Let's talk glass: Lenses for the AF100!

Bucknfl said:
I think it is enevitable that someone builds a nice fast moderately priced servo cine zoom lens with a good wide to telephoto range. It's a matter of when and not if.
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Most Cine-Style zooms are built all manual. The servo would be a third party motor, one like a remote follow focus would use. The zoom ring would be geared, and thus a microforce zoom controller or something similar would be used.

You won't find any lenses made for cinema with a motor built in, like say a B4 mount ENG lens.
 
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Recommened Lenses

Hi Everyone
With purchasing one of the AF100's setting me back $5,000, would could you recommend for someone that has NO camera lenses, and doesn't want to break the bank. What would be 1 or 2 lenses to start with that would give me great depth of field, would not crop too much and could autofocus? Also, street prices or estimates would be great. I am just trying to figure out how much I need to come up with to get started.
Thanks in advance
 
Panasonic 14-140mm
Panasonic 20mm f1.7


Great range on the first one. Great all-around lens and low-light/shallow DOF on the second. Autofocus on both.
 
Stephen Mick said:
Panasonic 14-140mm
Panasonic 20mm f1.7


Great range on the first one. Great all-around lens and low-light/shallow DOF on the second. Autofocus on both.
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Has anyone used the Sigma 30mm 4/3 mount with the 4/3 to m4/3 converter? The Panasonic converter I saw a picture of has pins in it. I was curious if this allowed control of the Sigma 30mm (this question is for anyone with a GH1 and this lens).
 
grimepoch said:
Has anyone used the Sigma 30mm 4/3 mount with the 4/3 to m4/3 converter? The Panasonic converter I saw a picture of has pins in it. I was curious if this allowed control of the Sigma 30mm (this question is for anyone with a GH1 and this lens).
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Not sure, but based on my experience with the 4/3 to M4/3 adapter and how finicky it is with lenses and auto-functions, I'd say likely no.
 
Ryan Patrick O'Hara said:
Most Cine-Style zooms are built all manual. The servo would be a third party motor, one like a remote follow focus would use. The zoom ring would be geared, and thus a microforce zoom controller or something similar would be used.

You won't find any lenses made for cinema with a motor built in, like say a B4 mount ENG lens.
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True but Panavision rents alot of their zoom lenses with the motors mounted on the lenses that you control with a microforce. I'm talking about a cine style/ video zoom as opposed to trying to use a still lense. Terms like cine, film, and video are often used to describe digital cameras that really are not that at all. Whatever you want to call them I'm just looking for a zoom that's better suited for the AF100 than still lenses.
 
Panasonic 20mm f1.7

How is the image on this compared to a Canon L 50mm prime 1.4, or a Canon EF-S 1.8? I'm assuming the DOF matches the 1.8 given the speed, but hopefully the iris elements are more numerous to give a nice smooth bokeh, eh?

I need to go back and read this entire thread, but have macros already been discussed ad nauseam?
 
Saddler said:
Panasonic 20mm f1.7

How is the image on this compared to a Canon L 50mm prime 1.4, or a Canon EF-S 1.8? I'm assuming the DOF matches the 1.8 given the speed, but hopefully the iris elements are more numerous to give a nice smooth bokeh, eh?

I need to go back and read this entire thread, but have macros already been discussed ad nauseam?
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You bring up a good point. We almost need multiple threads to deal with primes, zooms, and cine/eng zooms.
 
Saddler said:
Panasonic 20mm f1.7

How is the image on this compared to a Canon L 50mm prime 1.4, or a Canon EF-S 1.8? I'm assuming the DOF matches the 1.8 given the speed
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When the only thing that changes is the lens--i.e. same camera, same distance to subject, etc.--DoF on the 50mm will be substantially shallower (because the focal length is obviously substantially longer).

Mark
 
I have been offered a complete set of Zeiss Arri primes for 16mm with Arriflex mounts, all very fast: T1,2 ! Does anybody know how much vignetting I will get and if I have any possibility to use it with a doubler/adapter and are there any such adapters known?
 
