Lumix 14-140 pros and cons with AF100

M

ManeSqueeze

Member
Hey Y'all :)

If you have shot with the AF100 and the Lumix 14-140 lens, I would love to learn from you!

What are the pros and cons of shooting with this lens on the AF100?

I am considering purchasing this lens.

:)
b
 
It's a good general purpose lens for the AF100. The automatic controls
on the camera work reasonably well with it. It's pretty good glass. Big
positive is the image stabilization.

Negatives ... it's a focus and aperture by wire system. Using a follow-focus
is pretty much useless. If you don't do this, then you'll never know .. but ..
you may notice the tactile response of the lens.

For low-light, it kind of blows as it's not a very fast lens.

Autofocus can be sluggish for video needs .. so I pretty much turn it off along
with the auto-aperture.
 
Last edited:
Generally speaking...

Generally speaking...

Why all the nay sayers? I used this lens last week for a concert and it was quite amiable to the light given. It is definetly a must have for run and gun as well as a general purpose lens.
 
It is the most versatile lens. But it doesn't do anything particularly well, other than autofocus. For autofocus purposes, it is light years beyond anything else. Doesn't mean it'll live up to anyone's particular expectations, but it does mean that it certainly autofocuses better than any other stills lens on the market.

The iris response is really slow and laggy, and the lens is slow -- it's f4 on the wide, but it quickly goes to f/5 or more throughout its zoom range. It doesn't truly hold focus or iris during a zoom, but it will compensate to where it's back on exposure and focus after the zoom is through. If you had to do some ENG work it's about the only choice. I like the lens for its great range and its versatility, it has OIS and a 10x zoom and chromatic aberration compensation and barrel distortion compensation and true video autofocus. If you could only have one lens at all, this is the one - because of its versatility.

A lot of people don't like it because it doesn't do the job they want. What a lot of folks seem to be asking for is a constant f/2.8 (or faster) short-range zoom, maybe a 4x 14-50 at f/2.8, even without autofocus. And that's fine -- but that's not this lens. This is a 10x zoom with autofocus and OIS.
 
when i read previous posts its like we talking about different lens, its the only lens i used so far, and can tell its a junk! about AF - well if you enjoy the AF runs back and forward all the time even if u shoot from tripod, and mainly its auto focus on something else not where u would want it, if u will put it on a person and behind the person is a dour for example, its always auto focus on a dour. now law light well if u will turn on a normal room light and use that lens at f4 with no iso added - u ll get a very very dark evening light closer to night time. to make it more or less usable u need at least 800 iso and up. and even then its way from any good + tons of noise. Oh and one more funny thing it does that i see for the very 1st time in my life, lets say u try to film human who sits on a chair near table, u use AF cam is on tripod and finally it focus to the right spot humans face, imagine a circle around the face where all is focus and its stays this way all the time just like u wanted to, but on a sides from circle AF catches table leg and tries to focus on it same time while face is in focus, now here is what u see part of picture is focused good, but also same time some where on a side it jumps back and forward trying to catch table leg as well, just like it focus on 2 spots separately, its so funny.
OIS, well its not the kind of ois u would aspect, it does some, but i would rely on it

i dont understand why pana did not put OIS in body, as they positioned that camcorder as the one to be used whit any lens, logically would be having that in body OIS so it could be used with any lens.
i would not buy any pana lens as its priced so high that u almost can buy canon lens , and when it comes to optic pana and canon are not comparable.

for street its maybe ok having f4, but should have a very right sun light other wise if there is a shadow u r in same situation as u would be inside a room
also to use a manual focus or zoom here is really hard , as it does not circles easy, u have to put some pressure , what of curse results on pic as all jumps while u do it, i tried pancace lens and its very easy to turn the focus u can do it with a finger tip, but here u ll have to hold it with full arm.....

based on my little experience i think for most situation u have to have at least f2.8

now if u r thinking about that lens probably u want run and gun, its not the camcorder for it, i did same mistake......of course when birger mount will come up i would want to see how good it is, but just to trying ill need to spend minimum 800$ on adopter and around 1000-1200 usd for the EF lens.
 
my experience is,
as long as your not shooting while zooming, it works fine on locations that has enough light.
 
I am looking for a good-working AF wide to use for production situations where Autofocus just makes sense, and there are plenty!
Thanks for your ringing endorsement of the 14-140 Barry, now I am strongly considering it.

The Panasonic lens compatibility page also states that while several other Panasonic lenses do offer AF, "The autofocus is much slower than the H-VS014140 lens which is optimized for video, especially when shooting in 24p."
 
Last edited:
LUXGAP said:
Why all the nay sayers? I used this lens last week for a concert and it was quite amiable to the light given. It is definetly a must have for run and gun as well as a general purpose lens.
Click to expand...

not nay-saying .. just saying what the strengths and weaknesses are. i wouldn't say it's a "must have" .. but, if you could only
get one lens for the AF100, this would probably be the one (with the caveats mentioned).

jeff
 
Last edited:
It's not junk but even if it were I don't know why anyone would say that in what is traditionally a constructive environment.
I don't use auto-focus so that's less of an issue (for me).
I have this lens in my kit because it's a good general purpose lens.
For those of you, like myself, that occasionally take the camera off the tripod, OIS (which this lens has) can be a handy feature.
 
One more thing that is often taken for granted -- the autofocus is absolutely silent. I'm just a humble GH2 shooter, and haven't used it on an AF100 body yet, but I'm still in awe of how quiet this lens is.
 
I wouldn't call it junk! It's a gen purpose lens and quite sharp at that. OIS, AF and long reach is far from junk.
 
I wouldn't sAy I am giving it a "ringing endorsement. " all I'm saying is that it is the only lens that does what it does. It isn't great, and it is quite slow. But it is versatile.
 
I got the Olympus 14-54 2.8/3.5 instead of the 14-140. I would have a faster lens and give up the telephoto end.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top