Best Lens for Panasonic G85 Video

JakeJY wrote:

You mean Lumix 12-60mm f/3.5-5.6 right? The Leica 12-60mm f/2.8-4 is a lot more expensive (950 AUD) and way out of your budget. Make sure you don't mix up the lenses. The Lumix 12-60mm does not have a IS switch, while the Leica one does.

Given your update, you don't need a manual focus clutch (which neither lens has anyways). If you want camcorder-like zooming, the 12-50mm will be the one given it has power zoom.

The 12-60mm f/3.5-5.6 advantages will be Dual IS2 stabilization, will support Panasonic's DFD AF, has a bit more reach, and is about 1/2 in inch shorter in length. However, your zooming will be purely by hand and probably won't look good if you are recording at same time.

Hi, yes i did mean Lumix 12-60 actually, and ironically i only found out after i made that post that there was a Leica 12-60 F2.8 and nearly fell over at the price, around $1000au or more.

I am so used to having the zoom button on the body with my camcorders so i only need to press it with my finger, having to operate a button or ring on a lens seems more difficult, an i currently have a Sony NEX-5N camera with a 16-50 (3.5-5.6) that has power zoom, plus an 18-55 (3.5-5.6) with a manual zoom and i can only use those while shooting an static mode on my tripod or monopod.

how close would those 16-50 and 18-55 lenses be to the Lumix 12-60 kit lens ?

I think i prefer the Lumix 12-60 because i want a lens that supports the G85/G9 Dual IS2 stabilization system, regardless what zoom it has, but that would be the lens i use when shooting on a tripod or monopod, so manual zoom will be ok.

If i buy that G85 kit that i linked to in my previous post, it has the Lumix 25mm f1.7 which has no Image Stabilization so i don't really know why i would want to keep it, as i also want to get more into photography as well, and would definitely want zoom for that, but IS on the lens is not required as the G85 has it on board anyway.

Looks to me like the 12-60 kit lens may be the way to go for now, and upgrade to something better once i have started using the camera and finding out what my real needs are.

Finally, someone told me that the video quality of the G85 is somewhere near the GH4, and that got me worried because my son had a GH4 prior to buying his GH5 and i thought the 4k video on that camera was horrible, others have told me the same thing about the image quality on the GH4 as well.

I am still bothered by the 4k/30p mode as well, i saw some sample video last night shot in 4k/30p and it showed mild vertical jerkiness even in the very slow panning scenes, and when cars drive past a static camera on a tripod, and it kills my eyes, yet it doesn't happen in the 1080/60p samples, because of the double frame rate, and this is why i always shot my videos in 1080/50p with my previous camcorders.

The camera i was going to get was the Sony RX10 iv bridge camera as i used the first release of that camera, and it was amazing, the XAVC-S 4k video was insane compared to the 4k mp4 video that i saw from the Panasonic FZ1000 (both rivals) but back then the RX10 was $600 dearer than the FZ1000, now the RX10 iv is around au$2200, the same price as the G9 body.