Lenses for GH1/GH2

Perrona, 14-140 is awesome lens if your subject and/or u r moving in fast speed. I've seen pretty cool "artistic" clips capturing fast action by 14-140. The keyword is "fast speed". Deep DOF is actually advantageous in this case to apply FX. I have old bike to be fixed so that I can try out my new 14-42 lens on a bike. Although it has OIS, a shoulder rig is recommended.

I prefer shallow DOF on slow or static subject. Forget about slow m43 lenses for this. A set of old primes at 1.4 and 2.0 would do it, but switching primes for run-n-gun style is cumbersome. AF would be nice. Just focus and lock it. Beyond 50mm, it's not easy to do manual focusing on moving subject. Oly 14-35mm 2.0 covers nice range. 2.0 constant aperture!!! Some said it did AF slowly in GH2, but no AF in GH1. Yeah it's heavy and no OIS. But who cares. I love 2.0. Use it for years and sell it at little loss. A tripod is recommended.

Really no one size fits all. fast moving? slow moving? hobby? commercial work? run-n-gun style? studio style? It's case by case. e.g. I wouldn't wanna use 14-35 for family gathering. Too heavy to carry. I'd grab Vivitar 25mm 2.0 Komine for an indoor party if no kids. m43 lenses if kids. I got 14-42, 20, vivitar 28, 50 ais, and 50 fd. About $1000 total including adapters. I could replace them with better lenses such as 14-140, voigtlander 25mm .95, etc. But I'm refraining myself to save more coins for 14-35.
 
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Forgive me for sounding like a party pooper, i dont see why everyone is making such a fuss of auto-focus for run and gun? I dont know a singe videographer / professional run and gun camera man who uses and or would trust autofocus for any professional run and gun shoot, and i dont mean weddings god knows what people use there but I mean Television, Sport, Events, Live Music etc. Auto focus is just not used. I cant understand why everyone is going mad over it? In addition to this, if your in run and gun situations and your not in low light, stop your lens down, nothing worse then seeing even footage where the dof is so shallow that the majority of the footage is out of focus because the dof was so shallow that focus was hard to keep. That being said my pick of lenses for the gh2 on a personal indie budget would be

tokina 11-16 f2.8- Nikkon mount
any wide mid zoom in the 15-50 range such as the tamron 17-50 again nikon mount
a fast 50 1.2/1.4 nikkor, FD, Rokkor, Zukio, Tamron what ever
and the Panasonic 50-200 or the 14-200 although I personally wouldn't forkout for 14-200 considering the 50-200 is so much cheaper

to be honest on a 2x crop camera such as the GHs i would shoot 50 or wider 95%

50x2 = 100mm which is pretty bloody telephoto.

With lenses I think its important t remember that unless your shooting specialty stuff you only have 3 shots you need to cover. A wide, a mid and a close up (and maybe an ECU)
 
editguy said:
So, based on your test clips, I was impressed with the Panasonic 14-50. Not cheap, but it looks like an excellent lens.
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I'm enthralled with Leicasonic's OIS, it's made handheld a viable option for me again. It isn't a perfect lens by any means, and as its detractors point out, it breathes a lot while focusing. For me that's not a dealbreaker, as I use auto-focus only as a convenience while framing a shot, and I wouldn't attempt to pull focus manually while shooting with an electronic zoom anyway. I'd use a tripod for that and there are plenty of other lenses to choose from that work well in a follow focus setup.
 
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