Hello from the San Juan Islands, WA

[Thejay08]

Hi everyone!

My name is Jason and I'm from Canada originally but have been based out of the San Juan Islands in Washington State since 2016.
My roots were in stills photography but wildlife video has been my passion for the past 6 or 7 years now. My wife runs a non profit that does whale research in this region and I've been involved doing video work for educational events as well as whale encounter videos that we regularly post on our YT channel.

Most of my video work has been with Lumix GH series cameras, but this week I took the plunge on my first L-mount camera, the Lumix S1H. I know it's an older camera now but it has always been a bit of a unicorn in my eyes as far as image and build quality goes, so I'm very excited to finally own this camera now and it has been fantastic to use so far. In many ways it feels like the bigger brother to my GH6 which also has contrast detect autofocus. I predominantly shoot video with adapted manual lenses so not having good autofocus has never been an issue for me. My go to lenses for wildlife are: Leica APO-Telyt-R 280mm f/4 and Leica APO-Telyt-R 180mm f3.4.
I'll eventually be looking for an L mount wide angle similar to my Voigtlander Nokton 17.5mm for MFT, so if anyone has any recommendations I'd love to hear them!

I'm looking forward to frequenting this forum and getting to know others here and seeing what everyone has been doing with their cameras
Below is one of my first images (of my cat named Minke) taken with the S1H paired with the Leica 180mm 3.4.

Cheers!

-Jason

• Panasonic DC-S1H
• 180mm
• 1/400s
• ISO 640

 

[Nevyn72]

Nice,

 

[Travis Butler]

Nice kitty.

When you say “wide angle”, what are you looking for in full-frame terms? That Nokton 17.5 on MFT would have the same FoV as a 35mm FF lens; would that be wide enough, or would you want something wider?

 

[Thejay08]

Nice kitty.

When you say “wide angle”, what are you looking for in full-frame terms? That Nokton 17.5 on MFT would have the same FoV as a 35mm FF lens; would that be wide enough, or would you want something wider?

Thanks!
And yes exactly - I really like the character of the Voigtlanders and the FOV I get from the 17.5mm. I was wondering about adapting something like a Voigtlander M mount 35mm f1.4 or similar since Voigtlander doesn't make any L mount lenses. Thoughts? I don't think I need anything wider than a 35mm for what I'm doing.

 

[Pete_W]

Hi Jason and welcome to the forum!

I'll eventually be looking for an L mount wide angle similar to my Voigtlander Nokton 17.5mm for MFT, so if anyone has any recommendations I'd love to hear them!

There are quite a few 35mm lenses available for L-mount. I have the Sigma 35mm f2 which is excellent.

One of the forum members here (@Jan.Wedekind) created an interactive L-mount lens table that is worth looking at:

Interactive L-Mount Lens Table (l-mount-lenses.com) | Endlessly Curious

A complete list of all native L-Mount lenses from Leica, Panasonic, Sigma & more. Filter by focal length, aperture, and features. Always up to date.

www.endlesslycurious.net

 

[dseres]

You're in luck, because you have a wide selection of excellent 35mm lenses to choose from on L-MOUNT.

 

[Travis Butler]

Thanks!
And yes exactly - I really like the character of the Voigtlanders and the FOV I get from the 17.5mm. I was wondering about adapting something like a Voigtlander M mount 35mm f1.4 or similar since Voigtlander doesn't make any L mount lenses. Thoughts? I don't think I need anything wider than a 35mm for what I'm doing.

I haven’t used 35mm primes that much; the main one is the OM Zuiko 35/2, which I like although it’s not perfect.

20230201-SDIM3380 by Travis Butler, on Flickr
Sigma fp, OM Zuiko 35/2

20230201-SDIM3419 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

20230127-SDIM3216 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

Most of the time, I shoot 35mm using my favorite Minolta 35-70/3.5 macro:

20260319-SDIM9956 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

20250926-SDIM7989 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

I had a chance to shoot with both the Sigma 35/1.2 and 35/2 at a recent photo event; both of them seemed like nice lenses, but the f/1.2 was bulky and heavy, and the f/2 didn’t grab me as much as my preferred lenses. The f/1.4 is supposed to be very good, but unfortunately the Sigma rep at the event didn’t have it in L-mount.

If you’re willing to go a little wider to 28mm, I’ve posted a few shots from my current favorite 28’s in this thread: https://l-mount-forum.com/community/threads/leica-and-voigtlander-m-lenses-on-lumix-s-cameras.1280/ The Minolta 24-50/4 I mention there is also very nice, as is the OM Zuiko 24/2.8.

 

[Thejay08]

Hi Jason and welcome to the forum!



There are quite a few 35mm lenses available for L-mount. I have the Sigma 35mm f2 which is excellent

Thank you! I’ll have to check out the Sigma. I appreciate the link to the L-mount lens table, very useful and seeing the lens selection for the mount is quite impressive!

