An adventure into the Panasonic GX85/80 begins - and a look at the Leica Nocticron for Micro Four Thirds

[sanveer]

 

This guy, https://www.flickr.com/photos/derbyshiredave/ Dave Harden has some excellent photos with the GX85/80/7mark ii on Flickr. 

I guess one needs some seriously sharp glass to be able to see the level of detail one can see with the camera.

I am guessing that the lack of an OLPF and almost No Shutter Shock makes this thing sharp, almost till the last pixel. Many of this guy's pics look like they could be printed upto some seriously enormous sizes. 

[John Matthews]

8 hours ago, sanveer said:

This guy, https://www.flickr.com/photos/derbyshiredave/ Dave Harden has some excellent photos with the GX85/80/7mark ii on Flickr. 

I guess one needs some seriously sharp glass to be able to see the level of detail one can see with the camera.

I am guessing that the lack of an OLPF and almost No Shutter Shock makes this thing sharp, almost till the last pixel. Many of this guy's pics look like they could be printed upto some seriously enormous sizes.

I took a look at his shots and he's using the same setup as I am for this shot GX80 + Panasonic 25mm F1.7. It's the sharpest combo I've ever used, out resolving my old RX100 (20MP). I got this package for under 700 Euros- IMO, deal of the year. If one's looking into this form-factor, for the money, it can't be beat in terms of photo quality + video quality.

[Flynn]

I wish Panasonic would start offering the 25mm as the kIt lens in the US. It used to be a fast 50mm would be the cheap kit lens and a zoom would be in the expensive kit. Now, in the US at least, we can't even get a prime kit, though Sigma is changing that with the 35mm 1.4 as the kit lens with the Quattro (and pretty cheap too).

[John Matthews]

Just now, Flynn said:

I wish Panasonic would start offering the 25mm as the kIt lens in the US. It used to be a fast 50mm would be the cheap kit lens and a zoom would be in the expensive kit. Now, in the US at least, we can't even get a prime kit, though Sigma is changing that with the 35mm 1.4 as the kit lens with the Quattro (and pretty cheap too).

I believe it's Sigma's 30mm F1.4. Yeah, not sure why the want the US market to stick only to the 12-32. I would also like to have this lens, but I was going for low-light, indoor stuff too. I imagine when sales start slowing a little, they'll have a body-only option and then you can pick up the 25mm like I did. My next lens will probably be the Panasonic-Leica 15mm or the 12-32 although the 20mm f1.7 could potentially replace my 25mm and still give me a wide enough shot... choices- something the Sony folk don't quite have.  

[icarrere]

The GX80 seems to be good for action

 

[sanveer]

3 hours ago, John Matthews said:

I took a look at his shots and he's using the same setup as I am for this shot GX80 + Panasonic 25mm F1.7. It's the sharpest combo I've ever used, out resolving my old RX100 (20MP). I got this package for under 700 Euros- IMO, deal of the year. If one's looking into this form-factor, for the money, it can't be beat in terms of photo quality + video quality.

Oh ok, that's nice. Please post a lotta pic on Flickr (I love pixel peeping). This lens + camera combination is excellent. 

 

3 hours ago, John Matthews said:

I believe it's Sigma's 30mm F1.4. Yeah, not sure why the want the US market to stick only to the 12-32. I would also like to have this lens, but I was going for low-light, indoor stuff too. I imagine when sales start slowing a little, they'll have a body-only option and then you can pick up the 25mm like I did. My next lens will probably be the Panasonic-Leica 15mm or the 12-32 although the 20mm f1.7 could potentially replace my 25mm and still give me a wide enough shot... choices- something the Sony folk don't quite have.  

The 20mm f1.7 (i and ii) is a very strange lens. Its focus speed is quite slow, it is quite noisy, and it has one more curious issue that I suddenly cannot recollect. Avoid it, if its Tiny Size is what is attracting you. It is reasonably sharp, though.

