Which adapter for my Panasonic lumix G1 to go with what lens?
I have a Panansonic Lumix G1. I would like to purchase a zoom lens for it at a rock bottom price as I'm learning at present. I have seen quite a few brands on e-bay, eg Sigma, canon, zuicko, Nikkor. Which is the best one to buy?
Most importantantly I have the standard 45mm lens already but how will I know which adapter to buy for which lens.
I'm finding this information very difficult to find out anywhere on the net.
Please could someone help me out with my purchase.
Any assistance will be greatly received.
remember I'm not a professional photographer but a new girl to this hobby.
cheers
The trouble with the FourThirds and it's derivatives is it's got a 2x crop factor, that means you lose out a lot at the wide end of things. So you may be better off going with the 14-45mm lens as a general purpose lens. Further more a lot of the zoom lenses you'll look at will be from the early days of zoom, where the quality is definitely questiionable, I would say stick with primes if you are interested in adaptation.
From your question, I think you should for the time being stick with the MicroFourThirds lenses, as adapted lenses aren't always the most convenient to use, and really should only be an option once you've acquired some experience.
Just for information, this is a non exaustive list of the potential lenses you can attach to your camera.
- Canon R, FL, FD, FDn. But not EF!
- Carl Zeiss for Contax/Yashica (C/Y), ZF/ZFII and ZS and ZM.
- Exakta (Ihagee)
- FourThirds mount lenses - will fully AE/AF
- Leica M mount and R mount lenses (though anything with Leica is expensive)
- Konika A/R
- Minolta MC/MD lenses
- Nikon F-mount - AI/AI-S/AI'd and D-type AF only. Some Pre-AI lenses may work.
- Nikon S-mount
- M39 mount for Leica Thread/Canon rangefinders - including the Canon 50mm f/0.95
- M42 - almost all screw mount lenses can be adapted, some exceptions where lenses need a coupling prong aren't compatible.
- Mamiya 6/7
- Medium format SLR lenses (e.g. Mamiya 645, Pentax 67, Pentacon Six, Rollei SL66) - can be done, but weight means it's impractical.
- Olympus PEN-F system
- Olympus OM system
- Pentax K mount - any lens with an aperture ring will work.
- Sinar large format rail/bellows cameras (e.g. Sinar Norma).
- T-mount
- Tamron Adaptall
- Vivitar Series 1
You can probably adapt movie camera lenses too, from Arri, and Bolex cameras.
The best lens to purchase are micro 4/3rd lenses, as they are fully compatible with your camera without having to use an adapter. For all the currently available micro 4/3rd lenses, check out the link here: http://www.four-thirds.org/en/microft/lense.html
If you want to use other lenses via an adapter, note that you would lose autofocus (meaning you have to twist the manual focus ring on the lens to get it in focus yourself), and possibly auto metering as well (meaning you have to guess the exposure). If you want to have fun, this is not the way to go. For an inexpensive zoom lens, consider getting the 14-42mm lens. If you go any cheaper, prepare to be disappointed by poor build and image quality.