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Lumix 14mm on EPL1

Tullio

New member
I just got the Lumix 14mm (I did not expect it to be so darn small and light...awesome!). Anyway, the lens is dead silent and very fast on my G1 but the EPL1 kinda of struggles with it. AF is disappointingly slow and I hear all sorts of clicking sounds coming from the lens. Is anyone here using the 14mm on an Oly EP body? If so, how does the lens perform? I did not check for any Oly firmware updates related to this lens in particular but if there is one, will it affect the lens performance on the Pana body in case I install the update? Thanks.

I checked the Pana website and there is a firmware for the Lumix 14mm lens (1.1). My lens is at 1.0. So I downloaded the firmware (.lin not the usual .bin) but my G1 won't recognize it. I tried formatting the card in camera but still, when I insert the card, turn the camera on and push "play", it says no image to display rather than "lens version up". My G1 is at F/W 1.2 (since I'm happy with its performance, I figured I could stay at 1.2 and make use of 3rd party batteries). I wonder if Pana is forcing me to go to 1.5 in order for the camera to understand the lens firmware. So far, I have not had this problem with other Lumix lenses. Any ideas/suggestions are very much appreciated.

Update...

I managed to update the lens firmware via the Oly updater with the EPL1. i could not see any difference in AF performance and the clicking sound (from the diaphragm I believe) when I move the camera around is still there. Even though the m4/3 system shared by Pana and Oly, it does not look like one brand's body handles the other's lenses the same way as they do their own.
 
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Tullio

New member
Wow...74 views and not a single reply...I must have done something real bad here! My apologies if I did.
 

Tullio

New member
True. Oh well, at least people should know that the 14mm behaves very differently between the G1 and EPL1. On the EPL1, it's noisy and slow compared to the G1. What's interesting though is the fact that the Lumix 14-45mm works great on EPL1. It's quiet and improves AF speed significantly compared to the Oly 14-42mm kit lens.
 
I've just compared the behaviour of the 14mm on Olympus EP-2 vs Panasonic G3 and I foun it is similar to what you have found on your cameras.
The 14mm is absolutely silent and faster on the Panny and a little bit noisy on the Oly.
 

Tullio

New member
Thanks for your feedback, Ario. I guess my next question is...what's going on between the Oly body and the 14mm? I think that the Oly body does not communicate with the 14mm the same way that the Pana body does, thus the strange lens behavior we experience. I just hope that in the long run, the lens does not get damaged by the Oly body.
 

iau

New member
It works great on the GF1 and GF3, too. Fast and dead silent. I have never tried it on an Olympus body.

Didn't the same thing go for the 20mm, too? It was sort of noisy on GF1, but worse on Olympus bodies? Not that it affected the image quality.
 

jtwloh

New member
IMO, posting some shots you have taken will tend to generate more discussions. Or better still pictures taken by both cameras.

I do not have a 4/3 camera, however, am interested to find out how it does with ordinary shooting.
 

Tullio

New member
This discussion is not about IQ but physical lens noise on Pana vs. Oly bodies. I had the Lumix 20mm and the difference between it and the 14mm is that the 20mm was noisy on both Pana and Oly bodies while the 14mm is dead silent on G bodies but noisy on EP bodies. Certainly the noise does not affect IQ in any way but I'm concerned about using the 14mm on the EPL1 because of the constant moving of the diaphragm every time I move the camera around. It appears that on the G bodies the diaphragm does not open/close until the shutter is depressed.
 
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