DPReview.com is closing April 10th - Find out more

Wide or/and tele converter on kit lens Lumix 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 ii ?

Started Sep 29, 2016 | Discussions thread
PC UK Regular Member • Posts: 125
Re: Wide or/and tele converter on kit lens Lumix 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 ii ?

Teleconverters?

++++

The cheap options to improve on your kit lens in micro 4/3 (while you save up for the excellent Lumix 45-150mm) are

  1. get a legacy 50mm lens from the film era (eBay or ask an elderly friend or relative) and a converter. Pretty much any 50mm will do - but the big brand lens makers such as Pentax, Nikon and Canon attract more competition for the adapters. This creates a fast 100mm lens with great bokeh for portraits.
  2. get a new m4/3 mount Chinese lens - 7 Artisans, Meike, Pergear, Rise etc are brands to start with
  3. get the Fujian 50mm f1.4 c-mount CCTV lens and a c-mount to M4/3 converter
  4. Try a teleconverter lens

Some background:

  • most tele-conversion lenses were made for low resolution video cameras - they simply won't give a worthwhile image resolution
  • There are a few made to go with digital bridge cameras with small 1/2.3" sensors, such as the Lumix FZ series - these are not so good.
  • instead look for conversion lenses made for 35mm cameras - the best were made by Olympus to go with their 35mm "bridge cameras".
  • They have a code TCON. They are often on sale on eBay. They have 3-5 internal lens elements so are optically very different. They also have much larger front filter diameters than rear ones.
  • There are modern Chinese "no-name" brand tele-conversion lenses available from online stores - I have yet to see a good review of any of them

Something for nothing? No - only in fairy-tales; so the 2x power lenses have more distortion - especially in chromatic aberration than the lower power 1.3x to 1.5x ones. All - the bigger conversion lenses can get very heavy (if they are the good 4-5 element ones) and this can strain your kit lens.

So, with a 1.3 to 1.5x conversion lens your 14-42mm Lumix kit lens becomes the equivalent of a full-frame 110mm to 126mm lens - at the same F5.6 aperture. These are good to isolate elements in a landscape or to get better bokeh for a portrait.

Added to a prime 42.5mm F1.7 M4/3 Lumix, or the Olympus equivalent, you get a great fast 110 to 126mm F1.7 lens.....very good for portraits!

I have a 2 M4/3 telephoto zooms, the 42.5 prime and a range of legacy long lenses to use - but I did try out conversion lenses just for fun, and within those limits - the result was OK for laptop viewing or 7x5 prints. I did this with an Olympus 1.3x 52mm thread conversion lens for the IS-5000 film camera for GBP £4.00 in 2020. Don't pay too much - there seem to be plenty out there on eBay!

Keyboard shortcuts:
FForum PPrevious NNext WNext unread UUpvote SSubscribe RReply QQuote BBookmark MMy threads
Color scheme? Blue / Yellow