The ZD 50-200 operates in manual focus only on the Lumix G cameras. It is silent, although I suspect you'd hear a small amount of noise if you work the zoom while capturing video. Maybe a tiny amount of noise from the focusing servo when you turn the manual focus ring.
Personally, I find it faster to focus a telephoto lens manually than deal with autofocus systems, but whatever floats your boat. I've not missed any 'fleeting moments' lately.
I'd never hang a large and heavy lens like that on the camera body's tripod mounting screw. It is unbalanced and would stress the body's tripod and lens mountings too much.
Yes, but there was a discussion about auto focus, and some readers may not realise that the limitation is only with the G1/GH1/GF1.
Do you know the rating of the lens / tripod mounts? I seem to remember 1Kg being mentioned, but I haven't checked the manual.
Nah. A short 18-180 is what would make me add an E-P1 to my 20x SP-570UZ.
Actually, it does morph into something else when put on a 35mm body. It's pretty amazing that way.
You hear alot of people talk about "equivalence" on these forums, and that's because the same lens spec will give you different results on different bodies. For those who pay attention to both crop factor and DoF, LXellent had it right. a 55mm f/1.4 on a m4/3 body would act like a 110mm f/2.8 on a 35mm full-frame body.
And portrait requirements accentuate the need for subject isolation more than any other type of shooting, hence LXellent's interest in a very wide-open max aperture.
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'I have no responsibilities here whatsoever'
It weighs 8 ounces ! And takes 46mm filters. Granted, it's bigger around than that, but this isn't a big lens. (And would be smaller if it weren't a macro lens).
Can't put my finger on exactly where I read it, but somewhere in the Olympus/Panasonic literature they say the lens mount is recommended to support up to a 1kg lens. I don't recall a specific statement about the tripod mount, but I wouldn't go past that for safety.
I have an adapter and I´m using my old fd lens (50mm 1.8/ 35-70 2.5/ 35-135mm and a Vivitar S1 28-90 (this one is huge!)
-- Very interesting concept. Sounds very much like the rumored Leica/Pany zoom lens of 16-50mm/f2.5-4.9 might be quite feasible and very compact for m4/3 systems. Maybe would retract into body in a one lens m4/3 system but give greater versatility than single focal length camera in m4/3 format. By my estimates this lens element diameters would be only x1.6 greater diameter than those in the S90?
Depends on whether the mount is big enough to allow it to collapse - with an MF ring and zoom ring too. Which seems very hard, at least if it's to collapse as much as the S90.
16/6 = 2.67x so all lens element dimensions and gaps between elements and between lens and sensor would have to be scaled 2.67 times.
