Goodbye Canon 5DMII, Hello GH1 with Canon EF 10-22mm lens

commanderspike

commanderspike

Carbonite Member
I recently took delivery (7 days from ordering) of a Canon EF lens adapter from China, for the Micro 4/3rds format. I wanted a cheaper alternative to the 7-14mm wide lens by Panasonic, which costs almost as much as the GH1 kit itself. The adapter is well built, small and light. As for the wide angle lens, the Canon EF 10-22mm lens is not exactly cheap itself but is widely available 2nd hand on eBay, as well as the cheaper Sigma & Tokina versions.

gh1canon.JPG


How did it fare?

Judge for yourself here: http://www.vimeo.com/5473689

(Apologies for the rather hasty test, I should have used a tripod, but at least you get the idea of the field of view and how important OIS is for handheld work!!).

Stills gallery here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/31927380@N03/sets/72157621035953482/

As you can see, pretty wide (and it's a great bit of glass). When I get my hands on a friend's Canon DSLR I'll do a comparison across formats because due to the 2x crop factor of the GH1 compared to 1.6x on a Canon EOS (1.0x on the full frame 5DMII) the stated '10mm' is not as wide as it could be, but it's still a lot wider than the 28mm equiv. kit lens and has very little distortion.

Actually, in the GH1's native 16:9 mode you get a wider field of view than the standard Micro 4/3rds format allows.

On the GH1 all EOS EF lenses are manual focus only and the 10-22mm has no OIS but handles well. The Canon EF 10-22mm is also a very very lightweight lens. Combined with the lightweight GH1 body, the whole thing is almost half the weight as the GH1 and it's weighty kit lens! A nice surprise.
 
Do you know if there's something similar in FD mount? I want something even cheaper hehe

From looking at eBay the 10-22 doesn't seem that much cheaper than the Olympus 9-18mm (four thirds format), that also allows autofocus in stills mode if you get the Panasonic adapter.

This thread: http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=175629
 
Yes I have heard of the FD adapter. There is a Nikon one too. A good search on eBay should find it unless they've run out for the moment.
 
That's great so I take it that EF-S lenses have no problem being attached to this adapter either? Since it only says EF.

I just need to get a GH1 body and all will be good with the universe!
 
Sorry, yes. EF-S is fine. The 10-22mm is a EF-S.

I have just become a fan of FD lenses too.

Some fantastic bargains out there for fast primes.

The GH1 is really coming into it's own as far as lenses go.

A 50mm F1.4 FD is 10x the bargain any Panasonic lens will ever be, no matter how much electronic control you get with them. That's not to say the kit lens isn't amazing - it is - but the creative possibilities offered for the price by these ancient FD lenses is breaking down walls now the GH1 is around.

Can you imagine the money you'd need to get this kind of quality on a video camera just 6 months ago?
 
Yeah, those FDs are killer lenses for this cam. I recently lost a bid for an f 1.2 for just $350 gorgeous lens! :(

C'on Pana where is the supply of this cams?
 
My bidding for FD lenses has involved only Buy It Now auctions... to give you an example, a Canon FD 50mm F1.4 for £50, 24mm F2.8 £30, 28mm F2.8 £20 and 135mm F2.8 £60.

The 50mm F1.2 seems much more expensive than the F1.4. I don't have much experience of fast primes but F1.2 to F1.4 doesn't seem that great a difference. Is there an image quality related reason or is it just rare to find the F1.2 version?
 
f1.4 to f1.2 is another complete stop meaning double the brightness of f1.4. so my guess is because it is twice as fast as a f1.4 that makes it more valuable. less light needed to expose. but im pretty sure that at f1.2 the image goes a bit soft for some peoples taste.
 
They seem to have adapters out for everything. Cheers to Chinese engineering :)

How long before can use the NASA inspired Zeiss F0.7 Stanley Kubrick used on Barry Lyndon with out GH1s? :)
 
Aperture light gathering on these lenses is similar to what a telescope aperture means. If you buy a 4inch telescope with 12 inches of area it will much less light than a 6 inch telescope with only 2 inches more in aperture but several more inches of area to that of 28 or more than twice the light gathering power and so on.

