looking into getting one of these and arent sure which one would be the better overall lens. I havent used either one and all i have right now is the 14-42.

Im leaning towards the 20mm for indoor video use but wanted opinions on the 14mm since it has a similar price and looks good also.

It depends on what you need. 14mm is a fine lens, I suppose, don't have it. If you need 14mm and don't need f/1.7 aperutre it would be the right choice.

Go to amazon and look at the reviews for both. But also keep in mind it is what you are shooting that is important.

They are like a phillips vs straight slotted screwdriver, different tools for different things.

The 14mm would be desireable for the extra width, but it is significantly slower. For outdoor or well lighted situations where you need wider it would be great.

Overall, the 20mm is much more popular, because it produces fine images in low light. I view the 14mm as a lens that would be nice to have, but I wouldn't choose it over the 20mm for my needs.

F/1.7 and F/2.5 are world's apart in low light. For outdoor portraits, closeups, I would love to have the 14mm, but it's too expensive for me to buy a lens I would use so infrequently.

Mike, Here are a couple of side-by-side comparisons that you may find useful:

Micro 4/3rds Photography: Comparison: Lumix 14mm vs Lumix 20mm pancake lenses (http://m43photo.blogspot.com/2011/01/comparison-lumix-14mm-vs-lumix-20mm.html)

and

DVSLR - 24p shooter.: Panasonic 14mm f2.5 VS. 20mm f1.7 (http://projecthree.blogspot.com/2011/01/panasonic-14mm-f25-vs-20mm-f17.html)

I'm probably going to go with the 14mm first, because of the faster & quieter autofocus -- and because the 20mm seems to be sold out everywhere. Ultimately, I'd like to buy both.

Cheers,

Bill

Yes, Bill the first review (didn't read second one) confirms my feelings about them. The extra width of the 14mm would be SO nice for to have in my kit, I could really use it. But I can't afford both lenses.

Thanks so much for the link, Bill.

I find f1.7 pretty essential for low light filming with the GH13. Maybe being able to crank the iso on the GH2 makes the 14mm more attractive, but for me I wouldn't trade the 20mm.

thanks for the replies.

yeah i cant afford both right now. Its one or the other for the time being. I also want the 7-14 for wide but will have to save up for that one.

Plan to do some moving car footage soon and the 14-42 prob wont cut it for that.

Looking at the clips, both look much better than the 14-42 I currently have so looks like cant go wrong with either. I like the sharpness and low light capabilities of both especially compared to the 14-42.

maybe I can get both if my girl lets me pawn the necklace I gave her last christmas.

I had both and sold off the 14mm within days. It is wide, but wide every which way there is. It's wide top to bottom. Its wide corner to corner, diagonal. It's wide side to side....... all at once. It's probably a nice lens if you are shooting within 10' of the subject. Further away than that, not so hot. The night I give it it's test run I was between 20 and 25' from the intended subject. I had lots of ceiling and wall space, lots of floor too. And oh yeah.....somewhere there in the middle was the reason I was aiming the camera that direction!

The 20mm right now is more expensive, but way so much more worth it, IMO. YMMV.

Having both IMO the kit 14-140mm is as good outdoors, between the the two pancakes I would take the 14mm for outdoors and the 20mm indoors.

I went with the 20mm, 14mm is nice but its slower and when you really think about it, its pretty wide (28mm equivalent).

Most 35mm lens lines include a 50/1.8 and 28/2.8 prime; these two just (kind of) fill those slots.

Personally, largely because I am somewhat cheap, I just screw an inexpensive 0.5x wide angle on my 20/1.7

Kevin, I looked into WA adapters, and got stuck with the choices. What kind of quality/light loss do you get with your adapter, and which one do you have?

I was looking at some by Raynox, but dropped the idea when I was too busy to keep researching it.

Graeme, I think the 20mm is a fine choice, and probably wide enought for most general uses.

Jeff, I have a no-name Chinese 0.5x adapter with a 52mm camera-side and 62mm filter-side thread. Handy for keeping filters identical with the 14-140. I bought it at a church yard sale last year (along with an identical non-branded 2x tele lens).

I don't notice much (if any) light loss. I've used it on the 20/1.7, Olympus 50/1.4, Oly 28/2.8, and a Leica 28/2.8 (is that even legal?). Generally, aberrations start to appear the wider-open you get. Quality stopped-down is actually pretty darned good. Wide-open, it's nifty to get 20mm-length shots with bokeh (aberrations be damned!)

Attached are some frame grabs from outdoor daylight and indoor low-light situations using the 20/1.7+WA combo

I also have a Canon 0.7x WA adapter (WD-58); vastly superior quality with true corner-to-corner sharpness, but much much heavier (I fear screwing it to the front of the 20/1.7 unsupported), less wide, and no means to affix a ND filter.

Haven't tried screwing on my HVX's 82mm 0.6x WA to the front of the 0.5x, but that might be a hoot...

(edit: just did try the 0.5x + 0.6x combo... I'll give it its own thread, though)

Pretty cool, Kevin, thanks for the pics, I will look further into this. Great examples, thanks again. Yes, the canon is nice, but is way heavy. I used to have one but sold it before I got these cams!

To further muck up your planning, the M4/3 Leica Summilux 25/1.4 is now supposed to be available in August

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/06/leica-25mm-%C6%921-4-lens-for-micro-four-thirds/

Thanks Kevin, for the link.

I am huge fan of fast lenses, but at $1100, there is no way. 20mm is a better width, so to speak, at least for me, at a cost of $600 to go from 1.7 to F/1.4? I couldn't do it. I admit, if I weren't cash poor it would be tempting!

