GH2 Sharp lenses?

K

KevinBeach

Member
I'm looking for a lens for my GH2 similar to the PANY G 20mm F1.7..... but is there anything cheaper that'll give me the same sharpness/overal effect of this lens?
 
I have the 14-45 and it is very sharp, but needs plenty of light since it is not a very fast lens. I think the 14-45 is cheaper by around $100 in auctions. Some of the CCTV C mount lenses are really cheap and some are very fast. I have a 25mm f1.4 that makes nice photos, but soft edges and weird bokeh; however I paid under $40 including the adapter... Al
 
aljudy said:
I have the 14-45 and it is very sharp, but needs plenty of light since it is not a very fast lens. I think the 14-45 is cheaper by around $100 in auctions. Some of the CCTV C mount lenses are really cheap and some are very fast. I have a 25mm f1.4 that makes nice photos, but soft edges and weird bokeh; however I paid under $40 including the adapter... Al
Click to expand...

50mm on a GH2 is pretty long. Do you have any other lenes? If not then don't do it.

Never used the 14-45 that aljudy is talking about but its going to be your best bet if you are really strapped for cash. Whats your budget?
 
i also have a 14-140... i'm basically looking for a cheaper version of the panny 20mm 1.7 and so far the nikkor 50mm 1.8 seems to be the closest thing i can find and it is 1/4 the price. as for budget, depends if i think a lens is worth it or not, if i found an amazing lens and i thought it was worth $500, i'd buy it. but i think the panny 20mm is worth half what it sells for.
 
I find the Pana 20mm 1.7 is worth every penny. It's extremely sharp....and it's not too often you find fast lenses that stays just as sharp all the way opened up like that one. As far as auto focus...love it or hate it at least it's there.
 
The Lens adaptor will work, I use a Fotodiox adaptor...essentially the same though.
The lens is great, low light, sharp, and smooth rings.

However, you realize that almost any lens you choose... will essentially be doubled. So that 50mm will in fact be closer to a 100mm.

However, you should really look into something below 28mm lenses. Their super wide (7-14mm) is amazing, but to expensive at the moment.
I found a Nikon 28mm f2.8 for under $35, in mint. But even thats probably a little much zoom... Ill see when it arrives i guess.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...item=&sspagename=STRK:MEWNX:IT#ht_2292wt_1141
While im waiting for the 28, im using our Nikon's D700 fisheye (Sigma 15mm f2.8) with my GH2 with very nice results...ill be it, some "wide" angle distortion, but nothing unpleasant.

Nikon Fisheye 15mm

Nikon 50mm f1.4

Panny 14-42mm


With the ETC on, the C-Mounts are actually very nice... They can also be expensive :P

Dai-Lon
http://www.dailonweiss.com/
http://www.kristinaweiss.com/Magyar/
 
but E-T-C is poo or is it only only on my GH2,i wont get my pana 20mm for at least a month ,none in stock so looking forward to testing it.
 
flinty said:
but E-T-C is poo or is it only only on my GH2...
Click to expand...

Not quiet sure what you are referring to. ETC is amazing! Basically no* image quality reduction like you find in "Digital Zoom" modes (Yes, its using a smaller section of the sensor.. so you dont get the "flex" you would normally find with noise reduction when using the full sensor; but this is only a factor when shooting at high iso), allows you to use c-mounts lenses at crazy f stops, and extends normal lenses giving telephoto.

"Poo"... I think not!

You can have a look at this posting for more information about the IMBA abilities of the ETC mode.
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?247195-GH2-gets-WIDE-from-6mm-to-3.5mm-!!!!!

and... Yes, ETC is only on found on the GH2s.
 
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7tecfq_830

well i was being kind t should have been the last letter,perhaps E-T-C has a fault on mine,i like good pq and using it my picture is degraded, filming without a tripod its worse than ever,tell me why if i am filming lets say a feeding bird with my 45-200mm lens switching to E-T-C the picture turns into little more than DVD quality,only on tripod work at wider zoom ratios like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rje_9Dzta-k
is it better but still noticable.
Sorry to have taken this off the 20mm pancake topic,maybe e-t-c will be better with it,or not,and youtube is no way to tell PQ i know.
 
