Personal View site logo
Make sure to join PV on Telegram or Facebook! Perfect to keep up with community on your smartphone.
Please, support PV!
It allows to keep PV going, with more focus towards AI, but keeping be one of the few truly independent places.
Panasonic Conversion Lenses
  • 97 Replies sorted by
  • @Rambo , is it metal or plastic ?

  • @Rambo Forgive my ignorance, but I'm having trouble imagining how you put the filter in the wide converter. Do you take the glass out of the Marumi filter and just jam it in there? Or do you just jam the whole filter in there?

    Anyways, they're selling them in Korea for $154 and I'm gonna get one. I'm considering just screwing on a 46mm filter before putting on the converter at the risk of slightly messing up the image. I'm guessing the shot will look slightly wider with a little blurrier corners.

  • Please don't judge sharpness from this these stills, they're only to show FOV difference. Next post will be a 24p video that will show how sharp the 14mm and converter is.

    14mm pancake with and without converter. Same camera settings, same tripod shot, in camera jpeg @1920 x1080. Camera exposure didn't change when swapping converter, both f2.5, 1/160, ISO160

    P1000047.JPG
    1920 x 1080 - 852K
    P1000048.JPG
    1920 x 1080 - 978K
  • My solution to attach a filter (and there are others), is to remove the glass from an old 55mm filter and insert the filter ring only into the inside of the wide adapter, it's a push in fit, but can be glued if you wish. You then can attach whatever you want, 55mm filter, step-up adapter or a hood. Works perfect.

    @feha >The Converter is hard plastic based similar to the other kit lenses.

    Download Original 24p MTS file of 14mm pancake with adapter. Aperture wide open F2.5 showing sharpness. http://www.mediafire.com/?vzvesyi1orh8j4r

  • @Rambo Thanks for the MTS. Could you shoot some stills with the adpater on the 20mm lens, being careful that the edges of the frame are in focus.

  • Ralph_B, this is probably what you were expecting. The 20mm pancake with wide adapter is blurred center and edges at f1.7, it's not until f4.0 that the full frame becomes sharper edge to edge.

    Conclusion, Panny designed this for only the 2 lenses stated and only at 14mm >H-PS14042 and H-H014

    Below are the results with converter attached

    First pic 14mm at f2.5 ......................... Second 20mm at f1.7 ........................... Third 20mm at f8.0 ...............................

    14mm at 2.5.JPG
    2816 x 1584 - 3M
    20mm at f1.7.JPG
    2816 x 1584 - 3M
    20mm at f8.0.JPG
    2816 x 1584 - 3M
  • @Rambo That sounds similar to how anamorphic lens usually requires at least f/4.0 on m43 lenses. Thanks for the review.

  • I've added the converter too on the 14mm and its awesome imo, total matched pair. Couple of images @dpreview below link both with the combination. The top four, 2x fruit and 2 landscape before are all with the combo. I didnt seem to get good results with the 20mm, ghosting and softening but didnt stop down. Also havent checked on the PL macro 2.8 yet. Note, really this a 20mm actual fov on GH2, the 11mm refer's to the 4:3 ratio fov, in 16:9 you are wider definately the fastest equivalent 20mm out there and sharp as a razor even at f2.5. The cap for the converter is a snug fit on the outside. I am going to hollow it out and add a ring onto it to take filters/nd.(fader). Btw, if you shoot raw in stills with certain raw converters the image is wider still due to ignoring correction, you will see it in the 2 fruit shots below link, ie stills with converter achieves <18mm fov @f2.5, both images I am less than 6inches from the fruit, also a benefit of this lens, very close focus. May add the pancake zoom now, for a cheap 10-30 option with OIS, be cheaper than this new 12-35 and wider!, but slower. http://www.dpreview.com/galleries/9640001356/photos

  • No too good with the 25mm wide open. Very dreamy with lots of falloff.

    http://matsubayashi.zenfolio.com/p53696027/h2ee8ed39#h2ee8ed39

  • @adventsam, yeah agree on the close focus, 2" (50mm) from subject. Panny only recommend running the converter at 14mm end of the pancake zoom, so may experience the same softning and distortion as the 20mm pancake if you zoom in.

  • @rambo, ahh I see. But it does say its guaranteed doesnt say it wont work, but probably it will ghost or be soft, shame, a cheap 11-33 would be nice? with OIS and macro focus.

  • I received the wide adapter yesterday, and I just whipped up a quick test to compare barrel distortion and sharpness.

    I've attached three jpeg files straight out of the GH2, so the file sizes are pretty big.

