Require input on 20mm lens

MikeShea said:
I heard complaints of the noise produced by the lumix 20mm f/1.7. To the point where it makes it impossible to even film things with an onboard mic.
After seeing this video it made me reconsider buying the lens

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuTGl-UiSS0&feature=related
(skip one minute to see the 20mm test)

is it really THAT bad?
Click to expand...


IMHO, if the camera is running loose in auto-focus while recording, my guess is that you're not shooting something critical where noise is a problem. No matter what lens you use, if you let your autofocus wander on it's own, your shot is ruined anyways.

And if you're doing a rack/follow focus manually, I'd assume you're shooting a movie or something, so I'm not sure why you'd be recording with the built-in mic in the first place.

Don't sweat it. :) I've been using mine professionally for several hours every week, for several months straight, and have never heard motor noise on one of my videos. It's a great lens...you'll love it!
 
If you can have only 1 other lens - this is it. This lens can produce sick slick looking magical shallow depth of field wonderment.
 
There was also some discussion that one of the firmware updates (1.2?) slowed the AF motor speed with the 20mm lens, and thereby reduced the noise level. But I don't recall any specific tests/documentation of this.

Mark
 
I bought this lens last Tuesday (from actual B&H store in NYC) and I never took it off my camera since.
A must have. I was amazed how sharp it is, even wide open, and how it handles low light in both video and still pictures.
The auto focusing I would describe as: if you can see it, it will focus on it.
Worth every penny of it.

The funny thing was that I also bought a 46mm to series7 adapter ring and the price was - .99 cent. Even the sales guy was surprised .

Also, I don't think that focusing noise is such a big deal. As it was said before, if you shoot something more or less "professional", you use the external mic or recorder. And, if you use internal mic , there are also many other sounds/noises getting in, sometimes even more destructing than the focusing noise. Just MHO.
 
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