Recommend a lens for a GX7 for indoor photos of parrots

thinkinginimages wrote:

avianb wrote:

Looking for a lens for my GX7 that works well in low light and with which I can get close to my birds in order to take photos. I have been considering the Lumix 20/1.7 but am concerned about what I have read regarding the slow auto focus in some situations such as low light and low contrast. My birds can move quickly and I don't want AF to be an issue. I've also looked at the 25/1.7 and Olympus 25/1.8. I have a limited budget and don't want to spend more than @$300-400. The 25/1.7 is inexpensive but I think there are probably better choices. I need to consider the minimum distance because many times I am only about 6-8" away from the birds and sometimes even less.

Thanks in advance

You have a lot of variables that are making me think "wait a sec".

Flash or ambient light? If ambient what are the light levels (take a meter reading)?

6-8 inches to something with a sharp pointy beak?

Depth of field/focus?

AE/AF Lock?

I wanted to get that out of the way so I have some structure to my thinking this early in the morning.

You may have more ambient light than you think, so that may be an important aspect if you're choosing ambient light. Bounce flash may be the answer.

A fast lens seems like a logical choice but shooting wide open is going to limit your depth of field/focus to inches. Check out a depth of field calculator to see if that's within your needs.

6-8 inches puts you at the near side of macro, This may be more short telephoto to get a little more distance. You might need a closeup lens to get a little closer.

Let me circle back around to AE/AF lock. It's a genius feature because you can cut down the lag time by prefocusing. The DOF calc comes in handy here.

It's always a risk with the beaks but they are generally good although several of them like the camera and will go right up to the lens. I've only had one of them grab the zoom lens once. I revised the distance to about 6" - 12", give or take. I took several photos of them today with the 14-42 zoom and the focal lengths ranged from about 14 to 35 for the most part. I'm going to experiment more with a few of my other lenses to get a better idea of the best focal length and look at DOF and aperture more.

I agree with you regarding DOF. If a bird is in his/her cage when I take a photo I either open the cage door or get close to the bars to try to blur them. I don't have a depth of field calculator but I am going to download an app.

I think the 20/1.7 is a good choice for street photography which is something I like to do so would like to get a lens for that in addition to taking photos of the birds. I also added the Sigma 30/1.4 to my list. Just don't know. Would have more lens choices if I had more $$$$ to spend.

I rarely use the AF lock so that's a very good suggestion.