Lenses

[Olof Ekbergh]

Even the lenses that Panasonic sells for this camera are not zoom (parfocal) lenses they are variable focal lenses. They don't keep the same focus position for different focal lengths.

It is not an ENG cam. If you want that buy an EX1 or whatever.

There may be third party solutions in the future, but Panasonic has no plans to make zoom lenses for this camera, and I think rightly so.

[Sanjin Svajger]

Originally Posted by Olof Ekbergh

Panasonic has no plans to make zoom lenses for this camera, and I think rightly so.

Oh... I thought I've hear or read somewhere that Panasonic is going to release a zoom lens in the near future. Guess I thought wrong.

[Ron Little]

I hope so because I would like to have this camera to use for personal creative projects. However it would also have to be used for work and that is more run and gun for me. I am also considering an EX1.

[Olof Ekbergh]

I may be wrong too. But according to Jan Crittenden the Product manager for the AF100. The Pany lenses are made by the still camera consumer division, and there are no plans for them to make their own video specific ENG lenses for this camera.

She was very clear on this, she was specifically asked about this. Also the camera does not do lens specific corrections like a lot of camera lens combos these days.

So it will pay to get good lenses from this camera. The choices are huge.

I am not selling my EX1R, EX3 or 5DmkII. But I am selling my 7D.

Remember this is not an ENG cam. Nor is it a 5DmkII. It is really a huge improvement over a 7D like cam. Perfect for a lot of people, me included. But it is just one specific tool.

[John Wiley]

Originally Posted by Sanjin Svajger

Oh... I thought I've hear or read somewhere that Panasonic is going to release a zoom lens in the near future. Guess I thought wrong.

They already have a few zoom lenses available in the micro 4/3rds mount such as the 7-14mm, 14-45mm, 45-200mm, 14-140mm. And I'm sure there's more on the way in the near future.

However, just because they are zoom lenses does not mean that they are power zooms and parfocal. Because these zoom lenses are not designed primarily for video (the 14-140 is an exception here) it means they do not have electronic zooms which can be controlled by a rocker - rather they have a manual ring on the lens. And becasue they are designed to work on still cameras where you aren't going to be changing zoom in the middle of a shot (unless you're going for a zoom blur effect but thats a whole different story!) they are not parfocal, meaning that if you change the zoom on the lens, the focus will change also - so you can't do a standard focus like on a videocamera where you zoom in fully to focus then zoom back out to the disired framing, otherwise the focus will change also. Neither can zoom midway through a shot without having to adjust focus - although some of the micro 4/3rds lenses support continuous autofocus in video mode.

So while it might be true that Panasonic are releasing a new zoom lens soon, that doesn't necassarily mean you'll be getting a zoom lens that works exactly like the one in a camcorder.

[Ron Little]

What a shame. I thought this was going to be the one.

Oh well things change fast in the video world. I know the camera I want is on the way.

[Brian Drysdale]

You could use a fluid drive, as were common on 16mm film cameras. They're a very effective tool, if less common these days with powered drives being around in large numbers.

http://www.chrosziel.com/data/chrosz...omdrives_E.pdf

I came across this zoom, which may interest people. Schneider seem to be getting back into the lens again.

http://www.chrosziel.com/data/chrosz...25-95_v3.0.pdf