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Likely every lens in the set from about 25mm on down will vignette. 25mm might be mild in the corners, getting worse and worse till about 18mm you'll probably see a full circle of vignette. At least that's the way it is on my c-mount 16mm lenses.
 
Thanks Barry, I was expecting something like this. I might as well go for the voigtlander then.
the set goes down from 25 to 9.5 so it makes no sense. Does the Af100 have 2x zoom like the GH1? If there was a doubler with glass in it or somebody made a dedicated adapter for arri 16 mm primes, it could become interesting...
 
. . .after playing around with the GH1 as a B camera for the past 6 months, it seems pretty clear to me that the wide angle end of things is going to be problematic-as in expensive. Panasonic's 7-14mm is a brilliant performing still lens, but the lens shade is not removable and it does not take filters. I've been using the Olympus 4/3 11-22mm, it is reasonably fast and sharp but manual focus is totally servo, the upside is that it takes 72mm filters. The build quality of the Olympus m4/3 9-18 makes you want to cry. A good quality wide angle prime for the AF100 is going to be . . .what? X2 the cost of the camera? (I'm thinking 10mm zeiss or maybe even the 9.5) .

The other end of the scale is much more fun, I've managed to scrape together a set of Canon Fd L series primes, I've been very happy with the results, lens to lens they are little more expensive than equivalent Nikons but I like the look. Actually the one lens I've used on every interview I've shot with the GH1 is a relatively inexpensive Fd Canon 50mm f1.4, you need a hell of a good monitor to see the difference between the s.s.c. Fd 50mm f1.4 and the Fdn 50mm f1.2 L, especially stopped down to f2.
 
aguia said:
Panasonic's 7-14mm is a brilliant performing still lens, but the lens shade is not removable and it does not take filters.
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Mattebox could help.

The other end of the scale is much more fun, I've managed to scrape together a set of Canon Fd L series primes, I've been very happy with the results, lens to lens they are little more expensive than equivalent Nikons but I like the look. Actually the one lens I've used on every interview I've shot with the GH1 is a relatively inexpensive Fd Canon 50mm f1.4, you need a hell of a good monitor to see the difference between the s.s.c. Fd 50mm f1.4 and the Fdn 50mm f1.2 L, especially stopped down to f2.
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Love the FD lenses, too. I've got whole set from 20mm to 200mm, both standard speed and super fast L/aspherical ones. 50mm f1.4 is one of the best, that's for sure. Compact and flawless. I love 35 f2 and 24mm f1.4 as well - the latter is not extremely sharp, but I like it - my favourite normal lens on m4/3. 85mm is very useful, too. 135mm f2, great lens, gets too long on m4/3 to be used often - what a pity. What I especially like about FDs are their focus rings - butter smooth, no play, typically ~270 degrees rotation in proper direction. Consider getting 15mm f2.8 to be used as WA. I usually don't like to get too wide.

If you don't need autofocus, you might consider Samyang 14mm and/or 8mm. Cheap and quite good optically.
 
grimepoch said:
What about the 11-16mm Tokina? I love it on my 7D and plan on using it with my AF100. It's an AWESOME lens.
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I've been considering the Tokina 11-16 for awhile now. Has a great rep and you can control the aperture on a GH1 with the right adapter. I don't own the Tokina, but just used one today on a Nikon mount with a Novoflex. Worked great.

Someone (think it may have been Barry) mentioned the Olympus 11-22, f/2.8-3.5. So I checked it out and it has generally great reviews. But what really has my interest is, in addition to aperture control using a DMW-MA1 adapter, it should also be able to do AFS focusing using the AF100's AUTO button. That definitely was not the case with the GH1. But Panny has released a new lens compatibility chart for the GH2 and a lot of the lens capabilities have improved in the 4/3 category - especially regarding AFS compatibility. And the 11-22 now gains AFS capability. So, hopefully, that will apply to the AF100 also. Plus you have a longer focal length (albeit slower than the Tokina when at 22). So now I'm leaning heavily toward the Olympus.

http://panasonic.jp/support/global/cs/dsc/connect/gh2.html
 
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