Nikon lenses on the GH1

[Josh Hayes]

Anybody on here shooting with Nikon lenses on the GH1? Any drawbacks?

Also for the Micro 4/3 to F Series adapter mount I notice a wild price fluctuation depending on brand but can't discern the difference when researching. Anyone know why the
Voigtlander is $180 while the Adorama Nikon adapter is $57? Quality difference?

[Tom Hardwick]

The drawbacks will be the loss of OIS and auto focus (spot or constant). The good thing will be that you can choose to use lenses with a decent turn of speed. My time with the GH-1 brought it home to me that although the camera has a huge chip (alongside my Z1), the 10x supplied zoom is so slow that I found I was struggling to get limited dof - and surely this is the whole point in shooting movies on this thing.

At the equivalent tele focal lengths the GH1 is f/5.8 while my Z1 is f/2. That's a lot of stops.

tom.

[Josh Hayes]

Hi Tom. Yeah when I purchased the GH1 I did so with the handicaps in mind, but for what I need it for, it's perfect: Sit down documentary interviews, learning photography, etc...

To clarify, you did use Nikon lenses on it, and you were able to change the aperture on the lens though?

Also, which mount did you have? I'm still trying to figure out why the steep price difference between the adapters (basically $80 and $180) and if there is a significant difference or not in the quality or something.

[Jay Bratcher]

I have the Fotodiox lens converter - it works pretty well - it fits snug on the camera, but there is a slight bit of rotational play in the lens while mounted. I don't think it is enough to really matter though. Had I seen the Adorama adapter, I probably would have gone with it.

As Tom stated, you lose auto focus and any stabilization. This may or may not matter to you though. I always turn off autofocus while shooting video anyway - I can't stand for the lens to start hunting for focus during a critical shot, and my subject is rarely where the camera wants to focus anyway. I haven't played with face recognition enough to decide if it would make autofocus worthwhlie, but my guess is not.

Nikon G lenses will not have aperture control, although a company called Novoflex makes an adapter with an aperture ring, specifically for G lenses. It costs $250, but there are other "creative" solutions for these lenses, if you must use them...

That being said, I have shot a couple of short clips using a 7mm Vivitar fisheye, and the 70-300 G, with the aperture forced open with a small piece of gaff tape (stop laughing). The fisheye is great - because of the small sensor size of the GH1, it's not as distored as on my Nikon, and would be an awesome choice for say, skateboarding shots. The 70 - 300 G is ok - in 20 MPH winds, it shakes around too much, even on a tripod. However, I was able to follow an airplane with this lens, and while it was nothing worth keeping, it certainly showed promise.

I am still looking for a good deal on a 50mm and 28mm lens. That was the main reason for buying the adapter, after all...

[Tom Hardwick]

Hi Josh,

I was simply given the GH1 and its slow 10x zoom for a couple of days so I could do a write-up on it for a video mag. I felt it did a very creditable job of movies and stills, and the intelligent auto I found interesting, where the camera would choose it's subject and place little rectangles over it such that even with quite strong back lighting the subject remained well exposed.

Ergonomically it's not a patch on a proper video camera, but I felt it was designed tom do movies and stills from the ground up, rather than being a Canon camera that had been adapted as a facelift.

tom.

[Josh Hayes]

Hi Tom. Gotcha. I agree with you. When I film I pull my audio, wideshots, and pushs or pulls off my Sony V1U, and use CUs, cutins, and beauty shots with the GH1.

Have to ask a possibly silly question here because I'm a little confused. I didn't understand the 10X zoom you mentioned in your first post so I looked it up in the manual. I assume you're talking about the "Extended Optical Zoom" then, and not some other option I also didn't know about that allows pushing or pulling towards or away from an object (much like a rocker switch on our Z1 and V1's)?

Also did you write an article for that magazine? I'd love to read it so I can learn more about EOZ since the manual doesn't have much.

[Josh Hayes]

Hi Jay. Good to know. I'll probably go ahead and purchase the Adoroma adapter then and see how it handles. I'll let you know. I understand the loss of autofocus, but luckily like you, for what I'll be filming mostly, I'll have autofocus off. And it'll be on a tripod.

Not laughing at your jerry rigged G lens. Anything that does the job dude! I'm going to start renting the F series Nikon lenses once every few weeks to get a feel for them, and to learn more of the basics about photography. Much like you're plane idea, I've got a friend who surfs Mavericks (infamous surf beach in Northern California) and I'm dying to test out a good Nikon telephoto lens to film him while he rides.

How does shutter speed work with these other lenses? Can I still manipulate it through the camera?

[Jay Bratcher]

Originally Posted by Josh Hayes

How does shutter speed work with these other lenses? Can I still manipulate it through the camera?

Yep - the GH1 will even meter in aperture priority mode, but that's probably not what you want. It's nice for stills though. If you go full manual, you can still set shutter speed with the dial. In my opinion, it's actually more convenient than the kit lens, since aperture is removed from the dial, and the dial ends up being dedicated to shutter speed while shooting. You do lose the focus assist magnification, since the camera cannot tell when you are turning the focus ring, but I find I can preset focus pretty well with the LCD.

As Perrone Ford has stated in another thread, the Nikon F mount has been around for over 50 years - that equates to a BUNCH of manual focus lenses at your disposal, many of which are very high quality, and can be had for a song if bought used. Ken Rockwell has done a pretty good job of cataloging quite a few of these lenses on his website, and gives somewhat biased, yet mostly fair, opinions about many of them (he won't test third party lenses, for example). If you are new to Nikon lenses, I do recommend checking out his site - Nikon Nikkor Lenses - you will find it useful...

[Peter Gjevre]

Josh

There are now Nikon G adapters available as well.

I am currently using one with a tokina 11-16 mm Nikon Dx lens plus the LA7200 anamorphic adapter on my GH1. The G adapter I purchased works pretty well, and can be found on ebay for around 40 USD.

If you're only using AI-S lenses, the Nikon F mount adapters will work fine, of course.

[Josh Hayes]

Thanks for passing that website on Jay. I'm finding it helpful indeed.

Peter: Good to hear there's an affordable adapter for the G series now as well.

[David J. Payne]

Could someone clarify whether you lose autofocus for video AND photo?

[Kin Lau]

You will not get AF on any adapter other than the 4/3->m4/3 adapter, and then it's only for certain 4/3 lenses.

[David J. Payne]

Ok assuming you mean in both photo and video mode thats great. I assume its a hardware restriction so wouldnt matter whether you have it in photo or video mode.

Thanks that answers my question