Student questions

Many reasons, but I'll reserve comment on this forum. Feel free to email me privately if you'd like to discuss it further.
 
If you are on a student budget, investing in micro 4/3rds lenses is definitely not what I would advise. It's a new format and there is not a great range of lenses; those that are available are expensive. That said, one of the best things about the micro 4/3rds system is it's adaptability to other lenses. So you can get a GH1 now, find cheap old glass to put on it, and then hopefully in the not too distant future there will be more lenses to choose from and third party manufacturers will drive the price down.
 
If you are on a student budget, investing in micro 4/3rds lenses is definitely not what I would advise. It's a new format and there is not a great range of lenses; those that are available are expensive. That said, one of the best things about the micro 4/3rds system is it's adaptability to other lenses. So you can get a GH1 now, find cheap old glass to put on it, and then hopefully in the not too distant future there will be more lenses to choose from and third party manufacturers will drive the price down.
Click to expand...

I just quickly googled some lenses, for both panasonic and canon, and although its pretty hard to compare lenses for different formats, the panasonic's are often cheaper than the canon equivalent. e.g the canon 20mm f2.8 prime is on average about £320 ($487) and the sigma EX 20mm f/1.8 is roughly £360 ($548) whereas the panasonic is on average £280 ($486) and is f/1.7. I see your point though about the overall price of the lenses. As a platform to use other lenses on (Canon FD's, old Nikons etc...) do you think that it's worth it to use those lenses instead which will be considerably cheaper.

It may not have the same amount of lenses as canon & nikon but i personally think they have most of the bases covered with their own range (wide, ultra wide, fast prime, zoom, tele-zoom), excluding all the lenses that can be used with adaptors.
 
himynameisnathan said:
I just quickly googled some lenses, for both panasonic and canon, and although its pretty hard to compare lenses for different formats, the panasonic's are often cheaper than the canon equivalent.
Click to expand...

Brand new prices on current lenses may be similar but Canon, Nikon, et al have a whole range of lenses from the past half a century which you can pick up cheap. Plus there are third party options as well.

In Aus the cheapest Panasonic lens is the 14-45 f/3.5-5.6, which is $650 - about double what I paid for my entire Pentax lens collection.
 
Brand new prices on current lenses may be similar but Canon, Nikon, et al have a whole range of lenses from the past half a century which you can pick up cheap. Plus there are third party options as well.
Click to expand...

Surely the use of adaptors for m4/3 means that these lenses can be used with the panasonic, negating the canon/nikon lens advantage?
 
himynameisnathan said:
Surely the use of adaptors for m4/3 means that these lenses can be used with the panasonic, negating the canon/nikon lens advantage?
Click to expand...

Yes, the key is that you are getting older lenses not brand new ones. The more common ones happen to be Canon and Nikon but I shoot only with M42 lenses which were also very common back in the day.
 
himynameisnathan said:
Surely the use of adaptors for m4/3 means that these lenses can be used with the panasonic, negating the canon/nikon lens advantage?
Click to expand...

Thats exactly what I was saying. If you're on a budget, adaptors and older lenses are the way to go for a micro 4/3rds camera. Heck, most people are using older manual lenses for video regardless of their budget. At this stage it's a much better option than investing in Micro 4/3rds lenses from Panny or Olympus.
 
Ah i see, so in a nutshell, the systems worthwhile but the native lenses arent.

Thanks for all the help guys, I think I'll wait for the GH2's inevitable release then buy that on launch, hopefully its around £1000.Do you think they'll announce anything at NAB or is that purely for professional equipment?

Once again, thanks guys!.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top