Lenses for Lumix G7

Hello,

I did pick second hand G7 dirty cheap without lens.

I shoot video with GoPro 5 and sometimes the plans is use G7 also. Almost always with tripod and with somewhat good lights.

I also travel outdoor and my plan is to take photos from these trips. That means there is not that much light available in evening so looking for some good lens for that. Sometimes objects are pretty far away and with the Nikon D5100 i found that between 40-55mm is pretty okay for my usage.

Plan was to get:

Panasonic Lumix G Vario 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6

Panasonic Lumix G Vario 45-150mm f/4-5.6 ASPH

Or one way is to get Panasonic Lumix G 25mm f/1.7 ASPH + some lens for bigger lenght.

Any ideas?

I'd recommend faster lenses than the ones you listed. There are very nice f/2.8 zoom lenses available (panasonic as well as olympus). Panasonic has some (expensive but) excellent f/1.7 zooms. Or go for primes: if you mean 40-55 FF eq. The 20 or 25mm prime lenses might suit your needs.

Before all, G7 is still a lens IS dependent camera, so a Panny IS lens could offer you certain degree of stabilization when not on tripod/run & gun... The longer the lens you would find the stabilization could be more useful.

If purely for video, I would suggest the 14-42PZ and 45-175PZ, both are using power zoom hence could offer a more smooth and steady zoom in/out action vs mechanical zoom (zoom by hand). Power zoom is also more quiet that would not affect the audio quality. However, IMHO unless you can source them at a reasonable price, not advisable to pay big money on these relatively older design lenses (specially the 14-42PZ which had been remained lens IS only, unlike other had been updated to DUAL IS or DUAL IS 2 compatible which is useful if you would upgrade your G7 later). .

For more general shooting, would suggest to look at the 14-140 f/3.5-5.6 mk-I or mk-II (both lenses are smaller and having max aperture of f/3.5, not the older and bigger version f/4~5.8). This 10x zoom range (covering from wild angle of 28mm eq to FF ~ mid long tele of 280mm eq to FF) can cover most general shooting. Basically can be a single lens solution with minimal needs to swap lenses. It is relatively small, light weight of 265g only, well built, excellent AF speed and good accuracy, good color and contrast rendering, might get sharp enough image on wide open. On IQ, it is very close to the premium class 12-35 f/2.8 on the short end, similar to the legendary 14-45 and marginally better than the 12-32 pancake. It has more observable better IQ over the 45-150 although 45-150 is already a quite good lens itself.

I find 14-140 is always better (marginally) than 12-32 & 45-150 I am currently using. If I do not prefer 12 a lot, I would buy one for myself. It is the love of my wife gluing on her every main camera.

(FYI, mk-I is not weather sealed and mk-II is, both are DUAL IS 2 compatible on latest Panny bodies).

A few SOOC snapshots (not for contest of any kind) from 14-140 mk-I for your info:

Under good lighting:

Not fast moving bird:

Flower at a distance:

Low lighting outdoor:

Low lighting (lighting value is roughly 1ev only) portrait without flash:

M4ketech wrote:

Hello,

I did pick second hand G7 dirty cheap without lens.

I shoot video with GoPro 5 and sometimes the plans is use G7 also. Almost always with tripod and with somewhat good lights.

I also travel outdoor and my plan is to take photos from these trips. That means there is not that much light available in evening so looking for some good lens for that. Sometimes objects are pretty far away and with the Nikon D5100 i found that between 40-55mm is pretty okay for my usage.

Plan was to get:

Panasonic Lumix G Vario 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6

Avoid this, one of the weakest link of Panny's kit lens line up. Not very bad on IQ in a sense, but poorly built (too plastic), and not smooth operation (my lens). If you are looking for a shorter standard kit zoom lens, might consider:

• 14-45 f/3.5-5.6 (a legendary lens, all round player but oldest of the system),
• 12-32 f/3.5-5.6 (the pancake for the portability),
• 12-42 f/3.5-5.6 mk-II (could be the sharpest of its class of the latest generation),
• 12-60 f/3.5-5.6 (a very flexible zoom range lens, IQ not very far from its premium class brother Lecia 12-60 f/2.8-4).

Panasonic Lumix G Vario 45-150mm f/4-5.6 ASPH

I love this lens having very good cost/performance. Currently I am pairing it with either 12-32 (for portability) or 12-35 f/2.8 (for the speed). A happy owner.

Or one way is to get Panasonic Lumix G 25mm f/1.7 ASPH + some lens for bigger lenght.

This low cost lens has a lot of sample variation. I shall buy from sources having a good return/exchange policy if unlucky you might have a lemon.

The pancake 20 f/1.7 is a sharper lens (but not for AFC nor video), or the more costly Lecia 15 f/1.7 could be better options unless you need that 50mm eq of FF standard AoV.

50mm (in FF) does not work for me because of its narrow coverage (f/1.7 is mainly for low light shooting, which means would be used indoor a lot), I pick the 15 f/1.7 instead.

Any ideas?

M4ketech wrote:

Hello,

I did pick second hand G7 dirty cheap without lens.

