Which lens

[kayicolyn]

Hi,
I am new to photography and need some help with choosing lenses.
I have a Panasonic DMC-G3 that came with the 14-42 lens, I have posted in here asking about lens types and adapters and after the great advice I recived I have decided to purchase the panasonic micro 4 thirds lenses.
The dilema I have is this.........
i know the panasonic 45-200 is my best option for telephoto, but do I need a pancake lens and if so what for? and is there any other lenses you would suggest and what does each lens do.
Please forgive me if these questions sound stupid but I am new to this and dont want to spend obscene amounts of money if I realy dont need to.

[inkista]

I will hopefully be receiving my Panasonic DMC-G3 w/14-42 kit lens sometime today. I've already ordered the Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 pancake lens, BUT. I have five years' experience now with dSLR shooting (20+ years with a single lens and film SLR), and own about a dozen lenses. So I know what I like and want and need and how much I'm willing to spend.

You're probably in a very different boat.

My suggestion is this. Don't buy any lenses for a month. Just a month. Get used to your G3, your 14-42, and see what they can do for you, and what the 14-42 can't. Learn your camera. Get comfortable with it. Find out if this kind of systems is for you. It's not for everyone, and there are reasons that all-in-one compact digital cameras are so popular. At the end of that month, all your frustrations with the 14-42 will let you know what you want in your next lens.

Not wanting to spend obscene amounts of money is kind of antithetical to jumping into any interchangeable lens camera system. You'll typically end up spending two to three times what you did on the camera body on lenses, a bag, tripod, flash, etc. etc. This can get pretty expensive, so you want to be sure this is what you want.

A pancake lens is simply a lens that's smaller/flatter than a usual lens. It typically has some slight image quality compromises to achieve that smaller size. In the case of the Panasonic 20mm f/1.7, the compromise is in the quality of the bokeh it produces. The Panasonic 25mm f/1.4 is much better in this regard, but costs more than twice as much and is larger. So the trade off is speed/bokeh smoothness vs. size and price.

Whether you need one or not is up to you and what/how you shoot. If you want to slip the lens into a pocket, a pancake is obviously going to be nicer. If you want to be less conspicuous, like when street shooting, it'll be nicer. But if you wanted to take formal studio portraits, then the 25mm Summilux (Leica names their lenses by the maximum aperture. F/1.4 lenses are all called "Summilux" in Leica terminology) is likely to be the nicer lens.

I would recommend that you take a cruise through this guide about basic lens features. The focal lengths are going to be a little off, because of the micro four-thirds 2x crop factor, so just mentally adjust to smaller numbers (i.e., ultrawide: 7-14, normal 14-42, telephoto starts at around 50mm and goes up). But you need to know what the numbers mean, and how that can affect what the lens can be used for.

Secondly, I would recommend not asking gear-specific questions on this board. We're a nice friendly bunch, but most of our experience is with Canon and Nikon dSLRs and it's unlikely many people are going to be familiar with the choices in front of you. I'd highly recommend hitting a micro four-thirds specific board, like mu-43.com, instead, where the expertise and experience is with micro four-thirds gear.

[kayicolyn]

Thanks for the advice. The reason I have taken up photography is for wildlife and the zoom on the 14-42 lens just isnt long enough, so im running trhe risk of scaring teh animals away by getting closer. I will do as you say and keep the lens I have for a month and get used to my camera and then see where I go from there. I will check out the links you have given me now.
Thanks again and hope uyou enjoy your DMC-G3.

[inkista]

Ah. If you know you want to shoot wildlife, then, yeah, a telephoto zoom is definitely next on the list. My only recommendation there would be to prioritize Panasonic lenses with stabilization (OIS). Olympus does sensor stabilization, so none of their lenses are stabilized. Panasonic does stabilization in the lens.

With longer lenses, stabilization becomes more important, because the increased magnification will increase how much camera-shake blur you see. With good handholding technique, the rule of thumb is that you need a shutter speed of 1/focal_length or faster.

So, with a 50mm lens, you only need to get 1/50s. But with a 200mm lens, you'll need 1/200s. And a lot of those lenses are limited to a f/5.6 maximum aperture. Even in good sunlight light, to get 1/200s at f/5.6, you may need to bump your ISO up. And the longer the lens, the higher that limit goes. AND a lot of these lenses will get significantly sharper if you stop down to at least f/8. Stabilization can reduce the shutter speed requirement, which gives you a bit more exposure "wiggle room."

But that's just camera shake blur. You can also get subject motion blur. I shoot birds in flight with my Canon 50D and EF 400mm f/5.6L USM. Sometimes 1/1000s is too slow.

The other thing that's going to be critical with wildlife is autofocusing speed, so read a few reviews on the lenses you're looking at that specifically address that.

I can tell you as a bird photographer, you'll never get a lens that's close enough. That's just how it goes. And good fieldcraft goes a long long way. Moving quietly and slowly, and using cover are all good good things to learn. Cars make great hides.