GH2 Olympus 14-54 Mark 1

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Eximious

Well-known member
You can find the Olympus Four Thirds 14-54 2.8-3.5 Mark 1 pretty cheaply out there nowadays (~$300 on eBay). Throw in an extra $100 for the FT to MFT adapter. Seems like a pretty good deal considering. There are some threads around (on the AF-100 board and others) about some cons of the lens: slow AF, un-smooth iris changes, no IS, etc.

But is anyone here using the 14-54 Mark 1 (or Mark 2) with their GH2? According to the lens compatibility chart, you can press-to-focus the Mark 1 for AF during shooting? Is the AF speed really that terrible? I can only seem to find Mark II focus tests. I would use this more as a variable prime video and walk-around stills lens, so stuttery iris and slow AF hopefully won't impact me too much.

Any thoughts?
 
The Olympus Four Thirds 14-54 2.8-3.5 Mark II I use exclusively on my GHII autofocuses very fast but the issue is ..it hunts it.

It goes in and out to the zoom extremity then nails the focus on the return. Obviously that is an unuseable focus pull.

Excellent choice for a variable prime though and the autofocus is very useable with that considered.

Fairly easy lens to manually pull focus with.
 
Eximious said:
You can find the Olympus Four Thirds 14-54 2.8-3.5 Mark 1 pretty cheaply out there nowadays (~$300 on eBay). Throw in an extra $100 for the FT to MFT adapter. Seems like a pretty good deal considering. There are some threads around (on the AF-100 board and others) about some cons of the lens: slow AF, un-smooth iris changes, no IS, etc.

But is anyone here using the 14-54 Mark 1 (or Mark 2) with their GH2? According to the lens compatibility chart, you can press-to-focus the Mark 1 for AF during shooting? Is the AF speed really that terrible? I can only seem to find Mark II focus tests. I would use this more as a variable prime video and walk-around stills lens, so stuttery iris and slow AF hopefully won't impact me too much.

Any thoughts?
Click to expand...

Had the Mark 2, great lens, get it. Never tried the Mark i as it had no AF for the Gh1 (not sure if the Gh2 + firmware changed that though).

http://www.psynema.com/?tag=olympus-14-54mm This is my site with videos shot ONLY with the 14-54mm Mark II. The Project Twenty 1 vid is the only one with the Hack on the GH1 - all are GH1 btw
 
Thanks Psynema and Shooter. There's rarely a perfect lens out there, but your feedback helped convince me that the 14-54 will probably meet some of my current needs. According the Panasonic's GH2 lens compatibility chart, even the Mark 1 should be able to AF-S on the GH2.

And thanks for sharing the footage Psynema. Some nice shots in there!
 
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