Sry for going off on a tangent from the thread, but info benefits all.
There are some caveats with the etc mode. You still get image stabilization but remember you are working at telephoto and so shake is more pronounced.
Also, as I said before. ETC using 1920/1080 of the sensor...which is something like only 1Mega pixel of the 16 the camera has. When the camera is shooting normally, its actually downsampling a much larger portion of the sensor and so you have much less noise and more detail with ETC off.
I wont make this long, but here is a good explanation.
http://m43photo.blogspot.com/2011/01/moon-photography-and-gh2-etc.html

flinty: I personally havent seen to much degradation of the video, other then a little more noise, and maybe some slight moire. But NOTHING as bad a "DVD" quality reduction.
Looking at your video, it looks like it was a step down to 720p from 1080p (Could be Youtubes compression as well). None the less, make sure your NOT using Digital Zoom (Which reduces/cancels image stabilization, degrads picture to "DVD" qualities, and makes the picture muddy.
Also, lenses can show more flaws and sometimes less flaws (ie: corner softness or lack of, and sharpness). So maybe you want to look at that factor. I noticed you Zoomed out to match the ETC, there are f-stop reductions and lens aberrations to consider when comparing the 2 modes like this.

Screen%20shot%202011-05-05%20at%201.39.49%20PM.jpg


Dai-Lon
http://www.dailonweiss.com/
http://www.kristinaweiss.com/Magyar/
 
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daihard said:
Sry for going off on a tangent from the thread, but info benefits all.
There are some caveats with the etc mode. You still get image stabilization but remember you are working at telephoto and so shake is more pronounced.
Also, as I said before. ETC using 1920/1080 of the sensor...which is something like only 1Mega pixel of the 16 the camera has. When the camera is shooting normally, its actually downsampling a much larger portion of the sensor and so you have much less noise and more detail with ETC off.
I wont make this long, but here is a good explanation.
http://m43photo.blogspot.com/2011/01/moon-photography-and-gh2-etc.html

flinty: I personally havent seen to much degradation of the video, other then a little more noise, and maybe some slight moire. But NOTHING as bad a "DVD" quality reduction.
Looking at your video, it looks like it was a step down to 720p from 1080p. None the less, make sure your NOT using Digital Zoom (Which reduces/cancels image stabilization, degrads picture to "DVD" qualities, and makes the picture muddy.
Screen%20shot%202011-05-05%20at%201.39.49%20PM.jpg


Dai-Lon
http://www.dailonweiss.com/
http://www.kristinaweiss.com/Magyar/
Click to expand...

DVD was a bit over the top, but on a youtube video its not the same as a avchd or bd on my 50" tv,but even you say more noise and moire can be seen, i never use digital zoom but E-T-C and no deteriation with video i dont get i sure wish i did not,even the 24p wide angle test on you tube shows less resolution with etc so imagine on a large screen tv on bd.Incidently i have never taken a still with etc.
 
Not really sure you will see much, as I think the ETC will only use the sample of the sensor specific to the size of the picture.
So a 8MP picture will only use the 8MP section of the sensor. But im only speculating.
Refer to p.120 in the GH2 book.
The 1920x1080 is only a 2MP section of the sensor. You have pixel sensors in constant flux, AVCHD compression, stabilization, and possibly lens focusing to all deal with. I dont think a still 2MP verse a still from the video stream would be a fair comparison... "if" you where going to try to compare the 2 that way.
Also someone pointed out in the link I posted above:
"Anonymous said...
ETC could produce less sharp picture than downscaling due to demosaicing. Actual resolution would be less than 1920x1080 RGB pixels since each sensor pixel captures only one color channel."
Which leads to speculation, that the camera is only really ever using a section of 4MP which is down sampled to the 2MP 1080p.
It would be interesting to see a "modification" (GH23*) that used much more of the sensor (maybe 8MP) and we could see some HDR like footage (doubling the sensors recording colors)... Alas, we can only hope at the moment.
 
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