 

[Thejay08]

Great shots from both lenses! Thanks for sharing all that information as well as some sample images. Most of my experience with full frame lenses has been on crop sensors, so my brain has a bit of a hard time visualizing the 35mm FOV, so the sample images are a big help.
I’m not at all opposed to going a little bit wider. My main use would be filming indoors in relatively small spaces, so that might actually be a better focal length, if too wide I can crop in. One of my main needs has always been needing a relatively fast lens for dimly lit spaces where I don’t have much control over lighting, but finally having a larger sensor camera with dual native ISO is going to be a game changer for low light filming .

Thanks again for the information!

 

[PJD]

 

[CharlesH]

Welcome to the forum Jason.

this week I took the plunge on my first L-mount camera, the Lumix S1H.

You will really like theS1H. The transition from the GH series is an easy step. I had a S1H for video quite a while, and mostly used the Panasonic 24-105mm.

I'm from Canada originally but have been based out of the San Juan Islands in Washington State since 2016.

What a beautiful place to live. I've only been there one time, but these islands made a lasting impression. I fly small airplanes and flew out of Canada, Vancouver, to Friday Harbor - it was beautiful. Then I went over to Roche Harbor, and finally to Victoria for the evening. So it was a day in and out and in customs and immigration, but well worth it. Thanks for reminding me of that day.

I've been involved doing video work for educational events as well as whale encounter videos that we regularly post on our YT channel.

What is your YT channel?

 

[Travis Butler]

My main use would be filming indoors in relatively small spaces, so that might actually be a better focal length, if too wide I can crop in. One of my main needs has always been needing a relatively fast lens for dimly lit spaces where I don’t have much control over lighting, but finally having a larger sensor camera with dual native ISO is going to be a game changer for low light filming .

Yeah, I’d definitely look at the other thread.

One other off-the-wall suggestion I might make… it’s certainly not a general-purpose lens, but if you’re doing a lot of shooting in small enclosed spaces, the TT Artisan 11mm fisheye can really open up the space:

20250501-SDIM4180 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

20250501-SDIM4049 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

20250509-SDIM4589 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

20250509-SDIM4746 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

20250527-SDIM6100 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

Especially if you want to convey a feeling for the space as a whole and give a sense of the volume; that’s one thing I’d always had trouble with, shooting at this museum before.

20250509-SDIM4945 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

20250527-SDIM5979 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

20250527-SDIM6041 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

As well as some other cool effects:

20250501-SDIM4249 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

20250501-SDIM4001 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

20250501-SDIM4148 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

(This was shot from about the same distance as the first Konica Hexanon pic in the other thread; but while the other one felt intimate, the fisheye distortion makes them look alone and overwhelmed by their surroundings.)

20250509-SDIM4463 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

But you do have to get a feel for how to use the distortion instead of fighting it.

(Argh… sorry for spamming so many pics.)

 

[Thejay08]

Welcome to the forum Jason.


You will really like theS1H. The transition from the GH series is an easy step. I had a S1H for video quite a while, and mostly used the Panasonic 24-105mm.


What a beautiful place to live. I've only been there one time, but these islands made a lasting impression. I fly small airplanes and flew out of Canada, Vancouver, to Friday Harbor - it was beautiful. Then I went over to Roche Harbor, and finally to Victoria for the evening. So it was a day in and out and in customs and immigration, but well worth it. Thanks for reminding me of that day.


What is your YT channel?

Thank you so much!
Yes I’ve definitely found the S1H to be an easy camera to get the hang of. The menu system is basically the same and very similar button layout compared to my GH6. And of course nice to be able to cut between footage with both cameras using VLOG. But yeah the image coming out of the S1H is incredibly pleasing and I look forward to using it more and more .

That’s awesome! It especially must have been beautiful to see the islands from above, that’s one experience I haven’t had yet. I’m glad you got to do that, sounds like good memories! I’m definitely grateful all the time to live here.

Our YT channel is Orca Behavior Institute. If you search that you’ll see a playlist called “Orca highlights by Jason”.

Cheers!

 

[Thejay08]

Yeah, I’d definitely look at the other thread.

One other off-the-wall suggestion I might make… it’s certainly not a general-purpose lens, but if you’re doing a lot of shooting in small enclosed spaces, the TT Artisan 11mm fisheye can really open up the space:

Awesome shots! I appreciate you sharing the pics and info - certainly no need to worry about spamming, as I mentioned I’m not as familiar with full frame cameras and how the different focal lengths appear on them vs on cropped sensor cameras, so it’s all very helpful to me!
That’s quite a unique field of view with the fisheye that just as you mentioned makes the space feel vast. Even with the distortion, when frame well like in your photos it is a very nice look
Thanks again!

 

[CharlesH]

If you search that you’ll see a playlist called “Orca highlights by Jason

Wow, it must be exciting to film Orcas. Nice work.