I shoot video with GoPro 5 and sometimes the plans is use G7 also. Almost always with tripod and with somewhat good lights.

I also travel outdoor and my plan is to take photos from these trips. That means there is not that much light available in evening so looking for some good lens for that. Sometimes objects are pretty far away and with the Nikon D5100 i found that between 40-55mm is pretty okay for my usage.

the lumix 12-60mm is very cheap used, very nice walk around and video lens in good light.

Plan was to get:

Panasonic Lumix G Vario 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6

Panasonic Lumix G Vario 45-150mm f/4-5.6 ASPH

The 45-150mm is really nice, sharp, small and cheap, find one used!

Or one way is to get Panasonic Lumix G 25mm f/1.7 ASPH + some lens for bigger lenght.

yes the 25mm for night times would be a good choice for photos, but with no stabilization it would be not so good for video!

If you did use the 25mm for video at night it would need to be a still shot then it could record you sitting or talking, but not for walking with the camera.

the shortest (bright) stabilized lens I can think of is the 42.5mm 1.7, it might be a little too zoomed in to use for videos an night though!

Any ideas?

M4ketech wrote:

Thanks lot for all the info!

Seems like way to go is with these:

Panasonic Lumix G 12-42 f/3.5-5.6 mk-II (starting from 100€)

and

Panasonic Lumix G Vario 45-150mm f/4-5.6 ASPH (around 100-150€)

Note that the lens is 14-42mm (not 12-42). If you want any wide-angle, I would recommend a lens that goes at least to 12mm, because 4:3 cropped to 16:9 makes the angle quite a bit narrower.

G7 is a great lightweight camera.

I can see you're trying to find something cheap yet with potential.

Personally, I've been eyeing that 45-150, seen a used one for £110.
Would love to get the 35-100 f2.8 but not willing to spend that much though.

Jay Talbert wrote:

I can see you're trying to find something cheap yet with potential.

Personally, I've been eyeing that 45-150, seen a used one for £110.
Would love to get the 35-100 f2.8 but not willing to spend that much though.

I've just swapped for one to the other as my standard walkabout lens, both lenses imo are excellent.

I bought both used, the 35-100 f2.8 was four times the price, so value wise the 45-150 is an incredible deal, and for me it was pocketable mounted to a gx80, which only added to its value for me.

You wont be disappointed with 45-150mm it doesnt do anything exceptional, but it does do everything well.

M4ketech wrote:

Damn, now its hard to pick ones

If i pick Panasonic Lumix G Vario 45-150mm f/4-5.6 ASPH Mega O.I.S for 134€ and Panasonic Lumix G Vario 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 ASPH Mega O.I.S for 99€ total would be 233€ and that means in future i can keep my eyes open for some smaller focal lenght lens or get some other gear.

Panasonic Lumix G Vario 14-140mm f/3.5-5.6 ASPH Power O.I.S. would be 344€ used, almost did buy it, but then i watched youtube videos and some people did say it sucks in low light (evening) situtations.

for nighttime you will need a lens with an f/1.8 or better like f/1.4.

All the zooms are too dark for nighttime, they have f/4 or f/5.6.

The higher the f/ number the worse it will be in the dark.

The bright lenses are usually primes (one focal length) like the 25mm f/1.7, but most of the primes wont have stabilization, for pictures at night that will be ok, but for video they will make shaky video without stabilization.

The zoom lenses are dark like f/4-5.6, these will be great outdoors in the light, but indoors and at night not so good.

Find someone on youtube making videos/photos similar to what you want with the G7, see what lenses they use in what light, this might help.

f/1.8 and under for night, most people will agree with this.

f/2.8 and over we would usually use in the daytime.

This would be your basic rule for selecting a lens, and knowing when you can use it.

I know this can be confusing, I hope some of this helps!

Edit, now I read your original post again and you mentioned using the tripod for video thats excellent, and photos at night, get a 25mm f/1.7 theyre cheap, nice for video on a tripod and for some close range night shots, maybe the olympus 45mm f/1.8 would be another for night time shots, both those are cheap used!

M4ketech wrote:

Damn, now its hard to pick ones

If i pick Panasonic Lumix G Vario 45-150mm f/4-5.6 ASPH Mega O.I.S for 134€ and Panasonic Lumix G Vario 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 ASPH Mega O.I.S for 99€ total would be 233€ and that means in future i can keep my eyes open for some smaller focal lenght lens or get some other gear.

Panasonic Lumix G Vario 14-140mm f/3.5-5.6 ASPH Power O.I.S. would be 344€ used, almost did buy it, but then i watched youtube videos and some people did say it sucks in low light (evening) situtations.

All of the mentioned lenses suck in low light situations.

For about 100€ you could get a 25mm f/1.7 lens (de-kitted or used) for low light situations (or 20mm f/1.7 for maybe 150€ second hand).

14mm is quite nice "neutral" focal length for video.

M4ketech wrote:

This example situtation from yesterday. My friend did took the photo with phone. Usually its not this dark, but maybe you get the idea.

Its always tough comparing to phones, they have lots of tricky and power to do those tricks.

