Lens Suggestions please

R

Rocket_Dog

Active member
Hi All,

Just got my GH1.. so far I like it a lot.. But.. I think I need a couple faster lenses.. I shoot mainly weddings and some corporate events and promos.. I need 2 lenses.. one to shoot close up face shots of bride during ceremony (approx 25 to 30 feet away) and one for the wide shot balcony camera.. this shot is basically anywhere from 50 to 75 feet away from the altar and would be framed at about 25 to 30 feet wide at the altar... I'm asking for both because I'm not sure which I'll use the camera for yet but I could see both lenses being useful. I guess I really need to know the size I should get in mm..

For those wondering, I'll be using it for it's shallow dof capabilities during the other parts of the day but I want it to serve as a cya cam during the ceremony as well..

I've read about buying adapters to use regular lenses so any advice on which of those is my best (maybe cheapest?) option would be great..

lastly are there any limitations with using these other lenses... I know they won't auto focus... any other gotchas?

Sorry if my terminology is a little off, I'm new the wild world of SLR lenses and their crazy metric measurements...

Thanks for any advice..

Cheers,
Scott
 
Lots of ways to go about this. Do you think you'll ever buy a traditional dSLR for stills? If so, and if you don't have a budget to buy 2 sets of lenses, you might buy into the lens system of the company whose dSLR you have your eyes on..

I'm sure many will chime in shortly with the (well deserved!) merits of Nikon, Canon, and Lecia glass. I like Pentax glass...it's high quality, there's a lot of it out there (The Pentax PK mount used to be the most popular in the world of still cameras. Pentax now represents a tiny share of the market, so lots of old glass left over and nobody to use it), and it works fine even on their newest camera, the fantastic K-7.
 
The doubling of the effective focal length of the u4/3 really impacts the wide end. You'll need to have quite a wide lens to get wide on the GH1. For example, even a 20mm SLR lens is only 40mm on the GH1. It's going to be hard to find wider lenses than this that are fast. For this, I'd be tempted to see how the kit lens does (at the effective 28mm).

On the other hand, the doubling works very nicely for telephoto. For headshots at 25 to 30 feet, you're going to need an effective focal length of about 400 to 600mm, so try checking out a 200 to 300mm SLR lens. Obviously, you'll need to be on a good tripod as you'll have no Image Stabilizing.

Cheers,
 
simonclivehughes said:
The doubling of the effective focal length of the u4/3 really impacts the wide end.
Click to expand...

Everyone really needs to get this straight. There is NO DOUBLING of the focal length or the effective focal length. If you shoot with a 50mm lens, you are still shooting at 50mm and still getting the same depth of field with the lens if set to the same aperture, same focus, and same distance no matter what camera you shoot with.

Shooting on the GH1 will crop the FIELD OF VIEW of the lens. This means it will cut off the outside portion of the frame and essentially give you an EQUIVALENT FIELD OF VIEW of close to a 100mm lens if you're shooting with a 50mm lens at that same distance.

If you're going to give someone an answer/explanation please make sure it's accurate as it starts to confuse a lot of people that are just being introduced to this and other micro 4/3 and 4/3 cameras or cameras that have a crop factor.
 
Mike,

You may be quite correct semantically, but the point is that it's a valid way to describe what apparently happens. It is as it the 50mm lens I put on has the reach of a 100mm lens. Yes, it is the smaller "crop" that you're viewing, but it makes no difference whatsoever to my answer to the OP... the recommendations would have been the same.

Cheers,
 
It's not semantics. It's either right or wrong. There's been enough people confused about it already. No reason to add to the confusion by not explaining it correctly. The OP isn't the only person reading this thread.
 
OK, how's this?

The doubling (crop) of the effective field of view of the u4/3 really impacts the wide end. You'll need to have quite a wide lens to get wide on the GH1. For example the effective field of view, even for a 20mm SLR lens is only 40mm on the GH1. It's going to be hard to find wider SLR lenses than this that are fast. For this, I'd be tempted to see how the kit lens does (at the effective 28mm).

On the other hand, the doubling (crop) works very nicely for telephoto. For headshots at 25 to 30 feet, you're going to need an effective field of view of about 400 to 600mm, so try checking out a 200 to 300mm SLR lens. Obviously, you'll need to be on a good tripod as you'll have no Image Stabilizing.

Cheers,
 
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