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!