Tuesday, October 05, 2010

New Panasonic pancake

One of my mostest favorite lenses ever is the ultra-compact and yet fast and very sharp Panasonic 20mm F:1.7 lens for the Micro Four Thirds system. This is an equivalent of a 40mm normal lens. And now they are coming out with a 28mm-equivalent lens, a 14mm F:2.5 pancake lens (because it's so flat). If this one is even close to the quality of the 20mm one, I shall definitely have it. The Panasonic GF1 with a pancake lens fits in a jeans pocket, and yet is a fast and full quality camera in most respects. (The one limitation being that if light gets really low, you'll need a camera with a bigger sensor.)

It's harder to make good wideangle lenses, but this is a rather slower lens (one stop slower), so I think there's hope it can be about as good as the 20mm.

For sure the size is amazing: even smaller than the 20mm, and only 55 grams! That's ridiculous.

I think a good walk-around gear would be a Pentax K-x or K-r with the outstanding and very compact 70mm F:2.4, and the Panasonic GF1 with the 14mm lens, in a pocket. The Pentax won't fit in a pocket, but you can sling it onto your back when using the wide-angle camera.

Why not use a zoom? Hard to say. There's a bit of snobbery to it, perhaps, but you do get extra zing to the pictures with a good prime lens, and they are much more compact. And there's a peculiar pleasure in composing to a fixed focal length, even as there's also much convenience in the instant composing with a zoom.

(I can't believe they haven't updated the GF1 yet. I hope they'll do something great with it, unlike with the G2, which was a pretty trivial update.)

8 comments:

TC [Girl] said...

Wow! Pretty nice and compact, alright! I wasn't having much luck w/finding out the diff. between the K-x and the K-r. Do you have either...and/or a preference?

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

I've wrotten about that here and here.

TC [Girl] said...

Sorry! Forgot to do a search! :-/ Thanks! ("wrotten," huh?! Was that intentional or a typo? :-)

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Just wrotten typing.

Nah, I thought it's funny.

TC [Girl] said...

Eolake said...
"...I thought it's funny."

It is! I'm laughing! Thought you might have been "hamming around." :-D

Miserere said...

but this is a rather slower lens (one stop slower)

This is the Math Police, Mr Stobblehouse; we regret to inform you that there is a 1 1/3 stop difference between f/1.7 and f/2.5. I'm afraid you're going to have to step out and come with us to spend the night at the Math Constabulary. We can't let you blog in this state, Sir.

Miserere said...

:-p

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Curses, foiled again!!