To 20mm, 1.7 owners - Which Lens to Buy?

L

larrys

Well-known member
I am trying to decide whether to buy the 20mm pancake or wait for the 14mm, 2.5. Mostly, I shoot close up testimonial type video and I have the 50mm Canon 1.4 which I love, but in tight spots, the 50mm is not always the best. I would love a wider prime.

So, would you recommend the 20mm or wait for the 14mm for tight spots and a wider lens?

Thanks.
 
larrys said:
I am trying to decide whether to buy the 20mm pancake or wait for the 14mm, 2.5. Mostly, I shoot close up testimonial type video and I have the 50mm Canon 1.4 which I love, but in tight spots, the 50mm is not always the best. I would love a wider prime.

So, would you recommend the 20mm or wait for the 14mm for tight spots and a wider lens?

Thanks.
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I think that going from 14mm to 50mm without anything in-between is a bit much. I would get an 24mm or 28mm as a "normal" lens and then see if I need something wider too.
If you already have an FD lens @50mm I'd get something similar so that colors, sharpness and overall lens properties match. Also, manual focusing is better on vintage lenses than on newer ones like the 20mm pancake.
That said the 20mm panasonic is a great lens, especially for stills. But FD lenses have better organic look for video.
My 2 cent.
 
20mm... if u can bear with its motor noise.

for close up shots, i'd use longer than 17mm to try to avoid barrel distortion.

25mm cctv lens is a possible alternative. as kostas said, you can't go wrong with 24 or 28mm.
 
don't know about anyone else, but i'm loving the 20mm for portrait type interviews. it's wide enough that i can put the camera really close so that the onboard mic gets better sound and it's fast enough to get that nice shallow dof i want for my interviews.
 
The 20mm is amazing, also if your on a budget and you want another "in-between" the Nikon mount 24mm and 28mm sigma f1.8 lenses are actually pretty fantastic and have close focus right up to the front element. I picked up a 24mm f1.8 sigma on dvxuser for about $250.
 
The 20mm distorts people's faces. I'd only use it if there's no way to get them in the 50mm. I'd rather change the interview setting to make the 50mm work than shoot anyone that I cared about close up with a 20mm. Also you may consider the Leica 45mm f2.8 for movie portraits. It has autofocus, autoaperture, and OIS. Unlike the 20mm f1.7, the autofocus motor in the 45mm f2.8 is quiet and doesn't hunt.
 
I love my panny but my Nikon 50mm 1.8 gives my vids a whole different look. The 20mm is sharp as heck, but my Nikon 50mm has just a touch of softness in it to give it a more cinematic look or feel. It doesn't have the hard edge the 20mm has. My experience has been my primes are more film like than the 20mm 1.7 but I love them all for different reasons.
 
The pancake has nice focal length. I often use it indoor when 50mm nikkor lens is too long. Yes the focus is noisy for both AF and MF. But AFS works like AFC for the pancake. Very annoying. AE/AF lock option can be set to AF only and AE/AF hold option ON. Pressing the AE/AF button does autofocus and locks it. Then MF can be done without holding the shutter button. The AE/AF trick locks the autofocus so half pressing the shutter won't refocus. It won't record until I press the record button. So there could be slight movement change if hand-held. That's perfectly fine. Really. One of the reasons why legacy lenses look more cinematic is because we make human mistakes. Not getting tack sharp focus helps avoid aliasing. If this one time pre AF generates camera error, I'd use MF to make it slightly out of focus. Also a diffusion filter makes a big difference. It does make the video out of the pancake looking more "organic". I am very very happy about it. All thanks to lpowell.
 
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I have the 20mm 1.7 and love it love it love it for portraiot type closeupsin any light with quick and easy shallow depth of field. And you have a nice sharp wide too several stops faster than the kit.
 
20mm is beast, I use it all the time. It does distort a bit but it's a nice lens to get up close imo, or at about 3-4 ft. of people.
The AF suck in lowlight (not total lowlight, but it the lowlight were my Oly 14-54MKII would focus on the first try in like half a second or so, the 20 would hunt for like 5 sec and sometime fail to get the focus right).

Anyway I still really like that lens.
 
Larry I'm actually in the same boat as you...Idk what your budget is but I am trying to keep it around $600. The only lenses I have been able to find that work well in low light are the Sigma 24mm,28mm,30mm series or the panny pancake. The Sigma 20mm has weird issues around outside of the glass but the other lenses look great!

Ive pretty much settled on the sigma but now I am trying to figure out how to mount it onto the gh1 (thanks again!). Either get the 4/3 version or get the canon EOS version with a mount. If I go the mount way I can always use the lens and just change out the mount if I ever change cameras. However I dont know if there is a quality difference between native and using an adapter to mount lenses.
 
Other options:

(A) wait for the 25mm 1.4 m4/3 lens (I believe this was announced or alluded to by Panasonic)

or

(B) buy the very expensive but very good 25mm 1.4 4/3 lens w/adapter.

I have the 20mm 1.7 and I find that I really do not like how it distorts faces and actually, it is actually wider than I prefer, but I believe it's the only very fast+wide+AF lens we can buy for under <$400 now. I'm tempted by the 25mm 1.4. There is a very big difference, in my mind, between 1.4 and 1.7 if you shoot in low light. Although the 25mm is much larger if that matters to you.
 
As to the Pancake lens... There seems to be a H-H020 model and a H-H020E model. Is there any difference us noobs should be aware of other than price?
 
If you want to try to get the pancake on the cheap with a bit of risk you could buy the GF1 with the lens ($599) and then try to sell the GF1 body. Right now the GF1 body prices haven't quite caught up with the bundle and there is still a demand for them, even if you get like $400 for it you got the kit lens for $199...with a lot of hassle :)
 
Ben_B said:
If you want to try to get the pancake on the cheap with a bit of risk you could buy the GF1 with the lens ($599) and then try to sell the GF1 body. Right now the GF1 body prices haven't quite caught up with the bundle and there is still a demand for them, even if you get like $400 for it you got the kit lens for $199...with a lot of hassle :)
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I appreciate the speedy reply, buy I'm not that interested in saving money, lol. I guess I meant more of: Are we losing anything by going with the one that seems to sell for $100 less new? Why is there a difference?

Google > search "Panasonic Pancake lens" > Shopping results:

H-H020E goes for: $430
H-H020 goes for: $327

***EDIT- This is all I've managed to find online so far for those who care: http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1041&message=34694994&changemode=1
I'll keep looking around before making my purchase. If I find any new info I'll post it here. ***
 
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averan said:
don't know about anyone else, but i'm loving the 20mm for portrait type interviews. it's wide enough that i can put the camera really close so that the onboard mic gets better sound and it's fast enough to get that nice shallow dof i want for my interviews.
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I agree with this I love the 20mm pancake it is amazing.
 
The E likely signifies the market the lens was produced for. The Asia/Pacific version of the AF-100 is the AF-102E. There shouldn't be any difference between the lenses.
 
if you just want a cheap, but good lens for interviews, check out the Canon FD 28mm f2.8. as Ben mentioned, nice soft cine look compared to the sharp Lumix 20mm. and much cheaper!
on the other hand, the 20mm comes in handy for fast AF photography and is just so darn small and fast that you can't help but love it. i have yet to notice any distortion of faces that people are mentioning. and if you're shooting an interview, you'll most likely have focus locked so any AF noises are a non-issue (and you'll have the subject miked unless you're just completely lazy about your audio).
 
Bar none, the 20mm is a great lens. Even if you don't wind up loving it for video (and I don't have any issues there,) you can slap it on the GHx and you've got yourself a small very fast rangefinder type of camera.
 
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