Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 17mm 1:2.8 Pancake Lens

Okay, so here's what I've got…

GH1 w/14-140 Kit Lens
Olympus FT (4/3ds) to MFT Adapter
Olympus 50mm Macro 2.8 Lens (FT)
Olympus 17mm "Pancake" Lens (MFT)
Olympus 14-42 f3.5-5.6 Lens (MFT)

What would people like to see/know? Give me some suggestions and I'll shoot as much as I can tomorrow.

--SM
 
stephenmick said:
Okay, so here's what I've got…

GH1 w/14-140 Kit Lens
Olympus FT (4/3ds) to MFT Adapter
Olympus 50mm Macro 2.8 Lens (FT)
Olympus 17mm "Pancake" Lens (MFT)
Olympus 14-42 f3.5-5.6 Lens (MFT)

What would people like to see/know? Give me some suggestions and I'll shoot as much as I can tomorrow.

--SM
Click to expand...

stephen you rock, can you post a link to where you got the adapter
and also shoot some 1080p with the 17mm pancake and the 14-42 when its on 14mm at f3.5?

Indoors, outdoors whatever. If you start with an empty SDHC card it is possible to shoot 20 seconds of 1080p and the resulting PRIVATE folder is under 100 meg.

YOUSENDIT.com will allow you to send any file up to 100meg for free. You can zip it and send PRIVATE.zip to yourself. the resulting download link can be posted here on dvxuser. That way you wouldn't have to be bothered with the transcoding.

Cheers, would really appreciate this.
 
stephenmick said:
Will do. Anything else?
Click to expand...

well if you happened to be focused on a person or an object roughly the size of a person standing in the middle of the room then
I could gauge how blurry the background behind said person is. Even a chair or stool will do.

You see, I make short films and spec ads and the widest prime lens I have is a canon FD 24mm f1.4.
If I want wider like 17mm or 14mm I need to use the kit lens and that means shooting at f4 and threrefore f4 dof.
Seeing your footage of 17mm at f2.8 and 14mm at f3.5 will be most helpful
 
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Got it.

Tomorrow is BatFest in Austin, so I'll be heading down to the festival in the afternoon. For starters, I'll likely visit a local café, where I'll shoot some available light interior tests with a variety of lenses, including the "pancake," the 14-42mm and the 50mm Macro.

At the festival, everything will be (obviously) outdoors, so I'll switch out various lenses in different situations to get some good wides, whatever action I can get and some candid shots around the festival.

And at sunset, about a million bats fly out from under the Congress Ave. bridge, so I'll shoot what I can of that to test the lenses in lower-light conditions.

I'll shoot most everything at 1080/24, save for a few scenes I'll shoot in 720/60p for slow-mo testing. I've also just picked up a Rode StereoVideo Mic, so I'll be using that to capture usable on-the-fly audio.

Any other suggestions?
 
I also have a new Singh-Ray VariND that I'll be using on the kit lens outdoors to manage exposure. Not quite sure how I'll manage that with the other lenses, as I don't have NDs for them. I may just have to adjust the shutter speed in some situations.
 
How'bout getting step rings for the other lenses, lens lids the same diameter so you can leave the rings on and then move the VariND between them?
 
I could, but I don't think step rings in some of these lens sizes are very popular items, and probably won't be able to find them before tonight in Austin. Basically I'd be looking for 37mm and 40.5mm to 77mm step rings, or probably 37 to 55 and then 55 to 77 or something like that. I'll stop at the camera store on my way to shoot, but don't hold your breath.
 
If you can find a little camera store they'll have them...sure I was in Chicago but tiny (and popular...and well known..so I don't know) Central Camera had a 77mm to 62mm step down ring for me...which was a little weird. Anyway hope you find them!
 
Would love to know about the pancake lens
1. how well does auto-focus works on the pancake lens compared to the kit lens.
2. how noisy it is while auto-focusing.
3. how hard it is to do manual focus due to the small lens size and lack of markings.

thanks, hope its not too late!
 
I'll see what I can find at the store, but I don't hold out much hope that they'll have just the right combination in stock.

And a few answers…
1. Auto-focus on the pancake lens "feels" about as fast as on the kit lens, but only AFS and MF modes seem to work (at least for me). When I tried to set the camera to AFC mode, it brought up a message that said, "please switch to AFS mode."
2. Focus motor noise is certainly louder than the kit lens, and would likely be picked up on audio, but as AFC mode doesn't seem to work, I'm not sure if this is much of a problem.
3. MF mode brings up a zoomed-in view of the subject for better focusing, but once movie mode is rolling (recording), MF does not bring up the focus "assist" zoom view.

--SM
 
Exact same results with the Olympus 14-42 f3.5-5.6 E-P1 Kit Lens as with the "pancake" lens. Good speed on AF. No AFC mode. Same MF functions.

--SM
 
Using the Olympus 50mm Macro f2.8 Lens allows only Manual Focus mode, which brings up the same "focus assist" zoom feature. No AF at all, at least for me. But I will say that the quality of the image from this lens (not surprisingly) far surpasses either the pancake or the 14-42 E-P1 lens.

--SM
 
So, my initial findings are…

If you've got your GH1 and think the kit lens is a bit slow, either wait for (hopefully) the Panasonic 20mm f1.7, go with a fast, wide-angle Four-Thirds lens and FT to MFT adapter, or use a Nikon or Canon adapter with your collection of fast SLR primes. If you absolutely have to have the GH1 bells and whistles with auto-focus tracking, silent refocusing while shooting and the like, the 20mm f1.7 (whenever it arrives) will hopefully deliver.

At 17mm, all the "Pancake" gives you (really) seems to be some added sensitivity, but at the expense of some controls/options with focus (no AFC). I'm not even going to bother messing around with the 14-42 Olympus E-P1 Kit Lens, as the GH1 Kit Lens is nearly as fast, just as wide and much longer at full telephoto.

-SM
 
@stephenmick
did you get a chance to make that shot?
also do you have a link to where you bought your adapter?
 
Went out this morning and did some test shots. It'll be a day or so before I can post them due to workload. I'll update this thread when I do.

Based on what I saw, the only real advantage to the "pancake" lens is in low-light situations. (I don't have any footage of this to share, unfortunately.) Footage from the GH1 kit lens at 17mm and f4.4(ish) and the "pancake" lens at 17mm and 2.8 looked very similar in terms of DOF, which is to be expected based on the wide-angle nature of the shots. The GH1 kit lens felt a bit warmer than the "pancake," which I actually found very pleasant.

I'm sending the camera to an industry vendor for some accessories "testing" and what-not, so I'll be unable to shoot more footage until next weekend.

The adapter I used is this one…
http://www.adorama.com/IOMMMF1.html


--SM
 
low light performance would be a good reason to get it...you're not necessarily looking for shallow DOF in a wide angle.
 
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