The 25mm f1.4 is priced at $599 .... not $1100:

HX025 Panasonic 25mm f/1.4 Leica DG Summilux Aspherical Lens for Micro 4/3 System (http://www.adorama.com/IPC2514M.html?utm_source=rflaid64498&utm_medium=Affiliate&utm_campaign=Other&utm_term=Other)

Which is one hell of a great price.

John, that is one heck of a price, and an amazing deal. Worth every penney. Wow is all I can say. By the time I have funds for it, no doubt it will be oversold, or at the least sold out.

This lens is phenomenal news, thanks for the link, and thanks again to Kevin for bringing it up.

I'm hoping it will at least help drive the price of the 20mm back down and put it back in stock.


This topic had very interesting timing because I have also been debating which lens to get.

Reasons I am leaning towards the 14mm.

1. Faster focus - better for run and gun shooting
2. Deep depth of field - better for run and gun shooting
3. Actually in stock
4. on-camera light. on camera lights work better the closer you get to what you are shooting. It doesn't pay to use a light and stand 10 feet away from what you are shooting and zoom in. The 14mm forces you to get close which in effect will make an on camera light more effective resulting in richer looking footage.
5. My philosophy is if f2.5 is too dark then f1.8 is only going to help a little anyway and it is time to use a light. I would love to have 14mm at f1.8 but f2.5 is still a darn good lens.
6. Awesome for work with some sort of steadycam where you will be moving in and out of crowds of people. The extra wide range will help a lot for this type of shooting. 20mm is fine but can be a bit tight when you are dodging bodies such as people dancing in a nightclub.
7. Overall a better quality piece of glass from what I understand.

See for me my main purpose of the lens would be to use it to shoot crowds of people where I move around a lot through the crowd. It would also be used to shoot extreme closeup B roll footage. In both cases the 14mm helps a lot. Having very fast auto focus and deep depth of field helps a lot as well as it starts to behave more like a wide video camera for these types of shoots. For these types of shots I would use a light anyway so the f2.5 is not as much of an issue.

Just a few of my thoughts on the subject.

I like both lenses equally well I think. Im actually getting the 20mm first but when I have the money I plan to also get the 14.

Cant go wrong with either one and both seem much better than the 14-42 kit lens.

If you do not need 14mm, as has been said, the 20mm is much more flexible, and can be stopped down if necessary. F/1.7 is light years better than 2.5 for my work, but if you're shooting outdoors in brightly lit conditions, it is not as critical. I have a Canon F/2.5, and the difference in low light from the F/1.7 is significant.

I'm going to order a WA adapter for my 20mm, thanks to Kevin M, and I think that will be the best solution for me. Two lenses for the price of 1.25! That way I'll have the advantage of width, and low light. You can always stop down, but you cannot add stops!

yeah I think the 20mm can easily become my main lens for a variety of situations.

wish I had it in my hands right now.

That adapter will be sweet im sure. The only holding me back with the gh2 is lack of practice and also lack of money.

Despite my debating in this thread of getting the 14mm instead of the 20mm I bit the bullet and just received my 20mm today. What a great lens! Although testing it out by setting it to f2.5 I didn't notice a huge difference compared to f1.7 so I think the 14mm would have been a nice lens as well. The better auto focus could have been nice. I'm very happy with my last minute decision however and will enjoy this new lens a lot. Combined with my LED light this camera can now shoot to kill.

The better auto focus could have been nice.

Agreed! I just had my first shoot with the 20mm, and was fighting with the autofocus the entire evening. It's a beautiful lens otherwise.

Plus, I was getting some strange glares with the lens -- reflections and stuff. I was ready to really go off about the lens in this regard, but realized that the previous owner (I bought the lens used) had put a crappy UV filter on, and I was getting light reflections off of it. Of course, I didn't realize this until after the shoot.

The auto focus works fine, IMO. You use the AE/AF lock to stop it from hunting as needed, as has been reommended in the past in this forum, forget by whom. It works like a charm.

The auto focus is extremely fast, and why someone would need a millisecond faster would be a mystery to me.

Regarding f/stop: If you are shooting paid gigs, such as wedding receptions in dark venues, you will indeed notice a significant difference between 2.5 and 1.7. There are professional shooters who will not even use above 2.0 in a reception environment. I'm not one of them, but there you are.

Chris, (Martyn) your post just showed up, glad to see you're back! I agree with your idea, the 14-140mm is a very flexible and sharp lens for the money, great for outdoors, as the 24mm would be. It would be nice to have them all!

Revisiting this conversation now that the price dropped hugely on the 14mm. Might be a good lens to add to quiver. There's so few good fast/fast-ish auto lenses that Lumix makes that this could be a steal at less than $175. I've got the 20mm, and it's so useful. The kit 14-140 for me is almost useless, but in some situations (fantastic good lighting) it still works.

I'm guessing the price dropped because of the rad 12-35mm Lumix lens, but that's $1100. For the price of 2 or 3 one week rentals at borrow lens of the 12-35, you can just buy the 14mm.

The 25mm f1.4 is priced at $599 .... not $1100:

HX025 Panasonic 25mm f/1.4 Leica DG Summilux Aspherical Lens for Micro 4/3 System (http://www.adorama.com/IPC2514M.html?utm_source=rflaid64498&utm_medium=Affiliate&utm_campaign=Other&utm_term=Other)

Which is one hell of a great price.I see it now as $529 also sold by/at Amazon :-)