Sun Dec 22, 2013 10:39 pm
I just last week acquired a Lumix 7-14 MFT for use on the Pocket Cinema camera. I needed a very wide lens for my underwater work. The 7-14 works very well for a WA lens for this sized sensor, given the 2.88 sensor crop factor, and equates appx to a 20 or 21mm lens on a 35mm full framed sensor. Prior to purchasing the lens I rented and shot tests and compared the 7-14 to the Panasonic 8mm fisheye. The 7-14 is a very sharp lens, very rectilinear, and it is extremely sharp to the edges at f4.0 at the widest 7mm. I love this lens's optics. Its crisp and sharp and verly little CA on the fringes. You see very little barrels distortion due to the crop factor to. Its still there, but not too bad. I also shot tests of the 8mm Fisheye and on the 8mm I noticed much more noticeable barrel distortion with the 8mm. Much more pronounced. And, the images at the edges wide open were "softer" vs the 7-14. The 7-14 is not a cheap lens. The 7-14 has only a couple of negatives.: One, is that there is no external filter threads. You have to rig, or purchase some sort of 3rd party aftermarket trick in order to mount ND filters. Also, the 7-14 has a protruding glass element, that is very susceptible to rainfall, snow, and picking up lights and the sun and creating lens flare. I suspect that I'll be kitting up a small matte box or some other arrangement on this lens. Also, the 7-14 is only a f 4.0. I sure wish there was a faster version of this lens out there that wasn't $3000 (like the Optar Illumina t1.3 8mm)
Mike Meagher Filmmaker
Win10 64 pro I7 6core ASUS X99 64 GB RAM
M.2 system drive.
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