Photography Gear News

Micro-Four-Thirds (MFT) is undoubtedly the mirrorless system with the biggest footprint in the market today. However, so far the system focused primarily on consumer- and prosumer-grade products and ignored the professional arena but during the recent months we are seeing indications that this is going to change. Olympus released the popular OM-D camera and a high grade 75mm f/1.8 lens and Panasonic is also placing some bets into the higher end of the market.
In this review we'll have a look at the Panasonic Lumix X 12-35mm f/2.8 ASPH Power OIS - the first fast standard zoom lens of the MFT system. In full format terms the field-of-view is equivalent to 24-70mm. While it is, of course, a f/2.8 lens regarding its speed potential, the depth-of-field capabilities are actually not quite as impressive. In MFT land you are "losing" about 2 f-stops here which obviously reduces the creative potential of the lens quite a bit.

"The Panasonic-G X VARIO PZ 14–42 mm f/3.5–5.6 ASPH. P.O.I.S. is a new „kit” lens produced by Panasonic and a quite specific construction at the same time. We were very curious how such a construction performs in practice and we have decided to test this lens. Today we would like to present our review. Enjoy!"

"If we take a closer look at the micro-four-thirds lens lineup we will find five telephoto zoom lenses - 2x Olympus and 3x Panasonic lenses including our test candidate. The Panasonic LUMIX G X VARIO PZ 45-175mm f/4-5.6 ASPH. POWER O.I.S. belongs to the new premium d “X” series. The Panasonic lens features an electric zoom lever and an optical image stabilizer ("OIS") as well as 2 ED lenses which are supposed to reduce optical aberrations.
You should be able to find one for around 400EUR which is not cheap in absolute terms but this is roughly in line with comparable offerings from other original manufacturers."

When you start a system kind of from scratch you must make sure its potential users have several basic lenses available. We think here not only about an all-purpose kit lens but also about a fast, classic standard so the equivalent of 50 mm device. The moment the Olympus company decided to launch its 4/3 system they must have been aware that they would have to launch a lot of new lenses as well. Fortunately they didn’t have to produce everything on their own because the 4/3 system is supported also by Panasonic, in cooperation with Leica, and by independent producers such as Sigma. Due to that help the new system got a fast standard lens, offered by Leica. We think here of course about the Leica-D Summilux 25 mm f/1.4 lens, which has already been tested by us. It wasn’t exactly cheap (like practically any instrument boasting the Leica logo), but it offered really excellent optical properties. Hardly any f/1.4 lens is fully useful up from the maximum relative aperture and the Leica didn’t have the slightest problems with it.
When Olympus and Panasonic focused their efforts on constructing the Micro 4/3 system, the situation developed in a similar way. A fast 1.4/25 standard was planned as a result of Leica and Panasonic cooperation and, owing to that, in June 2011 a launch of a new lens was officially announced – the Panasonic-Leica DG SUMMILUX 25 mm f/1.4 ASPH.

The Lumix G X Vario PZ 14-42mm is a member of Panasonic's new premium “X” series. It is probably the smallest zoom lens in the whole industry. However, this compactness is achieved by a trick - out of the box (in its "transport position") the lens is not ready for shooting - it needs to be extended to its working mode similar to a digicam lens. Nevertheless, in working mode it is still shorter than e.g. the directly competing Panasonic G 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6.
The compact allrounder offers an equivalent focal length of about 28-84mm in full format (35mm) terms. The lens is offered both as part of camera-lens kit and individually. In the latter case is available for around 350 Euro which is certainly a bit expensive for a lens in this class but its "pancake" style character just doesn't come for free.

"There was a time where fast lenses were scarce in Micro-Four-Thirds land but things have changed quite a bit during the last 2 years. Among the first high-speed lenses was the Panasonic Leica Summilux 25mm f/1.4 ASPH which filled the "standard lens" gap in the system. Its maximum aperture of f/1.4 is certainly fast with respect to light gathering, but in terms of depth-of-field you are effectively "loosing" about two f-stops in this respect compared to the classic full format but this is still sufficient for quite shallow depth-of-field images especially for documentary photography. You should be able to find one for around 500EUR so it is far from being a budget item considering the typical prices for standard prime lenses in the DSLR market."

"If we take a closer look at the super telephoto zoom options for the micro-four-thirds format we will find two lenses within the 35mm camera equivalent focal length of up to "600mm" - there is one Olympus lens covering 75-300mm (thus "150-600mm") as well as our test candidate, the Panasonic LUMIX G VARIO 100-300mm f/4-5.6 MEGA O.I.S. Important characteristics of the Panasonic lens include an ED elements which is supposed to reduce optical aberrations, plus an optical image stabilizer ("OIS").
The the lens is available for around 500EUR which sounds expensive compared to conventional 300mm zoom lenses but the higher pixel density of four-thirds sensors require a correspondingly higher quality - on paper at least."