Need help!

B

Bryan_Lawler

Well-known member
Ok, I have been asked to see about putting together five identical kits that will be used overseas. The GH-1 will be use to record training sessions, seminars, documentaries and short news pieces.

My question is what zoom lens should I get or is the kit lens good/fast enough?

thanks!
 
The kit lens is excellent and is going to be way better for video purposes than any other still lens. But it's not fast, it's f/4 to f/5.6.
 
During the day or in brightly lit (think large office or places with lots of windows) type rooms it's fine. At night and in dimmer rooms like in people's houses (without additional lighting) you might start to have problems.

The kit lens is great though.
 
I would say a 50mm at f/1.4 or f/1.8, which on the GH1 is a 100mm, which can get you some nice shallow DOF closeups, and something wider, a 24mm (which on the Gh1 is your normal lens at 48mm) at somewhere between f/1.8 and f/2.8 depending on your budget. I personally prefer Nikon glass, or at least going with the Nikon F mount because there is so much stuff, old and new, available for it, whereas Canon FD mount limits you a bit to older glass. On Ebay you can pick up a lens adapter made by Ciecio7 for well under $100 USD. I have been using one of his Nikon lens to m4/3 body mounts for a long time and it is great.

A good place to look for prime lenses is here:

primes.decentattempt.com

It is an Ebay prime lens search engine.

The lenses I personally use the most are the kit lens, an old Nikkor-S 50mm f/1.4 and a Sigma 24mm f/1.8.

Although I've sort of been shamelessly linking this video everywhere, it contains some GH1 shots with lenses clearly labeled so you can get an idea of what I'm talking about. There is also 5D and HVX footage in there but everything is clearly marked. Some of my favorite work in the video is with the GH1 kit lens and the Sigma 24mm. I got my Sigma used for under $400, and my Nikkor 50mm for under $100.

http://vimeo.com/9819266
 
A 35mm prime is a very good versatile lens on the GH1 - can both get wider shots with it by standing back a bit and step in for close-ups with enough short DOF to knock off the background. I like it so much I actually got two Canon FDs f/2.0 - one with lens gear for my follow focus rig and one without for street photography style shooting with just the camera and a small chest brace. I think I have either on roughly 60% of the time. If you want to see it in action check 'Closing Time' in my sig link, it's all done with that lens hand held (and slightly tipsy). A 50mm can be hard to use hand held whereas the 35mm works in most situations.

I concur with Ben that going for a Nikon mount adapter gives more options. The reason I went with FDs is that the second hand shops here in Stockholm were all empty on Nikons last summer - guess all the 5DmkII guys had swept them up to get manual aperture before the manual firmware update :)

If you can budget a primes set of a 24-25, a 35 and a 50 mm then that should cover most of the shoots you'll need. I also got my FD adapter from ciecio7 on eBay, perfectly made piece of gear.

If autofocus is a must then I'd say Panasonic's own m4/3 mount 20mm f/1.7 is the lens to compliment the kit lens with.
 
Yes, the 20m f/1.7 is a great lens! Between that and the kit lens you have a totally workable setup without having to buy any adapters or anything. Also there is something to be said for consistency...using two m4/3 lenses is nice :)

However, it is worth noting that, unlike the 14-140 kit lens, the auto-focus on the 20mm f/1.7 is not totally silent.
 
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