    Wide A.jpg - Olympus Zuiko 9-18mm at f/4 with the Panasonic m4/3 to 4/3 adapter.

    Wide B.jpg - Panasonic 14mm at f/4 with the GWC1 adapter.

    Wide C.jpg - $40 no name wide converter on the Panasonic 14mm at f/4.

    Please excuse the can of compressed air moving on Wide C.jpg. I had to use it to clean some of the dust that was on that converter and forgot that it was a part of the shot. You can still use the Panasonic box for corner sharpness reference though.

    The results were just as I expected. The Olympus had the least distortion with the best corner sharpness, the Panny with GWC1 was next best on both respects, and the Panny with no name converter was the worst. The center sharpness doesn't seem to differ too much. I also have pictures with the Panasonic lenses at f/2.5, but they just had more vignetting and less corner sharpness.

    I was hoping that this would give me a reason to sell off the Olympus, but now I'm actually not sure. If you look at Wide B.jpg without seeing Wide A.jpg first, it doesn't seem unacceptable. Once you see how good Wide A.jpg is, you don't want to go back to the other two. Anyways, I hope some of you found this useful.

    Wide B.JPG
    4608 x 3456 - 6M
    Wide C.JPG
    4608 x 3456 - 6M
    Wide A.JPG
    4608 x 3456 - 7M
  • It is sad that Sony converter was not part of comparison.

  • @mintcheerios, in the bottom left I agree Oly seems sharper but on the right probably the Pana and converter? I think your angle of focus is different? all in all for video am sure the Pana is the Oly equal with converter, but the Oly is more flexible as its a zoom. I think they look equal overall? the cheap converter is a bit wanting though.

  • @Vitaliy_kiselev, don't know if this is the right place to put this, feel free to delete if it's not. But I saw it on vimeo. Kinda gives you an idea how the Sony converter looks on the GH2, but you're right, it be nice if side-by-side comparison is available.

  • I went shooting with this lens today with the Lumix 14mm, and I'm pretty satisfied with it. The distortion isn't a problem unless you are shooting brick walls, and in the worst case, I can always correct it in Photoshop. With how cheap you can get the 14mm, this seems like a good way (maybe only way) to get 11mm wideness, speed, autofocus, compactness, and sharpness for m4/3.

    neoliberalism.jpg
    1024 x 768 - 430K
    thingie.jpg
    1024 x 768 - 318K
    underpass.jpg
    1024 x 768 - 448K
  • Remember, if you shoot 16:9 its wider still! (10mm horizontal fov) and the device is also matched for the pancake zoom 14-42.

  • @mintcheerios

    Thanks for the test. I really like the look from 14mm 2.5 + dmw-gwc1. It's neither too perfect nor too imperfect. A bit of blurriness and a bit of distortion... I like :)

    If I need sharper corner, I'd use x14-42mm + dmw-gwc1. The X-lens has better t-value than 14mm 2.5 by 1/3 stop, and its image color is closer to Nokton 25mm 0.95. But 14mm 2.5 gives just slightly wider FOV.

    The bottom line.... Get all three pancakes... plus DMW-GWC1 hehe

  • Nope only on order at JR, is listed out of stock.

    It does say estimated arrival 15/6, but would be best to call see if that is accurate. Good price.

    I'm doing some more shots with this adapter right now on the 14mm

  • I got an email notification from them. It seems like a safe bet. No one else is selling it anyway ;)

  • Grab it, bargain. I'm having a lot of fun with this adapter and the 14mm pancake on the GF2, the combination is so lightweight and the FOV is perfect for stable handheld video and the panning (up/down/sideways) has that ""rolling"" type perspective you see on wide angle ENG camera footage. I'm shooting 720p 30fps 1/60 and the motion is perfect, no strobing even on fast pans, nice blurring, really makes the GF2 shine. Even the rendered 720p 30 (dropping the double frame is smooth).

    All up it's great combination. I want to try it extensively on the GH2 next and see if the extra resolution causes any issues.

  • In Stock. Ship Today :)

  • Got it today. Love it.

    Definitely the adapter makes the lens less perfect. Slight distortion toward edges. Little bit more CA. Slightly less sharp. I call them "characters". I like since the new characters give more vintage look.

    Compared to HyperPrime 12mm, it's sharper, less distortion, less CA, and better flares.

    No filter thread is a bummer, but this is primarily for indoor where space is limited.

  • I still don't understand the rationale why they took the LA7200 anamorphic adapter off the market just when they were getting popular and needed again. In it's stead they didn't put any improved version of LA7200. So is this new GWC1 adapter going to be the replacement for LA7200? Or are they planning some kind of new anamorphic adapter too?