Wide angle GH2 zoom

7-14mm is already much cheaper in USA. :-)
As for Tokina - it has big advantage - most of the time you need wide lense indoors with significant light deficit :-)
 
I don't really understand how people can look at the 7-14 and compare it to the 11-16. The 7-14 is so much wider it's insane. They're totally not in the same class.

I would think that you'd rather compare the Olympus 12-60 against the Tokina 11-16. Those are at least comparable on the wide end (both f/2.8, and 11 vs 12mm isn't much of a difference). And the Olympus is a little less expensive than the 7-14. And much more telephoto. And you can control its iris...

Here's a shot at 11mm. This is as wide as a Tokina could go:
11mm.jpg

Standing at the same spot, zooming out to 7mm, this is how much wider the 7-14 can go. I overlayed the field of view from the 11mm, so you can see how much additional field of view you get with the 7mm.
7mm.jpg

The 7-14 is just crazy wider than the 11-16.
 
Barry_Green said:
I don't really understand how people can look at the 7-14 and compare it to the 11-16. The 7-14 is so much wider it's insane. They're totally not in the same class.

I would think that you'd rather compare the Olympus 12-60 against the Tokina 11-16. Those are at least comparable on the wide end (both f/2.8, and 11 vs 12mm isn't much of a difference). And the Olympus is a little less expensive than the 7-14. And much more telephoto. And you can control its iris...

Here's a shot at 11mm. This is as wide as a Tokina could go:
View attachment 29475

Standing at the same spot, zooming out to 7mm, this is how much wider the 7-14 can go. I overlayed the field of view from the 11mm, so you can see how much additional field of view you get with the 7mm.
View attachment 29476

The 7-14 is just crazy wider than the 11-16.
Click to expand...

Damn straight! I brought up the Tokina but more as a competitor to the earlier lenses that were mentioned, not the 7-14mm. I wouldn't even get the 9-18mm after seeing the results from the 7-14mm because 7 is so much wider than 9. Proud new owner of 7-14mm here :)
 
I have nothing against the Tokina, I know a lot of people like it, and for an APS-C it makes sense, it's about as wide you can go at an affordable price on APS-C. But for an m43 camera, it's not all that wide, and you can't control the aperture. Seems to me that if you want that zoom range and that f-stop, the Olympus makes more sense, and if you want a wide zoom, there's just no comparison, the 7-14 is just head and shoulders and feet and toes and knees and spleens wider than the Tokina.
 
Quick question about the 7-14mm. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I read that you CANNOT attach filters to the lens because it had no filter threads. This make the lens basically useless outdoors unless you use a Matte Box for filters?

How do you guys use filters with this lens?
 
elusive1 said:
Quick question about the 7-14mm. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I read that you CANNOT attach filters to the lens because it had no filter threads. This make the lens basically useless outdoors unless you use a Matte Box for filters?

How do you guys use filters with this lens?
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You can't attach filters this is true, but this hardly makes the lens useless outdoors. Just stop it down! It should work fine on a bright sunny day for video at f/22. You don't really need a wide-open aperture it's not like you're getting shallow DOF from this lens. Now it is true that this lens is at its sharpest wide-open at f/4 and is at its softest at f/22, but that shouldn't be a huge issue for video, more so for stills, and for stills you can open up the aperture and crank the shutter speed to really fast. No big deal.

There's also ways to attach filters if you really really need it. I might try ordering a front cap for it, cutting out the center, and gluing the filter thread from a cheap UV filter in place (break the glass out.) Might vignette a bit at 7mm though...still it'd be nice to mount a polarizer.

Worth noting the 8mm f/3.5 fisheye has a filter slot on the back of the lens but this lens doesn't. I wonder if they will add that in the forthcoming OIS version.
 
I got the tokina for the affordable price and decent wide lens. 11mm is pretty wide. actually 20mm is plenty wide.
funny how ive had more problems with not having enough tele
 
dcloud said:
I got the tokina for the affordable price and decent wide lens. 11mm is pretty wide. actually 20mm is plenty wide.
funny how ive had more problems with not having enough tele
Click to expand...

Yeah but it's not exactly ultrawide, and at 16mm it's more of a wide normal on m4/3rds.

Worth noting that the 7-14mm on m4/3 at 7mm is wider than the 11-16mm on APS-C cameras as well.
 
Ben_B said:
...still it'd be nice to mount a polarizer.
Click to expand...
No, you wouldn't want to do that. Polarizers don't work on wide-angle lenses.

Remember that polarizers work most effectively at 90 degrees from the sun (or 270 degrees), and don't have any effect at all when at 0 degrees or 180 degrees from the sun. On a wide-angle lens, it's so wide, you'll see so much sky, that you'll see big blotches of dark and bright spots in the sky if you used a polarizer. The 7mm has a field of view that's 111 degrees or so... wide enough that it encompasses more than the entire range a polarizer could see. If you pointed the camera 90 degrees from the sun, you'd have a dark sky in the center of the frame, and bright sky on the edges. There'd be a big progressively-darker blob of sky right in the middle of your frame. And as you panned around, it'd move around...

