Panasonic GH1 - Lens Help!

[Mealworm]

Hi all,

I own a Panasonic GH1 (Which is Micro 4/3rds), and in the past week have been going mad about lenses. I currently have on it, the Panasonic 14-140mm Lens which came with, but recently have been doing alot of wildlife photography, and frustrated that i cannot have that reach! 140mm is Just not enough!

I've been looking into many lenses, and found a great deal on amazon! Sigma 135mm - 400mm (Which would be double due to the crop factor!) for only 300 Quid, which seems like a bargin. But it has it's downside..

1. Buying a Canon EF adaptor.. which is not too much of a problem! Ebay has the answer

2. AF Feature is not used, Only Manual Focus can be used, which is a xexexexexexe especially when taking photo's of birds in flight!

3. because of the AF feature being disabled with another brand of lens, i then somehow have to zoom and focus and take the photo at the same time, which is a pain!

4. Quality - Important, and i am worried that it will loose a great amount of quality, because it's not a fixed focal lens, and also because of the crop factor!

The lens i am looking at to buy is a Sigma - Telephoto zoom lens - 135 mm - 400 mm - f/4.5-5.6 DG APO Aspherical - Canon EF

Can anyone help/ give advice.

I Have a very low budget , since i am only a student and it's my parents money!

Cheers
Alex

[eenymac]

I know that on the Panasonic lens development roadmap there is a 100-300mm zoom. Not seen any details yet of a likely release date, but a bit of googling may get you some more info.
I seem to remember that pre-production models have been seen already at a couple of large trade events, so the finished product may not be too far off.
Being a dedicated Panasonic lens, it would provide in-lens stabilisation too I believe, as well as full autofocus.

[paulthomas]

If your going to use a non-4/3rds lens then what you really need a very old lens which not only has manual focus but also has a ring for manually setting the aperture. That way you can set the aperture one the camera body and the lens to the same value (with the camera in aperture priority metering mode) and the camera's auto exposure will be able to set the correct shutter speed. You can't do that with the 135-400. I wouldn't place too much faith on Panasonic's roadmap either. They had one for regular 4/3rds but only ever produced a hand full of lenses from their list and most of them were inferior to and more expensive than the Olympus equivalent.

[Gill Catton]

I have a panasonic G1 and I have a Panasonic 45-200mm lens which is pretty good.

I too would love something with greater reach but I think I'm going to wait for a micro-four thirds one (which surely will come along sooner or later!) as I don't want to be messing around with adpators and things especially if I am likely to be wanting to change lenses while out and about.

[oldwolf]

Hi Alex,
I have a Panasonic G1 but due to the extortionate price of new lenses I take 99% of my photo's using Yashica lenses.
I have probably only used the kit lens twice in the last 6 months.

A Yashica to micro four thirds adapter can be purchased at a reasonable price from Ebay.
Yashica lenses can also be purchased at a reasonable price.
My most expensive lenses were my 55mm macro at £100.00 and my 800mm telephoto lens at £155.00.
But I have also purchased lenses for as little as £15.00.
In the last year or so I have put together a decent collection of lenses for less than the cost of one genuine Panasonic lens.

The Yashica's do give a good quality sharp image but I cannot say how they compare to other manufacturers lenses as I have not tried any.

You have to decide on your lens priorities though.
If you like to use all the auto functions of your camera then legacy lenses are probably not for you.

All focusing is done manually with the Yashica lenses.
Aperture and shutter priority settings work fine though.
The only other item I would not be without is my flash since I take a lot of macro shots and found that in natural daylight without the flash the shutter speeds can be a bit slow so I was losing a lot of shots due to camera shake or the insect moving.

If you click on the link(or copy and paste) in my signature you will be able to see what can be achieved with the Yashica lenses.

I hope my ramblings may be of some use to you.
After re-reading your post I realise that you are looking for something with auto focus but I have written this now so here it is.

Regards
Dave