Hidden Gem
Since adopting video, the 12-40 has been glued onto my G9, waitng (impatiently) for the cables and adapters needed to get my monitor going, finishing my cage-rig. Lots of minutes of test footage later, I feel I have the measure of the lens and its many strengths, but looking at Meike cine lenses (maybe later, not yet), it occurred to me, that if I went primes only, I would be stumped choosing just one at the moment (the G9’s built in tele helps making 1 into 2).
For stills it is easy, so theoretically it should be as easy for video, but creatively, there is more than a small chance my needs may be different.
I switched to the 17mm f1.8 today, a lens I love for street shooting in the past and close in action with kids in poor light more recently. It has gone from my first grab, to a seldom take, so re-purposing it for video felt very right, as long as it had a use.
Oh boy, what a find!
Wide open, focus is on the nearest mans hair and it is sharp, but the whole tale is told. This coherent whole with snappy sharp hero is very old school Leica like.
Turns out the long throw Bokeh the lens exhibits, something I have always appreciated for street shooting, is equally useful for video. The 12-40 has the fast drop off, creamy Bokeh so desired at the moment. The 17mm is often derided for its “poor” Bokeh performance, but I believe that is simply misidentification of a deliberate design strength.
The 17mm was designed for on the fly street shooting. Misses are a pain in this format of shooting and wholly unnecessary. The 17mm allows things not quite in focus to be easily retrieved if needed, transitioning slowly and naturally. Secondly it holds coherent shape in things well out of focus-hence “long throw” Bokeh.
In short, it is a story telling lens.
Shot wide open in late evening light, the focus fell on the mans back, but everything back to the umbrella is seemlessly rendered with no clear point of sharp-to-soft transition. The girl in the foreground is technically quite out of focus and a lens like my old 20mm Panasonic, the Olympus 25mm or the 12-40, would have likely lost her completely to blur, but the 17mm makes the image workable. As an added benefit, the man is snappy sharp also, giving the image two strong elements and a slight 3d effect.
Another benefit of this lens, one that goes well with its Bokeh characteristics, is the focus throw. A true cine lens has very long and smooth throw, but for a stills lens, when in true linear manual focus mode (ring pulled back), the 17mm has a reasonably forgiving throw, especially compared to the 12-40.
The AF is also lightning fast, again supported by the forgiving Bokeh, but MF is very useable.
Something I need to explore also is the loss-less tele converter option (roughly 40mm in 1080 or an 80mm equivalent). Retaining the f1.8 aperture and FHD quality, I have a “both ends of the zoom” range or more accurately, a story telling and genuine portrait lens in one. Add the 75mm and you also have a 150+400 f1.8 equivalent.