GH3 Ordered my GH3. Any suggestions for a budget lens?

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photojunky

Active member
I just sold both my hacked gh1's. they were great till the error message popped up with the hack. Kind of ironic the hack produced great detail but if there was too much detail such as foliage it'd lock up.

I just ordered the GH3. I have the 14-140 lens and would like to get another lens. I'm on a budget. Any suggestions on a cheapo lens. It would be mostly used for video so a prime is fine. Thanks, can't wait to get it.
 
I prefer the look of old glass on the gh series cams, once in a while I will use a pani lens, but not much as I find their so sharp and with much more contrast than legacy LENSES. I stumbled upon some old pentax glass, and an old tokina 24mm f 2.8, and i'm in love, they have a much longer throw, which helps when pulling focus. Im starting to think about building a set of these and selling off my canon fd's.
 
I sold three fd lenses with a gh1 expecting to get another 7D but I just can't spend the money on a camera Ill be using for video without continuous. Focus The 7D photo quality is great but if you are videoing kids or dogs you need auto focus, or at least I do. Maybe I'll check out some old Pentax lenses if the price is right. Thanks for the reply.
 
The 20mm f1.7 is nice but the autofocus is not the greatest which the OP stated they kind of want/need. I had the 20mm and recently sold it with my GH2 to help buy the GH3. It was a work horse for me but the autofocus when I did need it was causing me problems.

Bought the 25mm f1.4 which is very nice but more expensive. If you don't need ultra low light I have heard great things about the Sigma f2.8 primes. There is also a new 60mm f2.8 that will be out soon that is just as affordable. Very sharp lenses with fast autofocus. Seem to be a great value albiet not as good in low light. Still f2.8 is not horrible in low light and many find it to work out well for zooms so it doesn't have to be a huge negative.
 
I love the Contax-Yashica (C/Y) Zeiss lenses. You can find a nice 50mm f/1.7 for around $170. these days. Very nice bokeh, smooth focusing with a long throw and really well built.
 
You made the right choice buying GH3 over 7D. I sold all my Canon L lenses and bodies and never looked back. Huge cameras with mirrors are obsolete. Legacy glass is great if you do not require wide angle. A 50mm 1.4 FD is always nice (and cheap) to have in the kit.
Two good m4/3 prime choices are the Panasonic/Leica 25mm 1.4, and the Olympus 17mm 1.8. I own both. The Olympus 17mm 1.8 (the new one) works better when using continuous auto focus. It hits it's mark without going back and forth like the Panasonic. I think the Olympus 17mm focal length would be better for chasing kids and dogs around as it will show more of their enviroment without being too wide. The wider angle also gives smoother handheld footage as well as more depth of field. Both lenses focus manually very nice. Each of these are about $550? Not exactly cheap, but you will not regret the purchase of either. BTW - the OLY is now available in black!
 
Ed Jeffersen said:
You made the right choice buying GH3 over 7D. I sold all my Canon L lenses and bodies and never looked back. Huge cameras with mirrors are obsolete. Legacy glass is great if you do not require wide angle. A 50mm 1.4 FD is always nice (and cheap) to have in the kit.
Two good m4/3 prime choices are the Panasonic/Leica 25mm 1.4, and the Olympus 17mm 1.8. I own both. The Olympus 17mm 1.8 (the new one) works better when using continuous auto focus. It hits it's mark without going back and forth like the Panasonic. I think the Olympus 17mm focal length would be better for chasing kids and dogs around as it will show more of their enviroment without being too wide. The wider angle also gives smoother handheld footage as well as more depth of field. Both lenses focus manually very nice. Each of these are about $550? Not exactly cheap, but you will not regret the purchase of either. BTW - the OLY is now available in black!
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I own a 7d and just sold my gh1. As for photo quality, the 7D is better. Video quality I would have given to the gh1 post hack, but the error messages when shooting videos with lots of detail was a deal breaker. In a situations where you apsolutly had to get video, the hacked camera could not be used. I look forward to receiving my GH3 tomorrow. I'm curious how photo quality will be as well as video. I do like the quality of the 7d's video but really want the autofocus mode in video, not to mention the flip out view finder.
 
The best part of the Micro Four Thirds system is how many different lenses you can use. Its practically endless.
 
Erik Naso said:
The best part of the Micro Four Thirds system is how many different lenses you can use. Its practically endless.
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I could not agree more.


I started by putting some cheap M42 lenses (28mm/50mm/135mm Pentacon, 58mm f2 Helios), then I tried a Minolta 35-70 f3.5 macro and ended up with a set of Leica R primes.
The m4/3 give you an endless "catalog" to try and find the lenses that you're the more confortable with. And it's precious.

I like the longer focus throw the lecacy lenses generally offers.
As for the image, (good) lecacy lenses offer more shadow details, more color shades and less "bad détails" (for video stuff).
But also more lens flares and CA.

