Jacob James: I'm Jacob James, photographer, 
filmmaker and Panasonic LUMIX Ambassador. 
Lens choice is one of the most critical 
creative decisions we take as filmmakers. 
In this video, I want to do a quick rundown 
of the differences between autofocus 
lenses and manual cine primes on the S1H. 
I'll also dive into a few example situations 
of where you might want to use 
this one over this one or vice versa.
Here, I have two lenses. 
The Panasonic LUMIX Pro 50 mm 
and the Schneider Xenon FF 50mm cine prime. 
These lenses are both 50mm.
Why would you choose one over the other? 
Let's start at the back of the lenses. 
The first thing you'll notice is the lens mount. 
The Lumix Pro comes with an L-mount. 
This means it can connect to any of the S-series 
cameras without an adapter. 
Meaning you get full electronic control 
for both image stabilisation, 
auto-focus and aperture control.
On the other hand, 
the cine lens has a PL mount. 
One of the most common mounts 
found on cinema lenses. 
In order to mount this lens onto the S1H, 
we'll need to use an adapter 
such as this one from C7. 
This allows you to adapt a PL 
mount to an L mount. 
After the lens mount, 
we also have iris control. 
Now as you can see on the cine lens, 
you get smooth movement between 
all the various T-stops without any set stops.
The aperture ring is also geared 
to ensure you can control it 
with a motor for remote aperture control. 
On the Panasonic lens, 
we have an electronic stepped aperture ring. 
You also notice we have F-stops 
and not T-stops. What is the difference? 
Well, F-stops are theoretical measurements 
most commonly found on stills lenses, 
whereas cine lenses tend to use T-stops, 
which are the actual measurement 
of light transmission through the lens.
This means that a T2 lens like this 
will always be T2 no matter the brand. 
An F2 lens might not always be the same 
as an F2 lens from another brand. 
On the Panasonic lens, 
the aperture control can either be done 
electronically by setting it to the A position 
or it can be controlled manually using 
the stepped ring on the lens. 
Next on the lens, we have what's probably 
the most important part of the lens, 
the focus ring.
The Panasonic lens is autofocus, 
giving you the ability to allow the camera 
to control the focus. 
The benefit for stills photography is clear, 
but also now more and more people 
are finding autofocus useful when 
shooting run and gun video work. 
For controlling the focus of 
L-mount lenses manually, 
there are system functions available 
such as the focus transition mode. 
This uses the autofocus system 
to smoothly move between 
two or three set points without 
needing manual control, 
replicating hard to achieve focus 
pulls quickly and easily.
To set this mode, simply go to the other
sub-menu under the video menu, 
down to focus transition. 
Here you can select two focus points, 
a focus transition speed, 
and then you simply click start. 
Then you click between the two focus 
points and the camera will do the rest, 
creating a smooth focus pulls. 
The focus ring on the Panasonic 
lens also has a manual clutch, 
allowing manual focus with stops.
You can also customise the focus 
throw of all the L-mount lenses 
on the S1H, the S1, the S1R, 
either linear or nonlinear 
and also adjust the focus rotation 
from 90 degrees to 360. 
On the Cine lens, 
the focus ring is very different. 
Here we have a geared dampened ring 
with hard stops at each end. 
This is essential for ensuring repeatable 
focus when you using a follow focus. 
Cine lenses always tend to have long 
focus throw for fine adjustment.
As you can see, I can go nearly 
all the way round the barrel,
from near to far focus, 
giving you really nice fine control over 
exactly where you want the focus to be. 
To help with manual focus in the S1H, 
there's also nifty functions such as 
magnification, allowing enlargement 
up to 20 times, a focus peaking option, 
which can be changing sensitivity and colour 
as well as the punch in to enlarge 
the decisive area to adjust 
focus on the spot.
The other thing that Cine lens tends 
to have by design is consistent sizes 
and weights across different focal lengths. 
They also tend to have consistent 
front diameters for using matte boxes. 
This makes swapping lenses out on shoots, 
even if mounted with a matte box 
or on a gimbal, much quicker and easier. 
Stills lenses aren't designed 
with these same requirements in mind, 
so they're often made 
much smaller and lighter. 
Cinema lenses by design are also made 
to have much less focus breathing. 
Focus breathing is a change in the actual 
focal length of the lens while focusing.
Many stills lenses perform poorly 
when it comes to focus breathing. 
The latest L -ount lenses from Lumix 
have been designed to ensure 
minimal focus breathing, 
making them ideal for hybrid shooter 
shooting both stills and video.
So when would I choose one over the other. 
AF style lenses are perfect for video 
work where you're solo shooting 
or needing to travel a long way over 
rough terrain or with a light kit. 
The AF can make accurate focus pulls 
much simpler and the lighter 
weight and smaller size makes using 
these lenses while traveling 
or on a smaller camera setup a huge benefit. 
Cinema lenses on the other hand, 
are designed for all-out use on set. 
Ergonomically, they're much easier to work with 
when you have a first AC pulling focus, 
or where you need to swap out 
a lens on a gimbal very quickly. 
They're also much simpler to use with matte 
boxes and follow focuses in general.
As with all creative tools, neither one 
of these is necessarily better than the other. 
They're suited to different jobs 
and as a creative, 
you should always select 
the right tool for the job at hand. 
These are the lens options 
for the new Lumix S1H.
Broadcast: Panasonic
