GH3 Selling all of My lenses for Olympus 14-35mm F/2 = Good idea or not?

J

J.F.R.

Carbonite Member
I currently have lenses longer than 50mm which I will not use, but my short list of prime lenses are

*Panasonic 14mm 2.5
*Sony Wide Angle Adapter (Excellent Wide Angle for Panasonic 14mm)
*Slr magic 25mm T 0.95
*Slr Magic 35mm 1.4


My most expensive lens is the 25mm which cost $800 brand new, realistically I love the character but many times I need a zoom to be able to work faster.
The 35mm from Slr Magic is simply beautiful, but another lens where it does not work in every situation.

The 14-35mm by Olympus cost about $2k new and even used still very expensive. The benefits I see are having all of my primes in one lens even though it will cost more. I usually shoot around 2.0-3.5, and at the fastest I have gone is 1.4. I feel that F /2.0 is plenty fast.

My only concern is the image quality. What character can I expect from the Olympus 14-35mm? I would also lose the cine style lens of the Slr which I love, but I could deal with it. Size is not a problem nor is the 4/3 to micro 4/3 adapter.

So my main question is this, would you trade in your prime lenses 35mm and less + cash for the Olympus 14-35mm?
Thanks
 
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...I did this to buy my Panasonic 12-35mm f/2.8 and 35-100mm f/2.8 pair of zooms.

The Olympus 14-35mm f/2.0 is a big lens, very sharp, not parfocal ( neither are my Panasonics ), but a good deal if you can snag a used one. Cheapest price I've seen on a used 14-35mm lens in good shape was $1,400.
 
TheDingo said:
...I did this to buy my Panasonic 12-35mm f/2.8 and 35-100mm f/2.8 pair of zooms.

The Olympus 14-35mm f/2.0 is a big lens, very sharp, not parfocal ( neither are my Panasonics ), but a good deal if you can snag a used one. Cheapest price I've seen on a used 14-35mm lens in good shape was $1,400.
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Do you miss have your faster lenses? I know the decision was based on versatility. I find it very difficult to buy a Nokton 17.5mm for $1000 when for $1500-1700 I can buy a used Olympus 14-32mm and cover all of these ranges. I never shoot at .0.95 and 2.0 is plenty fast.

So my question is how do you miss the Nokton lenses and other primes (assuming you have used them)
thanks
 
I have an Olympus 14-35mm f2.0, and it's literally irresistible. I must admit, however, that it balances much more naturally on the AF100 than on any of the GHx models. The 14-35mm is a little too large and heavy to comfortably hand-hold, but lacks an appropriate spot to mount a tripod collar. With the AF100, the camera's M4/3 lens mount is strong enough to support the lens, and the camera's base plate is long enough to mount the camera with lens securely to a tripod or rails. But with the GH2, there's nothing to counter-balance the 14-35mm, and the camera's tiny tripod mounting hole is nowhere near secure enough to support a lens like the 14-35mm.

In bright daylight, the Olympus 14-35mm has so much contrast it hurts. I often take it down a notch with a 77mm Tiffen Ultra-Contrast 3 filter. The resulting image doesn't look soft at all - with the 14-35mm, the filter allows me to preserve more of the highlights without plunging the shadows into black. Here's a pair of comparisons shot with the AF100:

Olympus 14-35mm f2.0 without contrast filter:

Olympus 14-35mm f2.0 with contrast filter:
 
Lpowell is right in every aspect. The Oly zoom and the Ag-Af match perfectly, with the GHx cameras its a bit too clunky.
 
Personally, I would go for a Nikon 17-35 2.8 and the very soon to be released Speedbooster. A pretty expensive combo especially if you buy the lens new but I think together, they will work great with the GH2 or 3. You can de-click the aperture ring for fine (and silent) adjustment of aperture, plus with the speedbooster the lens becomes a 24 - 50 f2. This covers three more popular prime focal lengths of 24, 35 and 50mm and you get the DOF of an APS-C (or S35) chip camera. The Nikon 17-35 2.8 is also an internal zoom and focus lens so works perfectly with a Matte Box if you use one. The downsides are that you won't have any AutoFocus (but I never use it so for me its no great loss for all the advantages you get) and it's also going to be pretty big and heavy on a GH camera (again, i'm used to much bigger broadcast cameras so this is a non issue for me) .
 
vtwiz said:
Personally, I would go for a Nikon 17-35 2.8 and the very soon to be released Speedbooster. A pretty expensive combo especially if you buy the lens new but I think together, they will work great with the GH2 or 3. You can de-click the aperture ring for fine (and silent) adjustment of aperture, plus with the speedbooster the lens becomes a 24 - 50 f2. This covers three more popular prime focal lengths of 24, 35 and 50mm and you get the DOF of an APS-C (or S35) chip camera. The Nikon 17-35 2.8 is also an internal zoom and focus lens so works perfectly with a Matte Box if you use one. The downsides are that you won't have any AutoFocus (but I never use it so for me its no great loss for all the advantages you get) and it's also going to be pretty big and heavy on a GH camera (again, i'm used to much bigger broadcast cameras so this is a non issue for me) .
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But with the Olympus, he will get things like IS and AF available.

That said, when a Nikon to MFT speed booster is available, I would suggest the newly released Sigma 18-35mm f/1.8!
 
atarijedi said:
But with the Olympus, he will get things like IS and AF available.

That said, when a Nikon to MFT speed booster is available, I would suggest the newly released Sigma 18-35mm f/1.8!
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Yes I did say that you lose AF but most video shooters can live with that. As far as I know the Olympus 14-35 doesn't have Image Stabilization (IS) so he wouldn't be losing that.

As for the Sigma 18-35 1.8, yes it's a fast zoom but I love having an aperture ring on the lens rather than clicking the dials on the camera. Once you try it, you'll want all your lenses to have aperture rings (and smooth de-clicked ones too). The Nikon is also a Full Frame coverage lens. It will work on just about any camera via an adapter so good for future proofing.

Another point I forgot to mention earlier is that with the speed booster you get a 24-50 f2 but with just a regular Nikon to MFT adapter you get a 34-70 f2.8. You kind of get two lenses in one.
 
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I can also agree with that. If you want Auto Focus and IS the 12-35 is a great lens. It's well built and the image quality is fantastic. I bought the Lumix 12-35 2.8 primarily for stills, preferring manual lenses for video but it does both really well. At half the price of the Olympus you could get both the Lumix 12-35 AND 35-100 2.8. That's the combo I would choose if you need AF and IS.
 
My thoughts... I only own 1 native M4/3 lens and that is because it came with the camera when I bought it. All my other lenses cover a S35mm size or larger sensor. When investing in glass I would find it very limiting to have lenses which only cover a M4/3 size sensor. Unless of course you only ever intend on owning M4/3 size cameras.

Good Luck!

Dave
 
J.F.R. said:
Do you miss have your faster lenses?
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Not really. Most of the time I was shooting between f/2.8 - f/4.0 with my prime lenses ( mainly for DOF ), so the f/2.8 zooms are fast enough to shoot the same way.

I also wanted something compact, that would be a good fit for still photography too, so the Panasonic f/2.8 zooms were exactly what I was after.

I plan on adding Olympus m4/3 primes to go with the Canon FD and Nikon AI-S lenses I already own.

I owned a Voightlander 25mm f/0.95 lens for about one year and I really didn't use it that much, as I find the 25mm focal length kind of boring to shoot with. If I was to do it again, I would have bought their 17.5mm lens instead.
 
Sigma just came out with a 18 room. I think a 18-35. Might be a great option of the metabones adapter is in play too...
 
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