[Leica] M Lenses on GF-1

[henningw at archiphoto.com (Henning Wulff)]

Dave, I mostly use the Panasonic m4/3 lenses, as their convenience 
and generally excellent quality make using something else a special 
purpose thing. Like the 75 Summilux.

The 'kit' zoom that comes with the G1 or GF-1 is excellent and tiny. 
It's easily the best standard range zoom I've used from any 
manufacturer, and its only real downside is that it's slow.

Since non-Panasonic wideangle lenses don't work as well as the 
Panasonic lenses on the m4/3 cameras, and the non-Panasonic 
wideangles don't offer any real speed advantages (I'm talking about 
wideangle in the m4/3 sense, so 20mm and less) there seems little 
point in using anything else.

I haven't used the 45 macro, but while the tests haven't been bad, 
the results haven't been outstanding either. The price is too high to 
get it unless it's outstanding and you don't have anything else 
that's useable. Reversing the 14-45 is the easiest and cheapest way 
to go macro, and the non-Panasonic lens that I use most on the m4/3 
format is the old manual focus 200/4 micro-Nikkor. I also use the 
400/6.8 Telyt more than I would have thought. So - other than 
Panasonic, the most used lenses in order of use are: 200/4 
micro-Nikkor, 50/1.4 ASPH, 400/6.8, and then various other lenses 
such as the 75/1.4, 50/1, 35/1.4 and a whole range of macro things 
and lenses from other makes.

The Panasonic lenses all get 'corrected' by in camera software. This 
allows lenses like the 7-14 to have virtually no distortion, no CA 
and be extremely sharp, light, small and (relatively) inexpensive. In 
camera correction allows the designers to concentrate on the aspects 
that can't be fixed in software, such as astigmatism, spherical 
aberration etc and let the distortion and CA fall where it may. 
There's no downside in use to my eyes. Like I said, I hope the 
Olympus collapsible 9-18 is as good, because that would open up 
wideangle shooting to a lot more people


At 3:14 PM -0400 4/13/10, David Rodgers wrote:
>Henning,
>
>I'm big on ergonomics. I can tell pretty quickly whether or not I like
>how something feels. The 50/1.4 on the GF-1 felt close to ideal. I envy
>you and wish I had the ASPH version :-).
>
>I haven't looked that much at the Micro Four Thirds lenses. The zooms
>you mention sound interesting. Seems to me like manufactures may be
>doing things with firmware to overcome limitations in optical design. So
>going with a WA lens designed by the manufacturer for their Four Thirds
>camera is probably the way to do. I'd wish Leica offered some lenses
>specifically for Micro Four Thirds. Don't they made a 45 for Four
>Thirds?
>
>I'm so impressed with the micro Four Thirds format that I may even buy a
>Olympus down the road. I like the idea of in-body IS. When I put the
>finder in zoom mode for critical focus it becomes apparent that my hands
>aren't as steady as they once were. I really notice it with the 50mm
>lenses.
>
>Dave R
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: lug-bounces+drodgers=casefarms.com at leica-users.org
>[mailto:lug-bounces+drodgers=casefarms.com at leica-users.org] On Behalf Of
>Henning Wulff
>Sent: Tuesday, April 13, 2010 2:41 PM
>To: Leica Users Group
>Subject: Re: [Leica] M Lenses on GF-1
>
>I've also been quite pleased with the use of M lenses on the GF-1 and
>G1. The lens I tend to use mostly is the 50/1.4 ASPH; it balances
>well and complements the 20/1.7 nicely. Occasionally I've used the
>75/1.4 and 75/2 and even the 135's, but the 135/2.8 starts to look
>stooopid on the GF-1, and since I have the 45-200 with IS, that is
>usually the better choice.
>
>What I do use quite a bit is the Leica Bellows II with various
>lenses, including the 65 and the lensheads of the 135/4 Tele-Elmar as
>well as more specialized macro lenses. These work quite well, and the
>bellows unit is fairly compact and good handling for what it is.
>
>With respect to the wider lenses, the smearing in the corners with M
>focal lengths shorter than 35mm bothers me enough that I generally
>don't use them. The CV 12, 15 and 21 all suffer from this a fair bit.
>Also, I have the truly outstanding 7-14 so the wide angle options
>aren't generally that appealing. It'll be interesting to see how the
>new 9-18 Olympus collapsible lens performs as it will be a fair bit
>less expensive than the Panasonic wide zoom and also a lot smaller
>when collapsed.
>
>
>     *            Henning J. Wulff
>    /|\      Wulff Photography & Design
>   /###\   mailto:henningw at archiphoto.com
>   |[ ]|     http://www.archiphoto.com
>
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>
>
>
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-- 

    *            Henning J. Wulff
   /|\      Wulff Photography & Design
  /###\   mailto:henningw at archiphoto.com
  |[ ]|     http://www.archiphoto.com