MF on Photo Lenses. Expectation Vs Reality

[Davide DB]

It's been a while since I had to film on land, and I'm using many lenses that I had almost forgotten about. For my rare terrestrial shooting, I always used old Yashica ML lenses in manual mode, and then I got an opportunity where an entire Panasonic kit came almost for free.

- Panasonic Leica DG Macro 45mm f/2.8

- Panasonic Leica DG 12-35mm f/2.8

- Panasonic Leica 35-100mm f/2.8

- Panasonic Lumix G 100-300mm f/4-5.6

But I only used the 45mm macro a lot, which is superb underwater.
After two days of shooting (I have a GH5 and a GH5MII, and my buddy has a GH5S), I wanted to throw them all down the toilet. Actually, the image quality of the Panaleica lenses is stellar for my taste (maybe even too clinic), but what really gets on my nerves is the impossibility of using manual focus creatively. They all have focus-by-wire, which means it is not linear, and the focus changes with the speed you turn the ring. I know, I'm stating the obvious. But let me vent, and then I'll get to the point.

I rummaged through the GH5MII menus and discovered that since it has a similar firmware to the GH6 and GH7, in theory, it would be possible to choose whether to have linear focus and also set the focus throw. But—and here's the fun part—only on some types of Panasonic lenses. Finding the list is like looking for a unicorn, and when you finally get it, you discover that few of the listed lenses (which would almost be a basic kit) have this capability. It's crazy.

Basically, it doesn't matter how many new camera bodies Panasonic makes (personally, I think the GH7 is the last of its kind) if you then have crappy lenses that haven't been updated for 15 years.

Playing with continuous AF, I discovered that the 45mm Panaleica macro can't even keep the focus in AFC in basic scenarios. And it should be the king of macro in the M43 line and it doesn't support linear focus.

In the end, I had to do some relaxing therapy by mounting the Yashica ML 50mm f1.4 and enjoying turning the manual focus ring.

Out of curiosity, what is the situation with Panasonic FF lenses? Is it the same situation there too?

[kye]

15 hours ago, Davide DB said:

It's been a while since I had to film on land, and I'm using many lenses that I had almost forgotten about. For my rare terrestrial shooting, I always used old Yashica ML lenses in manual mode, and then I got an opportunity where an entire Panasonic kit came almost for free.

- Panasonic Leica DG Macro 45mm f/2.8

- Panasonic Leica DG 12-35mm f/2.8

- Panasonic Leica 35-100mm f/2.8

- Panasonic Lumix G 100-300mm f/4-5.6

But I only used the 45mm macro a lot, which is superb underwater.
After two days of shooting (I have a GH5 and a GH5MII, and my buddy has a GH5S), I wanted to throw them all down the toilet. Actually, the image quality of the Panaleica lenses is stellar for my taste (maybe even too clinic), but what really gets on my nerves is the impossibility of using manual focus creatively. They all have focus-by-wire, which means it is not linear, and the focus changes with the speed you turn the ring. I know, I'm stating the obvious. But let me vent, and then I'll get to the point.

I rummaged through the GH5MII menus and discovered that since it has a similar firmware to the GH6 and GH7, in theory, it would be possible to choose whether to have linear focus and also set the focus throw. But—and here's the fun part—only on some types of Panasonic lenses. Finding the list is like looking for a unicorn, and when you finally get it, you discover that few of the listed lenses (which would almost be a basic kit) have this capability. It's crazy.

Basically, it doesn't matter how many new camera bodies Panasonic makes (personally, I think the GH7 is the last of its kind) if you then have crappy lenses that haven't been updated for 15 years.

Playing with continuous AF, I discovered that the 45mm Panaleica macro can't even keep the focus in AFC in basic scenarios. And it should be the king of macro in the M43 line and it doesn't support linear focus.

In the end, I had to do some relaxing therapy by mounting the Yashica ML 50mm f1.4 and enjoying turning the manual focus ring.

Out of curiosity, what is the situation with Panasonic FF lenses? Is it the same situation there too?

Seems like another hidden cost of the internets obsession with AF.  The more everyone screamed about it from the rooftops the less that manufacturers cared about anything else.

The worst thing about the camera industry is the BS that the online communities prattle on about.

Now we have clinical lenses and megadollar-megapixel cameras that fill up your card in 10s flat with 8K 60p RAW and require all kinds of Film Emulation in post to get rid of the sensation that digital scalpels are being hurled into your eyeballs when you look at the footage.  No wonder vintage lenses have never been more in-demand.

...or vintage point-and-shoot cameras or digicams for that matter.