So an 1.2 lens will be twice the area of glass that captures light compared to an 1.4.

So yeah I need one of those 1.2, I can imagine it will be great for pitch black night shots.
 
Forrest Schultz said:
f1.4 to f1.2 is another complete stop meaning double the brightness of f1.4.
Click to expand...

Actually f1.2 is only one half stop brighter than f1.4.
I got lucky and purchased a used one at a local camera shop for next to nothing. It's great. When wide open, things do look soft, however. I guess most all 35mm SLR lenses are at their best when stopped down a bit. So one advantage may be this: using my f1.2 lens at f2.0 may look sharper than an f2.0 prime wide open. Does that make sense? I'm not sure if that's true, but it seems possible. Anyway, I love my lens.
 
When I say this it's not intended to be rude. I'm just confused. When I see these wide lenses being used there's a lot of distortion. This is especially evident when there's a camera movement, especially a big pan or tilt such as in the clip that's been posted here. I would rather back up as far as I could with a lens that isn't so wide so as to not have that distortion. Someone please fill me in with what all the excitement is about, because I just don't get it.
 
Mike@AF said:
When I say this it's not intended to be rude. I'm just confused. When I see these wide lenses being used there's a lot of distortion. This is especially evident when there's a camera movement, especially a big pan or tilt such as in the clip that's been posted here. I would rather back up as far as I could with a lens that isn't so wide so as to not have that distortion. Someone please fill me in with what all the excitement is about, because I just don't get it.
Click to expand...

Wide lenses, even fisheyes have been used in many films. Kubrick especially was a big fan of very wide lenses. It is for artistic reasons that wide lenses are appriciated, and they suit certain shots (but not others), as do all lenses.

For example: making a lone subject look isolated against a desolate landscape. Giving a wide establishing shot featuring breathtaking landscape. A 'tunnel' affect for corridors and narrow passages. Cityscapes and expansive horizons. Shooting in cramped places or placing the camera close to the subject when the subject(s) happen to be spread out or large (like long shadows or groups of actors). There are literally hundreds of uses for a very wide lens. Distortion is all part of the artistic use of the lens.

Personally I enjoy the look that wide lenses give, it has a more '3D' look to it and is cinematic. Quite apart from being able to fit so much into the frame from close proximity, I like the way it extends the stuff far away into the distance relative to the stuff close to the lens. There is probably a proper term for this but I don't yet know it :)
 
PhilD said:
Do you know if there's something similar in FD mount? I want something even cheaper hehe

From looking at eBay the 10-22 doesn't seem that much cheaper than the Olympus 9-18mm (four thirds format), that also allows autofocus in stills mode if you get the Panasonic adapter.

This thread: http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=175629
Click to expand...

There is a 7.5mm fisheye for the FD lens mount. The bad news? It's so rare it costs £500 2nd hand!!

2x crop factor on FD lenses makes it 15mm anyway. The 10mm EFS is 20mm, so there isn't a great deal of difference.

The olympus lens you pointed out is a good option. Still pretty expensive though.
 
commanderspike said:
There is a 7.5mm fisheye for the FD lens mount. The bad news? It's so rare it costs £500 2nd hand!!

2x crop factor on FD lenses makes it 15mm anyway. The 10mm EFS is 20mm, so there isn't a great deal of difference.

The olympus lens you pointed out is a good option. Still pretty expensive though.
Click to expand...
7.5mm is always 7.5mm, focal length does not change. Same for the EF-s, as well as that 7.5mm and 10mm is a bigger difference then you might think. Though a fish-eye is very different from a wide angle anyway.
 
Chibs said:
7.5mm is always 7.5mm, focal length does not change. Same for the EF-s, as well as that 7.5mm and 10mm is a bigger difference then you might think. Though a fish-eye is very different from a wide angle anyway.
Click to expand...

I think he meant the field of view equivalent.
 
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