cameras can't AF when the image is coming in at F8 or dimmer.
 
I use a Polaris 55-300 f/4.5 FD mount and it looks quite nice. And yes, this thing is so heavy you need a lens collar to mount it to the tripod.
 
Ditto on the sturdy tripod / mounting solution

I have an old Canon FD 200mm 2.8 which is great lens (especially for $50) but without image stabilization it can be quite difficult to get steady footage.

Here are some stills with the lens http://www.flickr.com/photos/designbydave51/sets/72157622757944924/

I shot most of these at f/2.8 or f/3 in aperture priority mode so the camera would select a really high speed shutter (reducing the blurriness of my shaky hands.)
 
Weird.
$1500 camera, $50 long lens, but want your film to look like a Tony Scott piece: get a $3000+ support system.
No (cheap) way out!
 
Thanks to all for the advice. I wanted the long length to shoot soccer. I find the kit lens AF is fast enough for that. And even when I can't get an exact continuous lock, I can always do a quick and dirty focus by pushing down halfway on the still shutter. I'm sorta nervous about not having continuous AF or at least a quick shot at focus with the shutter button. Unless of course, people think that I can set everything up at a high f stop so that focus becomes less critical.
 
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