[John Matthews]

8 minutes ago, sanveer said:

The 20mm f1.7 (i and ii) is a very strange lens. Its focus speed is quite slow, it is quite noisy, and it has one more curious issue that I suddenly cannot recollect. Avoid it, if its Tiny Size is what is attracting you. It is reasonably sharp, though.

I've heard this before... Maybe the 12-32 would be a better match. Bonus- it's super cheap second hand, rather small, and allows me to try out DUAL IS. The big point for me is that I'd like to have something a little wider and smaller in my kit. The 25mm is a fantastic lens and I've been really happy, especially considering what I paid for it new. My telephoto is a Pentax M 50mm F1.7 (bought it for $30), also a very nice lens with a great feature of being almost a macro lens when you put a reversal ring on it.

[PannySVHS]

1 hour ago, sanveer said:

The 20mm f1.7 (i and ii) is a very strange lens. Its focus speed is quite slow, it is quite noisy, and it has one more curious issue that I suddenly cannot recollect. Avoid it, if its Tiny Size is what is attracting you. It is reasonably sharp, though.

 

The 20mm is a super high resolving lens, maybe 3rd place or better of the Panasonic Leica lenses, after the 25mm 1.4 and 42.5mm 1.2.

Some curiosity, it seems to be 1/3 EV brighter than it´s 1.7 Fstop. So it´s a super compact, high quality bright lens with slow autofocus for

photo and not useable AF for video. I myself think about the 15mm 1.7 Panny Leica. On the 4K crop it would give me a classic moderate/normal wideangle FOV for video with very fast AF.

[Michael Coffee]

2 hours ago, sanveer said:

Oh ok, that's nice. Please post a lotta pic on Flickr (I love pixel peeping). This lens + camera combination is excellent. 

 

The 20mm f1.7 (i and ii) is a very strange lens. Its focus speed is quite slow, it is quite noisy, and it has one more curious issue that I suddenly cannot recollect. Avoid it, if its Tiny Size is what is attracting you. It is reasonably sharp, though.

Always liked the look of this lens - seems to have nice falloff to the oof areas

[markr041]

I shot this 4K video handheld using the 25mm f1.7 lens on the GX85, to assess its performance using IBIS and in dim light. This is possibly the worst-lit museum in the world, with dark rooms and glowing walls and mixed lighting. The only well-lit room is the souvenir shop!

 

[John Matthews]

1 hour ago, markr041 said:

I shot this 4K video handheld using the 25mm f1.7 lens on the GX85, to assess its performance using IBIS and in dim light. This is possibly the worst-lit museum in the world, with dark rooms and glowing walls and mixed lighting. The only well-lit room is the souvenir shop!

Some of those shots practically look like they're on a tripod, a testament to this as a low-light setup. Looks nice.

[mercer]

On July 6, 2016 at 11:55 AM, Michael Coffee said:

In my experience with the gf1 and gx7 on the stills side, I like the results with vintage lenses, and they have bags of character, and a "snap shot" smaller film format feel.. a real still guy could probably get amazing results, but when I had even a aspc Canon 50d for a while, even with a crappy old canon kit zoom and on full auto, the pics coming out of that thing blew away anything I have been able to get with the Panasonics! Again, I'm no stills expert, but it seems you have to be a pretty serious photo guy to pull amazing images out of the Panasonics.. love them for video, apart from the motion.. can work around the colour.. but for stills - I would almost reach for my el cheapo $100 Samsung Galaxy J1 phone! MFT stills always just seem congested within the frame somehow for me.. the can't touch even the aspc Canon's for my tastes! I love the look of medium format stills even more

Tons of options for stills, built in intevalvometer.. good burst rates etc - all the stills features, but no where near the Canon's etc for me!

Sure the Panasonic can take ok photos, but all the photo's that make me say wow, and look like you could reach into the frame have usually been on a 5d or medium format cam.. never really seen an MFT still that really wowed me! Again, I am not a huge stills shooter in any way, just my two cents worth

GX7 with Minolta 28mm

GF1 with Olympus 25 2.8 4/3

 

Samsung Galaxy J1 smartphone

Is the photo with the Minolta 28mm the f/2.8 version or the f/2? I have the f/2 and it's one of my favorite lenses of all time and coincidentally, or not, that was my favorite photo you posted as well. 