Another observation I made during my test is that Lumix lenses all have a slight magenta drift compared to old ones (especiallly the 45-200mm with which I was reasonably satisfied with... before a fatal comparison with my 90mm 2.8 Leica! I sold the lumix a few weeks ago).
That said, I still own two Lumix (the 25mm and the 12-35mm) that give me full satisfaction, despite their focus by wire and their somewhat ugly "focus rack".
 
Reznik said:
Lumix lenses all have a slight magenta drift compared to old ones
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Every lens line has it's own unique color balance. Back in the 1980's when I used to shoot with a Nikon F3, Olympus OM-2n, and a Mamiya RZ 6x7cm camera, it was well known that Nikon lenses had a warm tone compared to either the Olympus or Mamiya lenses. It was like every Nikon lens had an invisible Wratten 81 filter built-in to them. So I would always try and shoot people with my Nikon lenses, and use the Olympus for products and industrial shots.

From what I remember, Leica was somewhere between Olympus and Nikon in terms of color balance. ( you could almost call it "neutral" )
 
Ed Jeffersen said:
You made the right choice buying GH3 over 7D. I sold all my Canon L lenses and bodies and never looked back. Huge cameras with mirrors are obsolete. Legacy glass is great if you do not require wide angle. A 50mm 1.4 FD is always nice (and cheap) to have in the kit.
Two good m4/3 prime choices are the Panasonic/Leica 25mm 1.4, and the Olympus 17mm 1.8. I own both. The Olympus 17mm 1.8 (the new one) works better when using continuous auto focus. It hits it's mark without going back and forth like the Panasonic. I think the Olympus 17mm focal length would be better for chasing kids and dogs around as it will show more of their enviroment without being too wide. The wider angle also gives smoother handheld footage as well as more depth of field. Both lenses focus manually very nice. Each of these are about $550? Not exactly cheap, but you will not regret the purchase of either. BTW - the OLY is now available in black!
Click to expand...

The Canon DSLRs are hardly huge. Obsolete??? Have you been hearing about what Magic Lantern is doing with the 5D3? That camera is being positioned to compete with the RED Epic in image quality with it's raw recording capability at a fraction of the cost.

I do agree that the GH3 takes sharper video out of the box than the 7D with greater dynamic range having owned both cameras. But, to say the Canon line is obsolete is simply wrong.
 
TheDingo said:
Every lens line has it's own unique color balance. Back in the 1980's when I used to shoot with a Nikon F3, Olympus OM-2n, and a Mamiya RZ 6x7cm camera, it was well known that Nikon lenses had a warm tone compared to either the Olympus or Mamiya lenses. It was like every Nikon lens had an invisible Wratten 81 filter built-in to them. So I would always try and shoot people with my Nikon lenses, and use the Olympus for products and industrial shots.

From what I remember, Leica was somewhere between Olympus and Nikon in terms of color balance. ( you could almost call it "neutral" )
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I think they are neutral, indeed. At least that's what I observed.
 
photojunky said:
I just sold both my hacked gh1's. they were great till the error message popped up with the hack. Kind of ironic the hack produced great detail but if there was too much detail such as foliage it'd lock up.

I just ordered the GH3. I have the 14-140 lens and would like to get another lens. I'm on a budget. Any suggestions on a cheapo lens. It would be mostly used for video so a prime is fine. Thanks, can't wait to get it.
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Nikon lenses work great with the gH3. The older non-auto focus models have longer focus throw making critical focus a little easier. Nikon's focus the opposite direction so that takes some getting used to. You will need a adapter.
 
One of my favorite cheap primes I use is the Minolta Rokkor 50mm 1.4 MD, they are a pretty common and you can find some great deals on them. You would obviously need an adaptor
 
We all know the 5DIII makes beautiful images. Take the mirror out of it. For shooting video it is only in the way.
Compare Canon 24-70 2.8L and 70-200 2.8L lenses to Panasonic's 12-35 and 35-100 lenses then tell me the Canon is not huge.

The 7D has one edge over the GH3 and that is tracking auto focus speed which has absolutly nothing to do with video. Other than that the GH3 stomps all over it.

The fact you do not agree with my thoughts does not make them "wrong".

akivisuals said:
The Canon DSLRs are hardly huge. Obsolete??? Have you been hearing about what Magic Lantern is doing with the 5D3? That camera is being positioned to compete with the RED Epic in image quality with it's raw recording capability at a fraction of the cost.

I do agree that the GH3 takes sharper video out of the box than the 7D with greater dynamic range having owned both cameras. But, to say the Canon line is obsolete is simply wrong.
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jdd said:
One of my favorite cheap primes I use is the Minolta Rokkor 50mm 1.4 MD, they are a pretty common and you can find some great deals on them. You would obviously need an adaptor
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Just got mine yesterday and so far the results are amazing. What a nice lens for 25 dollars + camera I'll end up reselling on eBay. One thing though, you definitely need a ND filter when shooting outside. I'll post one of those review videos I have so much fun making for anyone who is interested.
 
i like the tamron 17-50mm 2.8 for my GH2... 250$ on ebay

Would the Minolta Rokkor 50mm 1.4 MD be much different than my Canon fd 50mm 1.8?
 
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