Panasonic GF1 Lens Mega-Review.

I just received this video from one of our readers. He made an amazing job by testing some very interesting lens! He also wrote me following text:
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“Here is a video review of “most” of the lenses I currently own with the Panasonic DMC-GF1. I included all of the lenses that are reasonable to shoot with inside of a house. It has stills and videos of each lens and with each lens.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7q9nP0fKB4

I also included MJPEG and AVCHD-lite samples and some samples using a video light on the GF1’s hot shoe.

Here is a synopsis of the review.

1. The legacy MF lenses are awesome for capturing low light videos. However, they are all very soft at full wide open aperture with the exception of the Nikon 50mm pancake. They tend to sharpen up between F2.0 and F2.8.

2. The m4/3s 14-45mm and 20mm produce very sharp pictures and videos. However, the 14-45mm videos get very dark at anything but F3.5. Therefore, it is only barely usable for video at full telephoto 14mm and wide open.

3. The video light really helps all of the lenses in low light. However, you can not use it to video a subject that can see. It will blind the subject even on the low setting.

4. The 50mm Nikon Pancake is by far and away the best bang for your buck. At $21 for the lens and less than $40 for the adapter it is an amazing deal. The 20mm + 50mm pancakes my an awesome combination.

5. AVC-HD lite is excellent for well lit scenes. However, the quality of the AVC-HD lite videos decreases drastically as ISO is increased. It struggles with compressing the noise because the noisy pixels are constantly changing. In these situations MJPEG might be a better choice if you are willing to tolerate a little more visible noise.

6. The S3-IS(Last Clip) produced surprisingly sharp video results considering it was only SD video. However, it had a tremendous amount of noise that detracts from the video quality greatly. It still was an excellent video camera when you consider how old it is.”

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Thanks!

MicroFourThirds adapter at cameraquest

Cameraquest is a US Voigtländer reseller. They made a nice site about the Voigtlander MICRO 4/3 System Adapter. You can find many pictures and precious informations. Well done camerquest!

And if you want to know more about the german Novoflex Adapters check their homepage.
Novoflex has a long list of adapters:mft_novoflexBild 12

Links to shops with MicroFourThirds adapters:
Amazon US / Adorama / BHphoto / Amazon DE

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Thanks Fabio for sending the links!

Olympus Digital Zuiko 35mm f/3.5 macro review at photozone!

Photozone tested the 35mm f/3.5 macro lens! Very good performance for such a cheap lens ($183.95 only at amazon).

And click here to get the full Photozone FourThirds reviewed lens list: http://www.photozone.de/Reviews/olympus–four-thirds-lens-tests

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Today deals:
First deal: The Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 Lens is back in Stock with the normal human price! $399 Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Second deal: Olympus E-P1 Camera with 14-42mm Lens (Silver Body/Black Lens) for $707.61.
Third deal: Panasonic GH1 for $1,418.98 (Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.)
And finally we have some news on the GF1+20mm combo: Panasonic GF1 Camera with 20mm f/1.7 Lens will be back in stock on December 13, 2009. I recommend you to preorder now the camera.
Fourth deal: Olympus E520 Camera with 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 and 40-150mm f/4.0-5.6 ED Zuiko Lenses for $505.
Fifth deal: Olympus E520 Camera with 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 and 40-150mm f/4.0-5.6 ED Zuiko Lenses for $681.

UPDATED with image samples -> New Gizmon Fisheye lens tested on the E-P1

gizmon_e-p1

Interesting, the japanese blog plusd.itmedia.co.jp tested the new GIZMON Fisheye on the E-P1. Read the google english translation. The Lens itself is priced at ¥ 18,000 ($206 or 140 EUR) and sales begins on December 15.

UPDATE:
Checke the Gizmon website for more news (Read the japanese text or google english translation).

sample1
sample2
sample3
sample4

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Uh, and important, the Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 Lens is back in Stock at amazon US (sold by amazon for $399).

Panasonic 45mm lens in Stock at Amazon DE, amazon UK, amazon FR and PIXMANIA.

The lens is now in Stock at Amazon UK, amazon DEand amazon FR.
The same lens is still not in stock at amazon US! :(

UPDATE: The lens is also available in some european pixmania shops. Click here: to check it for yourself.

Read the user review written inside this dpreview forum post.
Two professional reviews has been written by quesabesde (click here for the google english translation) and dpreview.

(FT4) UPDATED -> The future MicroFourThirds lens list! Is Olympus going to produce a new 20mm f/1.7 lens?

Olympus_mft_lenses
Forum Olympus France just compiled a nice MicroFourThirds lens list and they also have a list of future (and some unexpected) lenses! The adminstrator of the forum says he received the future lens list from Olympus!

The important news is
1) The 9-18mm lens will be in Stock by april 2010
2) The 14-150mm lens in Stock may-june 2010
3) And that’s not a joke…Olympus Forum France adminstrator says that Olympus plans the release of the new 20mm f/1.7 lens by end 2010 early 2011! Can’t believe Olympus will copy the lens!

UPDATE:
The very friendly administrator of the Olympus France Forum contacted me and told me “The roadmap stated on the forum-olympus-france is the roadmap announced with the E-P2 by Olympus France. There is no information on the forum-olympus-france whether or not this Micro Zuiko Digital 20/1.7 is the same as the Panasonic : such information is not available yet.”

Here the complete list!

At the moment we have 5 zooms:
– 7-14/4.0 Poids 300gr ; pas de filtre.
– 14-42/3.5-5.6 Poids 150gr; Filtre 40.5mm.
– 14-45/3.5-5.6 OIS Poids 195gr; Filtre 52mm
– 14-140/4.0-5.8 OIS HD Poids 460gr; Filtre 62mm
– 45-200/4.0-5.6 OIS Poids 380gr; Filtre 52mm

and 3 primes:
– 17/2.8 Poids 71gr; Filtre 37mm
– 20/1.7 Poids 100 gr; Filtre 46mm
– 45/2.8 OIS Macro Poids 225gr; Filtre 46mm

Panasonic will release following three lenses during 2010 (and 43rumors knows already that Panasonic is going to unveil more lenses!):
– 100-300/4.0-5.6 OIS
– Fisheye 8/3.5
– 14/2.8 pancake, filtre 46mm

and here comes the future Olympus lenses list:
– 9-18/4.0-5.6 (april 2010)
– 14-150/4.0-5.6 (may-june 2010)
– 40-150
– 70-300
– 12/2.8
– 20/1.7
– 8mm
– 50mm

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Today deals:
– Olympus E-3 (Body-Only) for $1050 at amazon.com
– The Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 is in Stock at amazon for $399,95 Ships from and sold by Amazon.com for $399,95
– black Panasonic LX3 for $448 at amazon.com
– The E-P2 is available for preorder at Amazon UK / Amazon US / Adorama / BHphoto / Amazon DE
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Amazon US / BHphoto / Adorama / J&R / Calumet Photographic for digital cameras /
Amazon JapanAmazon Deutschland / Amazon France / Amazon United Kingdom / PIXmania Austria / Pixmania Deutschland / Pixmania Belgium / Pixmania Holland / Pixmania Italia / Redcoon Deutschland / Redcoon Spain / Redcoon Italia / Redcoon Poland

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