I’ve been hankering after a new camera for a while, and assuming the GX2 is to be released shortly, the GX1 might come down in price a bit! I can’t decide which lenses would be best. The standard 14-45 does not offer a particularly wide aperture, and the fixed 20mm is a bit long for most of what I want. Does anyone use lenses by other manufacturers?

Other option is just upgrade my knackered lx3 to an lx7 but I really wanted a wider range of focal lengths, eg 24mm to 300mm, but obviously that’s difficult to achieve!

Cheers!

It’s worth bearing in mind that an f2.8 lens on the GX1 is equivalent (both in terms of low light performance and depth of field) to the f1.4 on the lx7 because the GX1 has a much larger sensor.

Oh, right! Didn’t know sensor size affected it. f2.0 on the lx3 is fine so that’s good news, cheers.

The 14mm F2.5 can be had at a reasonable price, it’s a lot quicker focusing than the 20mm f1.7. Its sensor size and the distance from the sensor to the lens/aperture, you will see crop factor mentioned. A MFT (Micro Four Thirds) camera has a two times crop factor so multiply the focal length and aperture on the MFT lens by x2 to get what it is in 35mm equivalent terms. So the 14-45 would translate as a 28-90mm in 35mm terms. So to get your range of 24-300 on a single lens then the Panasonic 14-140mm comes close.

Big advantage with the two times crop factor is that you can use practically any other lens make with the appropriate adaptor as there is space to fit one and get the lens at the correct distance from the sensor.

Gotcha with MFT cameras is that Panasonic do image stabilisation in lens, Olympus do it in body.

i’ve got a g1 and gf2 both great cameras and a shed load cheaper than the gx1.

I really like the 14mm on the gf2
and the 20mm on the g1

also the 40-200mm zoom is good for the money