despite having owned two gh2 bodies for a while, i have had only one mft lens until last night – the 14-140mm hd kit lens. for previous works that had required two cameras, i mounted one of my sony alpha lenses on either one of them (usually the carl zeiss 24-70mm) with the other using the 14-140mm. i had been reluctant to invest in mft lenses because i use the gh2 almost exclusively for video works. until panasonic’s recent release of new firmware for 7 of its existing lenses to make them more video friendly (they might be quieter now but i doubt they are any more faster than they had been shipped out of factory), the 14-140mm was the only auto-focus lens optimized for video (by panasonic). but still, none of them has powered zoom (something nice to have especially when shooting handheld).

below is the test video i took with the 45-175mm mounted on my gh2 with official firmware and the 14-140mm mounted on my other gh2 with hacked firmware:

while shooting video the first time with the 45-175mm, i thought i could probably make use of a faster zoom. the zoom felt really slow. when viewing the footage on the computer afterwards, the zooming looked much “faster” and “natural” than i had felt at the time of shooting.

to test the effectiveness of the new power o.i.s. for photos, i took the following two photos using the widest end of the zoom (i.e. 90mm 35mm-equivalent) and the longest end (i.e. 350mm) respectively from the same spot without any support:

shutter speed used for the zoomed photo was 1/13s – that’s like 4 stops below the safe shutter speed of 1/320s. not bad for indoor available light condition.

from what i’ve tried out last night, the new power o.i.s. is much more effective than the “old” mega o.i.s. in stabilizing both stills and videos. i think panny is going to update the 14-140mm very soon with at least power o.i.s.

besides the improved performance, i really like the size of the new lens. it’s overall length doesn’t change during the whole zoom range (like the canon 100-400L i used to have). i know 3.8 times is not a lot in zoom range. but still it got a 35mm equivalent of 90mm to 350mm. when attached to the gh2, the overall length of the body plus the lens is about the height of my sony alpha 70-300mm lens when it is at its shortest.

all in all, the 45-175mm lumix g x is not just tiny but delivers improved performance over the 14-140mm lens. it makes a very discrete long-reaching lens – perfect for street photography. i think i will be using it a lot more for photos than i used to with the 14-140mm. for photos that doesn’t need long reach, i will continue to use my sony nex-5n and the 18-55mm kit lens. meantime, i am waiting for the arrival of the 14-42mm lumix g x lens.

I have built up my “collection” of lens to 3 (EF-S17-85mm + EF 70-300mm DO + EF-S 60mm macro) up to three weeks ago – this newly acquired hobby is pretty expensive. The release of the 5D was very tempting. But, after trying it out in real, I was a little bit disappointed. In all fairness I only played it around at a shop for 3 minutes, so I didn’t get to take any real pictures with it. I am sure it takes excellent pictures (and can make full use of all the lenses that are meant to be for 35mm-film based camera bodies), but so do a lot of people using DSLRs that are a generation or two behind my 20D. As a newly-converted hobbyist with DSLR, i.e. not a professional making money out of it, I actually consider it a sin to give up on a well-performing body and lenses (the 5D won’t accept any of my EF-S lenses) that are only about 9 months old. This is especially the case after holding the 5D in real. In my opinion, it is basically a slighly larger 20D body equipped with a full frame CMOS senor and a quieter shutter, but slower in performance. Since I am not a professional photographer, I wouldn’t be keeping two bodies if I were to get the 5D. So I ended up getting the EF-S 10-22mm the night before my vacation to Japan three weeks ago. Am I happy with the decision?

I think my pictures on Toji Temple speak for themselves.They are only one subject of about a dozen that I had shot for my 5-day trip. But those were all shot with the EF-S 10-22mm. I brought with me all the 4 lenses for the trip. With the exception of the macro lens, I found myself interchanging the other 3 quite often. So, I am even more happier now, after the trip, that I didn’t get the 5D. Because I think I do need a second body, and it is definitely the replacement of 20D, which I believe will be released at a price that is going to be at most equal to what I had paid for my 20D, i.e. about one third of the going price of 5D now. I am sure the price of 5D won’t drop more than 10% by the time the replacement of 20D is released, which is estimated to be within 6 months from now. In fact, it may be a lot sooner than what people had expected since Nikon is going to release its D200 before year end.

On the other hand, I think if one has fully explored the potential of one’s existing gear, it is worthwhile to move up to the next level.

This is going to be real short because I have a flight to catch to Osaka in exactly 9 hours. I am still packing. After reading so many positive reviews on this ultra-wide angle EF-S lens, I have finally bought it tonight.

Now I get 10mm to 300mm covered by my EFS 10-22, EFS 60, EFS 17-84 and EF 70-300 DO on my 20D. I didn’t really have time to play with it. Herewith four shots that I have shot in RAW at 10mm:

I did nothing except converting them from RAW to JPEG via Photoshop CS2 using auto while balance and downsizing to 1.6mp. Considering that there were all shot in low light conditions, I have very high expectation on it for my trip to Osaka and Kyoto. Although I am bringing all the four lenses with me, I have a feeling that I will be having it on most of the time.