Thoughts on AF100 with Panny 20mm 1.7 lens?

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filmguy123

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I have an Olympus 12mm f/2.0 and Nokton 25mm f/0.95

Thoughts on this lens? Was also considering the nokton 17.5 f/0.95 but this would be a cheaper way to get similar focal length perhaps?
 
I have a couple of zooms I use in those lengths. I have the SLRMagic 12 and I don't use it very often. The one I use most is the Oly 11 - 22. For the m4/3rd sensor that 17.5 is in a pretty good spot. Too often I find myself pulling back with the 25 so I don't need to go to that 11 - 22 but I would imagine a 17.5 would be pretty handy.

I think the 20 is close enough to the 25 that it won't do that much for you. I guess it depends on how small the locations are you're working in ;)
 
So, big difference between 17.5 and 20mm in use then eh?

I thought I read something a while ago on the Panny 20mm not being the best manual focus on AF100?

Just wondering if it's worth the extra cost to go the Voigtlander 17.5mm, it's quite a bit more
 
Yeah, those are expensive. I don't think there's that big a difference between a 20 and a 17.5. I mean, how much more do you have to step back to make that 20 a 17.5? I think the 20mm is going to be pretty good on the AF100. If you wanted to pull focus, I guess the Voigtlander would be better. Honestly, If I'm wider than the 25 I try to stop down, get enough depth, and forget about pulling focus because my 11 - 22 doesn't have hard stops anyway. I can do it hand held but not with a follow focus.

I have a DOF app on my iPhone and if you have the 20mm at f5.6 you have 4 ft in front and almost 18 behind the subject. It's still pretty wide. I had the camera up for some lighting test so I did a little down and dirty test just now with the 11 - 22 and to go from approximately 17.5 to 20 mm and maintain the same field of view, I only had to pull back just under 2 feet. I checked out http://www.abelcine.com/fov/ to see the difference in FOV. They only have a 15 and a 20 to look at.
 
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The Panasonic offers autofocus, the Voigtlander doesn't. The Panasonic offers automatic iris, the Voigtlander doesn't. So if you need those features, just be aware that that's what you'd be giving up.

Now, with that said, the manual control on the Voigtlanders is far superior to the manual control on the Panasonic. If you intend to be using the lens in a strictly manual fashion, the Voigtlanders are heads and shoulders and knees and toes above the Lumix 20mm in that regard. But then again, either Voigtlander will cost about 4x what the Panasonic lens costs.

The Panasonic 20mm is a good, sharp, reasonably fast 20mm lens. If that's what you want, it does the job well. But it can't compare in manual control to the much more expensive, silky-smooth, exquisitely-crafted Voigtlanders.
 
The 20mm f2.8 Nikon with the Metabones Speedbooster gives about a 13mm Field of View, and is an excellent manual lens. NOTE: You have to nondestructively modify the 20mm f2.8 per Metabones instructions. The other Nikon primes need no modification that I know of. Here is the information from Metabones on the modification. (This is copied from Black Magic camera blog.)


brianc1959
  • Posts: 4
  • Joined: Fri Jul 12, 2013 7:22 am
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Re: MFT to Nikon Speed Booster is out now


Fri Jul 12, 2013 7:35 am
There have been several questions about the Nikkor 20/2.8 AIS here, so I thought I would try to help out.

When designing the SB we measured several dozen different Nikkors, including 15/3.5 AI, 16/3.5 AI'd, 20/2.8 AFD, 24/2.8 AIS, and many others. We mistakenly assumed that we had done an exhaustive survey.

But the 20/2.8 AIS - which is not one of the lenses we checked - turned out to have an unusualy long rear protrusion, and it interferes mechanically with the SB.

The good news is that you can make a simple and completely reversible fix to this lens by simply removing the three small screws that fix the interfering shroud from the rear of the lens. Just make sure you use a high-quality tight-fitting screwdriver:
ATTACHMENTS
file.php
20130711 20mm 2,8 Nikkor surgery.jpg (193.63 KiB) Viewed 378 time
 
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I used to use the 20/1.7 with the AF and absolutely hated it... Nothing wrong with the way the images looked, but the pancake form factor resulted in me always getting my damn fingers in the frame while reaching for focus.
 
I also think it's too small to use effectively on the AF100. I have it and use it on the GH2, where I think it's a great match, but it always feels a bit silly when using it on the AF100. I use my Voigtlander 25mm much more frequently than the Lumix 20mm on the AF100, but on the GH2 it's the opposite, I use the 20mm much more frequently than the Voigtlander there.
 
I have the 14mm pancake and use it mostly on my GF2. However, when shooting close handheld for effect, it's great to have autofocus on the AF100. Is there a way to have face recognition on and auto iris off? The auto iris is what kills the shot.
 
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