Almost all the evening shots are photos and without tripod and all the videos are done with good light conditions and with tripod.

This phone has an f/2.2 lens, thats bright(ish), but it still needed a longer shutter speed, meaning if a shot of a person was in this light, they would likely be blurry.

I also used with Panasonic Lumix G 25mm f/1.7 ASPH with Olympus OM-D E-M5 like 4 years ago, but i found it pretty tight for indoor use.

Ah, thats a shame, its about the cheapest bright lens around.

Right now Panasonic Lumix G 25mm f/1.7 ASPH is 120-140€ used. Last time i did get it from sale brand new for 99€.

yeah it goes up and sown in price with sales.

Panasonic Lumix G 14mm f/2.5 used is around 150€

I liked this lens a lot, not as bright as the 25mm, but much wider, and tiny, I'd give that a go if I were you!

Sigma 19mm f/2.8 DN ART used is aroun 100€

Not tried the sigma myself.

Sigma also have a 16mm f/1.4, very bright, wider than the 25mm, more expensive too, and big, but one to check out anyway imo.

Have you also read the many recommendations of this lens by their owners on this forum?

Not sure could the samples I posted gave you any confidence? Among them I wish you could appreciate the sharpness, the fine detail of this lens can produce and the low lighting AF ability of this lens. These samples are all straight out of camera JPG without post processing (I would never post samples having been edited, no RAW as well, because most weakness (if any) of hardware could be made up by pp leading to a unfair conclusion).

Once I also had big reservation on zoom lenses, not to mention superzoom lenses for many years. I bought this lens was originally for my wife to facilitate her migration from superzoom bridge camera to MILC and she hates to swap lenses. This lens had changed my view forever.

Not sure what source of info you had found, but in line with many proud owners of this lens, to me it is an incredible one.

Unless you are comparing to more expensive lenses, e.g. the constant f/2.8 series or the f/4 series, not sure could you get better option in the system specially it is stablized on G7 and DFD supported.

On paper prime lenses might be faster on speed, but would you like to carry a bunch of lenses and swap lenses from time to time? And have you also considered the f/3.5 vs f/1.7~1.8 is only 2 stops slower. If for shots which can use slower shutter speed, the 3~3.5 stops effective stabilization of this lens might allow you to use similar, if not slower, shutter speed than f/1.7~1.8 prime lens that is narrowing down the gap more than you expected. On IQ, the difference is much smaller than you might think.

As per my original thread, I am shooting with 12-32/12-35 f/2.8 + 45-150 myself. Please understand I am not going to sell you anything. Just wish to offer you an alternative which you might have not look at only.

Finally a choice of yours.

M4ketech wrote:

This example situtation from yesterday. My friend did took the photo with phone. Usually its not this dark, but maybe you get the idea.

Almost all the evening shots are photos and without tripod and all the videos are done with good light conditions and with tripod.

Would you happy with such IQ?

If taking the phone output alone and look at it on a whole in a scale down version or on a small monitor/screen, it showed the scene. At this point I would accept it as "ooh it was like that at that time" without further question asked (what more can I ask indeed?).

But if you would like to compare its IQ vs a proper camera, I must examine it at detail down to the original "should be" performance @1:1. The following 5 images were cropped from various sections of the above for an approximate 1:1 level to illustrate what I saw. Sorry to say I couldn't find any detail there, just an oil painting alike image.

Therefore this would be a biggest question to you: where you would draw your line of acceptance on Image Quality. If just looking for a scene recorder, smart phone can do its job. If you are looking hard on technical aspect, smart phone are still far from what a proper camera + proper skill could produce.

TBH if my camera and lens would produce those quality, I would considered it a failure shooting session.

I also used with Panasonic Lumix G 25mm f/1.7 ASPH with Olympus OM-D E-M5 like 4 years ago, but i found it pretty tight for indoor use.

Right now Panasonic Lumix G 25mm f/1.7 ASPH is 120-140€ used. Last time i did get it from sale brand new for 99€.

Panasonic Lumix G 14mm f/2.5 used is around 150€

FYI 14 f/2.5 is not a bad lens but not outstanding too. Among my home test on lenses  I owned in similar range, except for its compactness I really couldn't find other strength of it (it is not the smallest lens nowadays).

The following was a home testing to show the best of the lenses (14~15) in the testing:

Just 1 stop faster than the kit zoom lenses (@f/3.5) and not stabilized on G7 might give you not much.

I had 14 f/2.5 since 2012 (back to my non IBIS bodies day:G1, GX1) before I upgraded to GX7 in 2015. Originally I was looking for a fast speed prime lens for indoor/low lighting shooting in complementary to my 14-45 f/3.5-5.6 & 45-200 f/4-5.6 (not much choices that that time). However, in real life I found when I can shoot 14 @f/2.5 at slowest 1/30" handheld, the IS of 14-45 permitted me to shoot at ~1/6" @14 @f/3.5... Oh dear, it means that I can shoot with 14-45 handheld at darker environment than 14 f/2.5... The 14 gathered dust since then until I have IBIS camera bodies...

Sigma 19mm f/2.8 DN ART used is aroun 100€