Panasonic GX1 Lens choice

Sootchucker

Sootchucker

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Andrew
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Hi guys. I've just purchased a Panasonic GX1 M4/3 Compact complete with the 14-42 power zoom lens, as a lightweight travel solution to my Nikon DSLR's.

As I'll use the Nikon's for more serious work and the Panny for holidays, and a carry everywhere solution, I'm wondering if the supplied lens is all I need, or would you all recommend and primes for walkabout and low light.

Knowing absolutely nothing about the world of M4/3, I have no idea what lenses are available and what's good and what considered poor. I'm not really looking for this as a telephoto solution for birding etc, so a long tele lens isn't required. Just something in the 24-50mm range for general purpose, landscapes etc ? Do the Olympus range of M4/3 lenses also fit the Panasonic ? Any pros / cons to using them on a new Olympus body ?

Any ideas gratefully received.
 
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Oly MFT lenses should be fine and you can use almost anything via an adapter.

Why not take a look at the Panny 20mm f1.7? (20mm = 40mm FF equiv. Is that ok?) It's compact and although thought to be relatively slow to focus I've never found its focus speed to be an issue in real world shooting. Combined with your power zoom it'd give a compact package and the f1.7 would be useful for indoor and low light shooting.
 
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Why not wait and see what you think the limitations of the 14-42 is? I also have a 7.5mm Samyang, 14mm 2.5, and 28mm & 50mm Zuiko lenses via an adapter (3 of the 4 are manual focus lenses). I've been on holiday for the last week and a bit and have used the 50mm 90+% of the time. I'm enjoying the manual focus aspects and narrow DoF at 1.8 most fun - although I may revise that when I get home and look at the results on screen!!

I have a G3 and GX1 and if I only had the GX1, I'd buy an evf for it (even though it is £200). In fact, I may well do that anyway....
 
woof woof said:
Oly MFT lenses should be fine and you can use almost anything via an adapter.

Why not take a look at the Panny 20mm f1.7? (20mm = 40mm FF equiv. Is that ok?) It's compact and although thought to be relatively slow to focus I've never found its focus speed to be an issue in real world shooting. Combined with your power zoom it'd give a compact package and the f1.7 would be useful for indoor and low light shooting.
Click to expand...

The 20mm pancake is an amazing lens. I had one on a GF1 for a long time before coming back to D-SLR. It made the camera pocketable (which the 14-42 power zoom now also does) but was amazing in low light. Its a superb lens (in fact I'm now looking for an SLR fast prime to replace it in my kit bag...). It was the only lens i ever used on there since the 14-42 kit lens made the camera as bulky as an SLR and thus never got used.
 
The 14/2.5 is nice too. Maybe a bit wide for a walkaround by itself, but might be a good partner for a 20? It's tiny, light, cheap (just over £100 secondhand), has fast AF and is reasonably bright.
You could probably pickup the trio of 14/2.5, 20/1.7 and 45/1.8 (that's the Oly one) for under £500 if you buy second hand and shop around. That'd be a lovely setup in a tiny camera bag.
 
thanks for the answers guys. I'll probably do what Andy says and see how I go on with the standard lens, but a pancake 20mm f1.7 also sounds nice, but a little expensive ?
 
Alas, the 20mm is a little expensive (£200 second hand) compared to the "nifty fifty"s on DSLRs, but compared to the other MFT primes it's pretty reasonable. Only the 14mm is significantly cheaper.
But when you look at getting a selection of primes - such as the one I listed above - MFT doesn't seem so bad after all.
 
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