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Olympus Lens compatibility on Panasonic body
  • tychobrahetychobrahe

    I've been offered a job doing real estate videography, and was looking for a wide angle zoom to go with my Panasonic GH2. I'm most interested in the Olympus 7-14mm f/2.8 because it would perform better with interior low-light situations over the Panasonic lens with equivalent focal length.

    I saw on one lens rental website the following warning: "VERY IMPORTANT: Due to a variety of problems we have encountered, we do not recommend using Olympus lenses for video use with Panasonic micro 4/3 cameras/camcorders. Rent at your own risk."

    I'm waiting to hear back from the rental website about what that means. I know that I most likely won't have image stabilization with this setup, but was wondering if there's any dealbreaking incompatibility I should know about for shooting video. I'm hoping this is just needless fear-mongering. I'm probably going to use FlowMotion, and shoot at 1080p 30 fps. Thank you for any assistance.

  • 6 Replies sorted by
  • LiquidAlpinistLiquidAlpinist

    Sounds like fear-mongering to me. I shoot paid video gigs with Panasonic GH2s with a variety of lenses. The Olympus lenses I own and shoot are: 17mm 1.8, 45mm 1.8, and 40-150mm 2.8 PRO. Never had any issues with these lenses on my Panasonic bodies.

  • tychobrahetychobrahe

    Thanks, I appreciate it!

  • fosterchenfosterchen

    I had an issue with Olympus 12mm F2 lens on GH2 where at times recording would stop and the camera would freeze and I had to take out the battery to reset it. This was with a hacked GH2, but the bitrate was only around 50mbps. Never figured out why, but I'm suspecting it had to do with the electronic contacts. Sometimes it would stop my recordings after a few seconds and give me a write speed error.

  • firstbasefirstbase

    I can attest that my Olympus 45mm fits very tightly on the AF100a I own. In fact, I nearly stopped trying to apply it the first time for fear of damaging the mount. It required slight forcing, and takes a bit of muscle to loosen as well. That said, it does function, albeit with tight fit.

  • JiveJive

    Sounds like you're referring to LensRentals' notice on Four-Thirds lenses (such as this Olympus 7-14mm f/4 Four-Thirds lens.

    It's important to keep in mind that Four-Thirds and Micro Four-Thirds are two different mounts. Four-Thirds (FT) is an older mount that Panasonic and Olympus both made cameras and lenses for, but now both manufacturers have moved to the Micro Four-Thirds (MFT) mount. Like many other lens mounts, Four-Thirds lenses can be used on MFT cameras such as the Panasonic GH4 with an adapter. However, as with other adapted lenses, performance may not match that of native MFT lenses.

    All native MFT lenses should be fully compatible with any MFT camera. I have used several Olympus MFT lenses on the GH4 and they all functioned at least as well as Panasonic's MFT lenses. Also note that LensRentals does not display a notice for Olympus' MFT lenses, such as the Olympus 7-14mm f/2.8, so make sure you confirm that you are selecting a native MFT lens, not a FT lens that requires an adapter.

  • tubefingerstubefingers

    I use the Olympus 12-40 & 40-150 2.8 series on the AF101's and they work great, no stabiliser but all good otherwise

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