Light m43 wide angle for Glidecam

[JazzBox]

Ciao,

when I need a wide angle I normally use my Olympus 12-40 f/2.8 on GH4/G7, but I recently bought a simple Glidecam style stabilizer (a Flycam) and I need a smaller, lighter lens to move with.

I don't like exaggerated angle (such as 12mm) when shooting talents, and I saw the Panasonic 14 f/2.5 and the Panasonic / Leica 15 f/1.7. 
Which one is more "cinematic" and organic? I mean... I don't mind if some barrel distortion happens, I do love Wes Anderson's wide shots

Thank you very much! 

[jase]

FWIW, according to:

http://www.thehurlblog.com/cinematography-online-micro-four-thirds-lenses/

the Panasonic 15mm delivery quite some "filmic" image if set to f2.5, however he totally dislikes the oly 17mm 1.8 - a lens that I like very much. So...

[JazzBox]

Thank you!

 

[Parker]

The Rokinon 12mm f/2 is a great lens, very small and light, I've used it on a GH4 quite a bit and liked it. Recently I've also seen some test footage from Laowa's new 7.5mm f/2 which looks very impressive, and definitely solves "the wide-angle issue" of micro 4/3. 

EDIT: Well, I should have read the post better, you say you don't like the exaggerated look of those ultra wide angles, my bad! Best of luck and happy shopping.

[JazzBox]

4 hours ago, Parker said:

The Rokinon 12mm f/2 is a great lens, very small and light, I've used it on a GH4 quite a bit and liked it. Recently I've also seen some test footage from Laowa's new 7.5mm f/2 which looks very impressive, and definitely solves "the wide-angle issue" of micro 4/3. 

EDIT: Well, I should have read the post better, you say you don't like the exaggerated look of those ultra wide angles, my bad! Best of luck and happy shopping.

Thank you the same

I need a lightweight prime lens, I have the 12-40 form Olympus that is really good, but too big for my purpose.

[aldolega]

The 14mm f2.5 weighs like 50g. It's basically the size of a Canon or Nikon rear lens cap. So if you're trying to get under a weight limit on a gimbal or stabilizer, that's your lens. It's also cheap, sharp, and fairly fast.

The PanaLeica 15mm is undoubtedly a nicer lens with a nicer look, but it's bigger/heavier and way more expensive.

[jonpais]

There's no such thing as a cinematic looking lens, and the word organic doesn't mean much either in my book. Switching from a 12mm to a 14 or 15mm makes no sense (15mm is way expensive). If 12mm is too wide, go with the inexpensive Panasonic 20mm f/1.7. Then concentrate on lighting, content, white balance and exposure.

[Fredrik Lyhne]

I haven't used the 14mm so can't really comment on that. The 15mm is by far my favorite lens of the small native lenses in the system, especially for people and street photography. 12mm is too wide and 20/25mm is to narrow in my opinion. 

[jonpais]

13 hours ago, Fredrik Lyhne said:

I haven't used the 14mm so can't really comment on that. The 15mm is by far my favorite lens of the small native lenses in the system, especially for people and street photography. 12mm is too wide and 20/25mm is to narrow in my opinion. 

You're probably right about that, but I really like being able to shoot with a small, light, fast, longer focal length on a gimbal. It allows me to throw the background out of focus, and since most single handed stabilizer work seems to be shot with wides, I think it differentiates your work from some of the rest. I've even shot with the G X Vario 35-100 f/2.8! But it does make framing a moving subject pretty difficult. ? I shot my entire Fuji Acros video with a 50mm equivalent lens (35mm f/2) and X-T2 on the Crane. But I guess I wouldn't recommend that to everyone. 

[webrunner5]

Which of the above lenses auto focus the best. I always thought the Panasonic 20 f1.7 was pretty bad, but I do like the size and look OOC of it?

