To put this to rest, the Olympus 40-150mm 2.8 Pro turned out not to be the problem with soft footage at full zoom, it was the 72mm Promaster variable ND filter at the root of it. Testing without the filter, lens was sharp. Still a non-ideal solution forced by mirrorless/dslr choice though.
GH5 Sense-checking working zoom options for MFT at the moment
- Thread starter bengiles
- Start date
NorBro
Major Contributor
I was a big fan of variable NDs too until I saw these Firecrests go on sale and gave them a try (the prices you see now are current but they were about 40-50% more).
I really like how good they look and control IR. I mostly use the 8 stop one shooting pretty shallow with a higher shutter (slow-motion).
Obviously not as convenient as the variable ones, but what a difference they make.
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/prod...tech_fc77irnd2_4_77mm_firecrest_irnd_2_4.html
I really like how good they look and control IR. I mostly use the 8 stop one shooting pretty shallow with a higher shutter (slow-motion).
Obviously not as convenient as the variable ones, but what a difference they make.
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/prod...tech_fc77irnd2_4_77mm_firecrest_irnd_2_4.html
It really does come down "to each their own" as you said. But after two years with it I came to appreciate how in the overall sense, it does more things well, or fewer things poorly. For example, it auto-focuses more reliably and the dual IS stabilization in combination with IS-Lock (GH5) works better. You give up a stop at the long end but the extra reach can save you from carrying another lens. On the other hand a Lumix 12-35 constant F2.8 is two stops slower than the Lumix 25mm F1.4 prime which works nearly as well since you are just a few footsteps fore or aft to get the same composition. The Leica 42.5 Nocticron F1.2 is super detailed with wonderful color and contrast and speed and dof, but focus-breathes horribly and the OIS is next to useless. The new Leica 10-25mm F1.7, for weddings I think you can make the case for Lumix 25mm F1.4 prime replacing that too. I have the Leica 8-18mm F4.0 and just have not found the need for really wide angles at weddings.
Yes, Formatt are excellent. I use a 4x5.65 hot mirror ahead of ND in my matte box for IR control. Firecrests have a great reputation.
I'll try and report back here with how I get on.
I'm partly basing my switch to the GH5/S system on the experience of a couple of GH2s I used a few years back, with the original 12-35 and 35-100.
Yes, I'll miss the twist of a dial for ND. I'm not certain about vari-ND, until the lenses arrive and I do some testing. I do have a (Kenko?) Vari-ND knocking around, but was coincidentally eyeing up a set of Firecrests the other day.
Speaking of which, I'm more than happy with 3 fixed ND options. The FS7 ND values are 0.6, 1.2 and 1.8. What's everyone's view on the sweet spot ND values for the GH5? I'd probably go for over-sized screw-in filters, maybe on magnetic Xume adapters, to allow for quick swaps. Open to other ideas, though!
Cheers,
Ben.
BobKo
Well-known member
Yes, I have the 14-140 ver. 2 (part number H-FS14140). It gets a LOT of use, and is surprisingly stable for handheld work of things like butterflies and bees.
The OL 12-100 works very well on my GH5. I was worried about it only having OIS and not IBS but the OL stabiliser is very, very good and for video use IBS causes weird warping effects with wider lens settings which are absent with OIS. I had the 12-60 2.8-4 but for various reasons didn't like it so sold it on. I've also had the 12-35 2.8 and 35-100 2.8 although have replaced the former with the OL 12-40 as it has better optical performance at the wide end.