Lenses

[PannySVHS]

Lovely writeup, video and edit. @kye Lenscap lens, now that's an idea I like for the GM5. But I was going to sell it or was I?:) I still got an old Oly Epl1  with that super lowres and dim screen. Now that would be a great prospect for the lenscap. It's built like a tank and AF is the worst of any mft camera.:)

[kye]

7 hours ago, PannySVHS said:

Lovely writeup, video and edit. @kye Lenscap lens, now that's an idea I like for the GM5. But I was going to sell it or was I?:) I still got an old Oly Epl1  with that super lowres and dim screen. Now that would be a great prospect for the lenscap. It's built like a tank and AF is the worst of any mft camera.:)

Yes, it's the AF that makes me think of manual lenses on the GF3.  For stills it's a fully featured camera, but for video it's auto-everything* and so having an AF lens on it is a pain because the CDAF will hunt occasionally.
(* actually I recorded some clips with it last night and discovered it keeps the current WB setting - how odd that's the only thing it will let you lock down!)

If you don't already own the Olympus body cap lens then perhaps the "7Artisans 18mm f/6.3 Mark II" might be a better choice as it's cheaper and faster than the Olympus. 

[eatstoomuchjam]

Today I stepped out to poke around a local park to look for a spot for the feature I'll be shooting soon.  I took the chance to finally take out the Canon 35/1.4 and the Fujinon 500/5.6 to test them on the GFX, the latter especially because I'll be going to Namibia in a few months and will want/need something for wildlife in the distance, especially when driving around Etosha.

The 35/1.4 on the GFX is totally fine, no complaints.  The 500/5.6 is... astounding.  I would usually say that sharpness isn't the most important thing for a lens, but with this sort of telephoto, I guess it kind of is - I'm going to care less about lens character when trying to photograph a giraffe in the distance eating the leaves from the top of a tree (I really hope I get to see a giraffe!!!) and I'm probably going to care a lot more about being able to crop in and discern the giraffe.

I have a number of other fairly competent telephotos, but this one is just on another level.

Here is a still photo of another park across the river with the 35/1.4.  I saw a person by the storm drain and thought maybe I'd caught an urban explorer in the act...

However, with the 500/5.6, I realized I couldn't have been more wrong.  GF in 8k mode here and on a 4k scope timeline since that's what my scratch project is set to...

 

And at 4x zoom in Resolve (for 1:1 from 8K):

And his friend nearby, 8k and 1:1 punch in from 8K...

The still photos had even a little more detail still - even though the light is imperfect, I can make out individual hairs of the hairs of the beard of the guy fishing by the drain.  I also need to do a couple of tests with the Fuji 1.4x TC to push the lens out to around 700mm - it's a great TC and I barely notice any loss of detail with the 250/4 so I'm assuming that'll be true with the 500/5.6 as well.  If so, I'll have some confidence that I can do alright with the wildlife of Etosha!

[kye]

7 hours ago, eatstoomuchjam said:

Today I stepped out to poke around a local park to look for a spot for the feature I'll be shooting soon.  I took the chance to finally take out the Canon 35/1.4 and the Fujinon 500/5.6 to test them on the GFX, the latter especially because I'll be going to Namibia in a few months and will want/need something for wildlife in the distance, especially when driving around Etosha.

The 35/1.4 on the GFX is totally fine, no complaints.  The 500/5.6 is... astounding.  I would usually say that sharpness isn't the most important thing for a lens, but with this sort of telephoto, I guess it kind of is - I'm going to care less about lens character when trying to photograph a giraffe in the distance eating the leaves from the top of a tree (I really hope I get to see a giraffe!!!) and I'm probably going to care a lot more about being able to crop in and discern the giraffe.

I have a number of other fairly competent telephotos, but this one is just on another level.

Here is a still photo of another park across the river with the 35/1.4.  I saw a person by the storm drain and thought maybe I'd caught an urban explorer in the act...

However, with the 500/5.6, I realized I couldn't have been more wrong.  GF in 8k mode here and on a 4k scope timeline since that's what my scratch project is set to...

 

And at 4x zoom in Resolve (for 1:1 from 8K):

And his friend nearby, 8k and 1:1 punch in from 8K...

The still photos had even a little more detail still - even though the light is imperfect, I can make out individual hairs of the hairs of the beard of the guy fishing by the drain.  I also need to do a couple of tests with the Fuji 1.4x TC to push the lens out to around 700mm - it's a great TC and I barely notice any loss of detail with the 250/4 so I'm assuming that'll be true with the 500/5.6 as well.  If so, I'll have some confidence that I can do alright with the wildlife of Etosha!

That's a hell of a lens!

I have a Tokina 400mm F5.6 permanently on my GH5 now to act as a telescope because I looked into buying one and it was cheaper and more fun to buy a super-telephoto lens!  It's not super-sharp wide open but in daylight you can just stop down, plus anything that is quite far away suffers from heat haze anyway, so the sharpness of the air is the limiting factor.

I've thought about going on safari for years but have never actually gone.  My thinking eventually lead me to the idea of having two bodies, one with a very long lens on it, and the other one with a very shot zoom on it so you can get shots of when the monkeys start stealing food out of your van, or the elephants ram you.  My impression from social media is that these things are practically guaranteed to happen.

I have the PanaLeica 100-400mm on my "when I'm a millionaire" list as it seems it would be perfect for things like a safari where you never know how far away the subjects are going to be.

[eatstoomuchjam]

38 minutes ago, kye said:

I've thought about going on safari for years but have never actually gone.  My thinking eventually lead me to the idea of having two bodies, one with a very long lens on it, and the other one with a very shot zoom on it so you can get shots of when the monkeys start stealing food out of your van, or the elephants ram you.  My impression from social media is that these things are practically guaranteed to happen.

 

A second camera with a wider angle lens (or zoom) isn't a bad idea.  I'm afraid a second GF body is probably not going to be in the budget for me, but a second small camera or film camera isn't out of the question!  I'll hope that the elephant doesn't ram us too much, though - we're likely to rent a truck with a rooftop tent or some other form of camper or van.  It would stink to have our home get crushed.

I may also bring my older Canon EF 100-400 - but carry-on space is limited!

50 minutes ago, kye said:

anything that is quite far away suffers from heat haze anyway, so the sharpness of the air is the limiting factor.

Definitely true about heat waves getting to be a problem eventually - and while they weren't a big deal here yesterday near sundown at about 24C, they're likely to be more of a thing in Namibia in September at 34C.

52 minutes ago, kye said:

I have a Tokina 400mm F5.6 permanently on my GH5 now to act as a telescope because I looked into buying one and it was cheaper and more fun to buy a super-telephoto lens!  It's not super-sharp wide open but in daylight you can just stop down

That is definitely true.  I have an old Telyt-R 560mm ... maybe an f/5.6(?) around here somewhere (got it at a garage sale, of all things).  The biggest problem that I have with it, and by extension other vintage extreme telephotos, is that aside from the lens IS, things seem to have loosened up a bit and every time there's a slight breeze or I even look at it, it vibrates for about 20 seconds.  Might be better on the GH5?