Wide-angle lenses + polarizers = nono.

I wonder if they will add that in the forthcoming OIS version.
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Where has there been an announcement of an OIS version? And why would they put OIS on such a wide lens? That makes no sense. You need OIS for telephoto, but not for wide. There's no OIS on the 14mm pancake, or the 20mm pancake...
 
Ben_B said:
Worth noting that the 7-14mm on m4/3 at 7mm is wider than the 11-16mm on APS-C cameras as well.
Click to expand...
11mm on APS-C is about the same as 9mm on m43. So the olympus 9-18 would have more of a comparable field of view (at least on the wide) as compared to the 11-16 when used on an APS-C.
 
Yes... that is a strange decision to not allow filters to be attached. Seriously limits the usefulness of the 7-14. I don't think I ever shoot at f22, it would look like super video. Like shooting out of a pin hole.

The nice thing about the Tokina 11-16 is that it's a bit more future proof. Works on GH2 (With Kipon adapter), 5D and 7D, and it takes filters.
 
elusive1 said:
Yes... that is a strange decision to not allow filters to be attached. Seriously limits the usefulness of the 7-14. I don't think I ever shoot at f22, it would look like super video. Like shooting out of a pin hole.

The nice thing about the Tokina 11-16 is that it's a bit more future proof. Works on GH2 (With Kipon adapter), 5D and 7D, and it takes filters.
Click to expand...

No, it doesn't work on the 5D, (I can't remember if it will mount or not, but I know you have vignetting until at least 14 or 15mm on a 5D), so it's not completely futureproof
 
Barry_Green said:
Where has there been an announcement of an OIS version? And why would they put OIS on such a wide lens? That makes no sense. You need OIS for telephoto, but not for wide. There's no OIS on the 14mm pancake, or the 20mm pancake...
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Because they didn't have ETC when they made the original 7-14mm and they know that people are just drooling to use the sharpest m4/3s lens @ 36mm to 72mm(35mm terms) for 1080p @ 24 FPS video. Since you would be using the center of the sharpest lens with ETC your results should be outstanding with a very useful focal range and essentially no vignetting or skew. You could also shoot some nice 80% slow motion video with it as well. Image stabilization is very useful in the 36mm to 72mm range.

Is the 7-14mm one of the fast focusing lenses?
 
memphishills said:
No, it doesn't work on the 5D, (I can't remember if it will mount or not, but I know you have vignetting until at least 14 or 15mm on a 5D), so it's not completely futureproof
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Really? I can't say first hand but I seem to remember a number of people saying that the Tokina 11-16 is different than other EF-S lenses in that it will work on the 5D, but starting at about 14mm. But on a 5D, 14mm is definitely very wide.

Someone wrote this on another board

"It works on my 5D mark II
Check out my flickr; they're all done with the 50 1.8 and the 11-16 tokina

The IQ isn't as sharp as it is on crop and there is pixel smearing at the corners as well as chromatic noise in the corners. I often crop that out to give me an effective 20-24 mm of actual scene focal length.

But it does work at 16 mm really well and 15 mm pretty darn well too.

Peripheral illumination works nicely to make the corners look natural, but isn't required.

In the center its about as sharp as it is on crop."
 
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mpgxsvcd said:
Because they didn't have ETC when they made the original 7-14mm and they know that people are just drooling to use the sharpest m4/3s lens @ 36mm to 72mm(35mm terms) for 1080p @ 24 FPS video. Since you would be using the center of the sharpest lens with ETC your results should be outstanding with a very useful focal range and essentially no vignetting or skew. You could also shoot some nice 80% slow motion video with it as well. Image stabilization is very useful in the 36mm to 72mm range.
Click to expand...
Forgot entirely about ETC...
 
stonebat said:
Once we have a built-in ND filter in future GH model, we wouldn't need a matte box for m43 zooms. Since all m43 zooms extend in length, it's kinda awkward to use a matte box.
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Not all of them extend. The 7-14 doesn't become actually longer. Well, it does, but only within the confines of its permanently-attached lens hood, so as a practical matter it doesn't change size when zoomed.
 
7mm gives roughly 57% more FOV than 11mm's.

Once we have a built-in ND filter in future GH model, we wouldn't need a matte box for m43 zooms. Since all m43 zooms extend in length, it's kinda awkward to use a matte box.

Yes the price has been falling fast in the States. I'd pick one up at rock bottom price like $550. Basically half the retail price.
 
stonebat said:
Yes the price has been falling fast in the States. I'd pick one up at rock bottom price like $550. Basically half the retail price.
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Can you tell me where do you picked that lens at $550? The cheapest I can see in the states is $900 at BH. I have a friend who's travelling to NY in April. If you could share a store for him to visit I'll be very appreciated.
 
Well... After many thoughts about it, and so many people saying that Panasonic's 7-14mm makes wonders, I've bought it! Almost $1300 here in EU tough. I really hope it worth the price...
 
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