Wide angle lenses for mft m 4/3 Lumix G1, Gh1 etc - a test

kds315* · Expire: 2021-03-09

The other day a tested a few of my c-mount wide angles to find out which one might give the least vignetting and sharpest images. Here to share with you.

The candidates were:
1) Cosmicar Television Lens 1:1.9 12.5mm (very cheap black version with zebra colored aperture ring)
2) Rank Taylor Hobson Monital 1.8/10mm (fix focus lens)
3) Carl Zeiss Jena Tevidon 2/10mm (also corrected up to 1000nm for IR)
4) Cine Nikkor 1.8/10mm (Nippon Kogaku lens, rare)
(more later when I find time to...)

All but one (Tevidon) lenses fit a c-mount to mft adapter without modification and reach infinity focus (tested with newest RJ c-mount adapter; others may not work as tolerances are high). The Tevidon needs the mount reworked (c-mount version) or a mount replacement (bajonet version), so be aware.

And here the results, all shot using a Panasonix LUMIX GH1 at f8 within one hour but still changing light.
Sequence is always: full format straight from the camera (resized), 4-3 crop, 16-9 crop, 1:1 pixel crop.

1) Cosmicar Television Lens 1:1.9 12.5mm

2) Rank Taylor Hobson Monital 1.8/10mm

3) Carl Zeiss Jena Tevidon 2/10mm

4) Cine Nikkor 1.8/10mm

Short summary:
- ALL LENSES show massive vignetting
- cropping brings out useful results, but costs quite some image angle
- the visual quality is very different
- a cheap lens may be nearly as good as a rare expensive one
- a brand name is no guarantee for performance

My personal favorite is the Zeiss Tevidon 10mm, no wonder actually as it was once designed since NASA needed such a lens. The runner-up IMHO is that old Rank Taylor Hobson Monital 10mm lens, quite surprisingly, which also seems to have an even wider image angle despite the given same focal length of 10mm as compared to the Tevidon.

Attila · Expire: 2025-11-18

Many thanks for this very useful guide!!

Orio · Expire: 2012-12-04

Zeiss Tevidon the clear winner, head and shoulders above the others
Cosmicar the weakest
Nikon: quite a delusion, I was expecting better.

kds315* · Expire: 2021-03-09

Fully agree Orio. Well again Zeiss scores high, not really a surprise... Wink

ylyad · Expire: 2013-12-05

Orio · Expire: 2012-12-04

ylyad · Expire: 2013-12-05

apicius9 · Joined: 03 Nov 2009 Posts: 74 Location: Hawaii

Thanks for the comparison, Klaus. Of course, the Nikkor is the only one of those that I have Crying or Very sad

I would love to see the Switar 10/1.6 in that line-up, I would expect that to be one of the better ones. FWIW, I have a Cosmicar 12.5/1.4 TV lens that seems to do reasonably well but not great either. I also went out with the Canon 13/1.5 a bit while I was in Germany a few weeks ago. That one also works well in the center, but the sharpness seems to drastically decrease toward the corners - more than I can see in any of your shots here - so that may be of limited use for selected motives. As much as I like the little c-mounts, I have concluded that for me the Panasonic 20/1.7 is the better (and more convenient) choice if I have to crop the pictures to that angle anyway.

Stefan

kds315* · Expire: 2021-03-09

My conclusion would be for wide angle shots, to use a Oly or Panasonic zoom (7-14 for instance) or the 17 or 20mm.

apicius9 · Joined: 03 Nov 2009 Posts: 74 Location: Hawaii

pat donnelly · Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2010 12:51 pm Post subject:

Thank you for the demo, very enlightening!