[Fredrik Lyhne]

7 hours ago, jonpais said:

You're probably right about that, but I really like being able to shoot with a small, light, fast, longer focal length on a gimbal. It allows me to throw the background out of focus, and since most single handed stabilizer work seems to be shot with wides, I think it differentiates your work from some of the rest. I've even shot with the G X Vario 35-100 f/2.8! But it does make framing a moving subject pretty difficult. ? I shot my entire Fuji Acros video with a 50mm equivalent lens (35mm f/2) and X-T2 on the Crane. But I guess I wouldn't recommend that to everyone. 

And that Fuji video looks great! but since the OP wanted a wide angle 50mm is a bit narrow. 

6 hours ago, webrunner5 said:

Which of the above lenses auto focus the best. I always thought the Panasonic 20 f1.7 was pretty bad, but I do like the size and look OOC of it?

For stills? The PL is better. For video I always use manual focus. 

[JazzBox]

On 17 febbraio 2017 at 11:18 AM, jonpais said:

There's no such thing as a cinematic looking lens, and the word organic doesn't mean much either in my book. Switching from a 12mm to a 14 or 15mm makes no sense (15mm is way expensive). If 12mm is too wide, go with the inexpensive Panasonic 20mm f/1.7. Then concentrate on lighting, content, white balance and exposure.

In my opinion there are a lot of cinematic, organic lenses in the analog world: try a Zeiss, a Canon FD, an old Helios 44... and see if it is the same as a Panasonic 14-140...
They all have their characteristics (or defects) that could be bad for still and nice for video. Of course someone search just a clean, sharp, perfect lens, so a new one could be better then an old one... and in some situations (i.e. documentary or shooting outdoor at lunch time) every lens could work and makes no real difference...

Anyway I always try to use analog lenses for shooting (music videos and narrative) and only use the digital Olympus 12-40 f/2.8 PRO (and 40-150 f/2.8 PRO) for wide shots where an analog 25 or a 28 is too narrow (or for quick gigs where I can't switch lenses and the 2 zooms give me all the focal lengths I need). 

But I certainly see some substantial differences between the "modern", more or less "perfect", "videoish" digital lenses and the old CY Zeiss (or Canon FD) and I try to use old lenses as much as I can if I can choose.

In my opinion 20mm is too narrow for 90% of steadicam-like shots, it is too similar to 24/25mm and for the Flycam (a Glidecam-like stabilizer)  I need a light lens as wide as possible without becoming funny or noticeable. I'd like to have a lens that gives me a Birdman-like (or La La Land-like) field of view.

My Olympus 12-40 is a really good lens, but at 12 is good for landscape, not for humans. Going from 12mm to 14mm makes a huge difference: it become usable for humans, but it is quite heavy and I plan to shoot some long takes, so I need a lighter lens.

Today I'll try both 14 f/2.5 and 15 f/1.7...  






 

[dbp]

On 2/16/2017 at 2:11 PM, Parker said:

The Rokinon 12mm f/2 is a great lens, very small and light, I've used it on a GH4 quite a bit and liked it. Recently I've also seen some test footage from Laowa's new 7.5mm f/2 which looks very impressive, and definitely solves "the wide-angle issue" of micro 4/3. 

EDIT: Well, I should have read the post better, you say you don't like the exaggerated look of those ultra wide angles, my bad! Best of luck and happy shopping.

I'll cosign this. The Rokinon is excellent for a very reasonable price. Manual focus only... probably why it's so cheap. But manual focus is generally fine on a lens this wide anyway. 

[JazzBox]

At the end I went to try both Panasonic 14mm and 15mm and the 15mm was great. 

I sold my 12-40 and took 2 Pana-Leica 15mm and 25mm, the lengths I used most of the time on 12-40. 
In the next future I'll took a 42.5 (the cheap Panasonic one or the Pana-Leica), but for the moment I can go 40mm with the 40-150 f/2.8 from Olympus, that is very good.

Ciao