3 hours ago, markr041 said:

I shot this 4K video handheld using the 25mm f1.7 lens on the GX85, to assess its performance using IBIS and in dim light. This is possibly the worst-lit museum in the world, with dark rooms and glowing walls and mixed lighting. The only well-lit room is the souvenir shop!

 

Very nice. The ibis really is stellar. What were your settings and post workflow?

[The Chris]

4 hours ago, markr041 said:

I shot this 4K video handheld using the 25mm f1.7 lens on the GX85, to assess its performance using IBIS and in dim light. This is possibly the worst-lit museum in the world, with dark rooms and glowing walls and mixed lighting. The only well-lit room is the souvenir shop!

What kind of ISO's were you shooting? Looks like this guy was keeping an eye on you.

 

[Buckster]

nice video - impressive demo of the IBIS !

I was expecting video to be good - and it is

but the stills have caught me out - I'm getting really nice sharp photos from my 14-140 II - wheras previously I was always disappointed with my G6

this is just a "snap" in the garden - but the camera and lens has done great I think

 

[markr041]

The natural history museum video was shot using shutter priority mode with the shutter fixed at 1/60th. I used AWB - within a scene the light was never changing, and AWB did a good job in dealing with the different lighting across rooms, with enough time to adjust. As a consequence of shooting in S, no ISO or aperture settings were reported by the camera (a "feature" common to all Panasonic G cameras in Creative Movie mode when using any mode but full Manual). So I do not know what the ISO's were. I rode ev to obtain the exposure in camera that made what I was seeing in the viewfinder look like what I was seeing with my eyes (if not that of the reptile).

I shot using Standard, with NR at -2. I have plenty of experience with grading RAW (BMPCC) and Slog2 (RX100 IV), and my choice of this setting was based on getting realistic colors without the need to twist around 8-bit, highly compressed video, as I had no intention of creating a film-look or a stylized report in this case. In post I tweaked some clips - lifting shadows here and there, altering luminance here and there, and in one clip color corrected based, again, on matching what I had seen in terms of color and light. I shot with the *intent* of not needing to change anything in post. What I saw in the viewfinder was what the clips looked like when reviewed. So mostly what is seen in the video was what the camera produced, given my selection of camera settings.

[Buckster]

thanks for settings and process you used markr041 - very impressive

have to say - looking through pictures I took of my kids over weekend - this sensor seems to take some of the highest detail photos I've had from any camera (and I've owned a good cameras, including 4 DSLRs) - if this is partly due to no AA filter - I know what is on top list of features when I buy my next camera

100% ish crop - with minor sharpening in PP.  This is with the 14-140 II .... - not bad really !

 

[Michael Coffee]

7 hours ago, mercer said:

Is the photo with the Minolta 28mm the f/2.8 version or the f/2? I have the f/2 and it's one of my favorite lenses of all time and coincidentally, or not, that was my favorite photo you posted as well. 

Very nice. The ibis really is stellar. What were your settings and post workflow?

28mm 2.8, would like to get the f2..

 

[mercer]

1 hour ago, Michael Coffee said:

28mm 2.8, would like to get the f2..

 

Yeah, it's a nice lens. I have the MD version and the Rokkor-X. Am actually selling my Rokkor-X copy on eBay. 

[John Matthews]

I know there are some fans of the Voigtlander lenses on this thread. Here are some comparisons between them and Olympus's offerings.

 

[mat33]

I've been seriously considering the GX80 as the IBIS looks good, but I did a quick shoot today and decided to take my E-M1 along (in all of its 24Mbit glory :-) ).  Man, it quickly reminded me why I like olympus so much for low-profile run and gun- the ergonomics just click for me and the single AF + manual focus is such a pleasure to use.  Can anyone with an olympus and GX80 chip in on how they compare usability/ergonomics wise? 

After today, I'm thinking I might just hold out for the E-M1 mark ii which will hopefully even the IQ gap....