Prime Lens or Standard for Panasonic GF2

A

anthrex

[H]ard|Gawd
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Jul 7, 2004
Messages
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I'm new to photography and I think that GF2 would be a good way to dip my toe into the water. So right now I'm trying to decide between which lens to get bundled with the GF2 the 14mm pancake lens or the 14-42mm standard lens. I'm purchasing it for a trip out to Europe for the winter.
So I'll be using it for landscape, cityscape and closer up people watching. Right now I have the 14-42mm and am giving the 14-42mm a test run but since I can't find a pancake lens I would like to get thoughts on what its like not being able to zoom and whether that would actually be such a big deal. Also, if there is any way to give me a simulation with the 14-42mm by setting the focal length to something similar to what the pancake would give me. Not sure exactly what that would be comparable to.

Thanks for the help!
 
Lately I have been shooting my Fuji X100 with the 35mm fixed lens, which I believe is similar to the pancake.. I do not find this being to limited. What is the aperture of the two lens... I would go with the faster of the two...
 
The GF2 is a 2x crop sensor camera. The 14-42mm lens has a field of view of a 28-84mm lens on the 35mm format. This lens is a very very similar field of view to the 18-55mm lens (1.5x crop so 27mm-83mm field of view 35mm equiv.) that Nikon and Canon bundle with there entry level DSLR.

On this lens simulator from Nikon, click FX Format and click FX Body. Then you can use the slider and see how the field of view changes from 28-84mm. Lens Simulator
 
Thanks so much for that link! From what I am reading the 14mm pancake is faster and quieter. I'm leaning towards the 14mm right now because of the size and also price differential of the lenses by themselves. Right now I see the 14-42mm for $180 at Amazon (I'm guessing I'd be able to knock off a few dollars if I went used) and the 14mm is going for around $300. What do you all think about me going with 14mm for now and possibly (obviously after using the 14mm for a bit) getting the 14-42mm for my trip and then selling that for a lens that can zoom more.

I also have been looking at this blog m43photo.blogspot.com as it seems to compare what I'm looking at and what I might possibly want later.

What do you guys think? People seem to be definitely pushing the pancake lens and I figure that this might be a good time to follow peer pressure!

Thanks for any advice!!
 
I would be more comfortable with the zoom lens. The 14mm is a wide angle lens, so if you want people to fill up the frame you will need to get very close to them, and that will result in unflattering shots due to the distortion of the WA.

With the 14mm prime you get 1 stop better light gathering ability, which isn't a super amount better than the kit. You can just bump the ISO up one stop. Now the 20mm 1.7 gets more interesting because it is 2 stops better which then is a noticeable amount.

The field of view section in this article is spot on http://m43photo.blogspot.com/2011/01/comparison-lumix-14mm-vs-lumix-20mm.html
 
Thanks for the input! I still decided to pull the trigger on the 14mm. His conclusion at the end is most appealing to me. Also when reading the evaluation of the 45-200mm I think that that would be a better step up in terms of quality and zooming capability. Running around with the 14-42mm at 14mm without zooming didn't seem to be too much of a handicap. I still got nice shots. I just decided to give in and get the 14mm and it just got shipped out. I'll let you know if I made the right decision (for me) or not! :D
 
Somewhat too late, but by far the best pancake on the m43 format is the 20mm from Panasonic.
 
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