[zlfan]

at certain point, the lens industry is more for other things than the iq. canon l lenses are a good example, dust free, build quality (fine for me on this), af, optical is (fine for me in certain situations). they are working horses, but not creative tools. 

use another example, vintage voigtlander heliar lenses are so good for portrait. not sharp, but good enough, great oof, just right on the spot for human faces, even better in bw. even 50 years ago, they did it right. 

[Ilkka Nissila]

I could never understand the "accelerated" manual focusing, it makes things just more difficult and unpredictable. Nikon fortunately have firmware updates to most of the S-line lenses (exception: 14-24/2.8) that feature what people call linear manual focusing (I'm not really sure what is linear in it, what it does is make focus ring position and focus distance correspond to each other in a bijective relationship at least within the power cycle of the camera). What's even nicer is that you can choose how much you have to turn to achieve a given focus change, so it is adoptable for different users and needs. I think the focus by wire should never have been accelerated by default in any lens. 

 

As for the priority on autofocus, mirrorless so-called hybrid cameras and their lenses are a bit more (still) photography-oriented than video, and so the needs of the stills shooters come first in most models. Autofocus is very useful when you want consistent focus on the eye, for example, or when shooting action subjects (again, stills). For some things (such as when multiple subjects at different distances have to be sharp in the frame, and the best way to achieve this is to focus in between them) manual focus is better but manufacturers chose to prioritize ease of use than the needs of skilled users. Lenses with mechanical manual focus are of course available, natively and via adapters, for those who prioritise MF. 

[Davide DB]

Look, I was on a beach with rough seas and I wanted to do a very simple thing: a focus transition between the sand in the foreground and the breaking waves, all at F2.0 with the ND filter. At that moment, I had the old Lumix 20mm F1.7 mounted, which I really like for its rendering and colors. But it was simply impossible, partly because the focus ring (like many Lumix M43 lenses) is not smooth and absolutely not pleasant, and also because it's impossible to "feel on your wrist" the two focus points and move between them. Damn it, it's not rocket science. It's a trivial thing that anyone can do after five minutes of practice. In the end, swearing, I remounted the vintage Yashica 28mm and voila!

I truly don't understand who the hell even had the thought that a "non-proportional" focus (that's the correct term IMHO) could be useful for anything.

So, the old 20mm F1.7 pancake is absolutely useless: the firmware doesn't support proportional focus, the motors are of a very old design, and apparently, it's not brilliant for video even with the GH7.

Panasonic thinks that everyone who shoots video with the GH7 is willing to spend 3600 Euros for the 10-25mm and the 25-50mm lenses. They are crazy.

It seems to be a blanket that is too short. All the technological effort has been concentrated toward continuous AF with A.I. algorithms and specialized sensors, and now that we have almost succeeded, we are no longer able to do what we have done for a century: manual focus. Unbelievable.

[eatstoomuchjam]

Some of these criticisms are primarily valid for older/shittier focus-by-wire systems, though.  The Canon EF 85/1.2L has a famously terrible focus-by-wire system that made almost nobody ever want to use it - not only is it non-linear, but it's also a little bit laggy.  Of course, its focus motor is also slow and a bit loud.  I still use mine sometimes, though, for photo shoots - the image is really nice and models who are staying more-or-less still are a decent use case for a slow AF motor.

Anyway, the Panasonic 20/1.7 pancake is in a similar situation.  It's old, relatively noisy, and slow, with no ability to be switched to linear response.  It's fucking awful to use in manual focus mode for that reason - and yeah, AF mode also aint' great.

On the other hand, I think most or all of the first-party lenses for Fuji GF are focus by wire.  They're either linear or switchable to it (and I set the option in the camera and immediately forgot since there's no way I'd switch it back).  When manually focusing, the damping is nice and the lens is responsive and accurate.  It really feels like focusing a proper lens.  Though many of those lenses also fall into your category of spending a lot of money.

I think that all of the PanaLeica lenses are either linear or close enough to it that it felt linear to me.  Some of the older ones are pretty affordable now - like the Summilux 25/1.4 asph goes for about $300 used.  Worth confirming that they all have linear response, though - I only had a few when I shot M43 and that was a long time ago so I could be misremembering.  Otherwise, I feel like the Olympus lenses with a focus clutch also were linear-ish, but maybe I'm crazy there too.

As to the thinking behind a "non-proportional" focus was, I think, that for photos, you could get rough focus quickly by turning the dial fast and then get a really precise critical focus by turning slowly.  At least that's what they said.  I think the bigger thinking behind it was "we can make this lens for less money as well as simplifying the design by removing the coupling between focus ring and lens elements"