Panasonic G5 - Panasonic X Vario 35-100 f2.8 Power OIS
You have to give it to Panasonic, this lens is very good indeed and paired with the 12-35 f2.8 and maybe the 25 f1.4 for low light work you've got the basis for a very good system. Personally I prefer to use the Olympus cameras because they've got more heft to them. That's the impression I get when holding the two systems. The build quality is much better on the Olympus models...or is it just me that gets that impression.
With this small and quite light 35-100 f2.8 you get the equivalent of a 70-200 f2.8 on a full frame camera and the size difference is amazing. For my purposes the smaller system wins every time and my back is also thankful for it. Younger photographers may not understand this point at present, but the older you get the more you'll understand.
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Panasonic G5 - Panasonic Vario 45-150 f4-5.6
You find this lens normally as part of a two lens kit, or you can purchase it so for a couple of hundred Euros. It's small, well built and delivers very good image quality. Here's a link to the lens on the Panasonic site: 45-150 f4-5.6. Personally I find the lens very good and gives the user a 90-300mm equivalent focal length. That's quite amazing when you consider how small the lens is. Image quality is fine and I like the build construction Panasonic seem to have settled on. It looks robust and it gives that feel when holding these lenses. I tested this lens on the G5 and I can't fault it at all. Couple this with the 14-45 f3.5-5.6 lens and you have a nice pair for most of your needs. Of course, you will need good light for both lenses because they're not fast at all. If you need a fast lens for low light work you could purchase either the Panasonic 20 f1.7 or the excellent Panasonic 25 f1.4.
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Panasonic G5 - Panasonic 12-35 f2.8
One taken at what I would call near infinity. I know there's a lot of cloud in this image and you can't tell from looking at thos if the lens is sharp or not, but look at the strip of land at the bottom. Might be difficult to see at this size but I don't believe that it's as sharp as it should be.
I've heard that the new Olympus 12-40 f2.8 is exceptionally sharp and a few pro photographers are replacing some of their prime lenses with the 12-40 f2.8. That is high praise indeed and I'm seriously thinking that the new E-M1 and that lens would make a fantastic landscape configuration. Watch this space!
976
DMC-G5
Focal Length: 32 mm
Aperture: f/5.6
Exposure Time: 1/2500 sec
ISO: 160
Panasonic G5 - Panasonic 12-35 f2.8
Another image shot at mid-range. I personally can't fault this lens for anything at this distance. I know it's not a masterpiece but that's entirely my fault. These are test images to see how the lens performs.
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DMC-G5
Focal Length: 35 mm
Aperture: f/5.6
Exposure Time: 1/1600 sec
ISO: 160
Panasonic G5 - Panasonic 12-35 f2.8
Yesterdays image was shot at close range and you can see how sharp it is. I was near to MFD for the lens. The image above is what I would class as mid-range and again the image is sharp. Note how much micro contrast there is, very nice and to my liking. hardly any PP done to this image apart from a little USM after downsizing.
1235
DMC-G5
Focal Length: 33 mm
Aperture: f/5.6
Exposure Time: 1/2000 sec
ISO: 160
Panasonic G5 - Panasonic 12-35 f2.8
I must say this is one exceptional lens, as long as I don't look to take landscape images with focusing set more towards infinity. For near to mid range images it's fine, but I believe I've mentioned it before I believe there are better lenses suited for sweeping landscape images. I don't think this lens was primarily designed for that purpose and I don't use it for that either. You can compare this lens with the Canon or Nikon 24-70 f2.8 lenses. I wouldn't use those for that purpose either. But this is only my opinion as I've read that a lot of people use this lens for landscape shooting. Horses for courses and all that.
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DMC-G5
Focal Length: 35 mm
Aperture: f/5.6
Exposure Time: 1/320 sec
ISO: 160
Panasonic G5 - Panasonic 100-300 f4-5.6
On the same outing as yesterdays post I also took the Panasonic 100-300 f4-5.6 along to test on the G5. Normally I like using the Olympus mZD 75-300 because it's a little smaller and has a better feel to it than the Panasonic 100-300. Looking at the image quality from both, there is little difference and if you're looking for a 600mm equivalent lens for your m4/3 system, then you can safely choose between these two. I believe the Panasonic is cheaper as I'm writing this post but I find the build quality of the Olympus a little better. As a matter of interest Olympus have now brought out a second version of the 75-300, but I'm still very pleased with image quality from the original version and I'm not planning on upgrading. Not much point really because I don't use these lenses all that much, but it's nice to know that you've got that focal length when needed.
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DMC-G5
Focal Length: 300 mm
Aperture: f/8.0
Exposure Time: 1/800 sec
ISO: 160
Panasonic G5 - Panasonic PZ 14-42 f3.4-5.6
I just took some more images of this tower from different angles to see if the image quality changed in some way. The answer to that was a definite no. I'm sure that the lens behaves differently on different cameras so I'm going to mount this on the Olympus E-M5 and see what comes out. I shouldn't see any difference really but you never know. I know what the GF1 produced because I've already posted some images with that camera. I wasn't all that impressed with the quality but then again the GF1 is quite an old camera now. I'll post some images from the Olympus once I've done some shooting with the combination.
991
DMC-G5
Focal Length: 39 mm
Aperture: f/8.0
Exposure Time: 1/640 sec
ISO: 160
Panasonic G5 - Panasonic PZ 14-42 f3.4-5.6
Another lens with which I have a love/hate relationship at present. Here on the G5 it produced acceptable images but sometimes I wonder what the lens was doing because image quality was not up to par.
I converted this lens with Nik SFX II and as usual it produced a superb monochrome image. As you can see the image is very sharp, and it has nothing to do with sharpening. The only thing done here is a little sharpening to counteract the effects of downsizing.
988
DMC-G5
Focal Length: 14 mm
Aperture: f/5.6
Exposure Time: 1/2500 sec
ISO: 160
Panasonic G5 - Panasonic G Vario PZ 14-42 f3.5-5.6
I really don't know what to make of this lens. Since I used it on the GF1 a few months ago and it performed ok-ish I thought it might perform better on the G5. I took it for a little outing just to see how it performed and it turned out to be a worse performer on the G5 than on the GF1. I had a lot of misfocused images that I was about to put it on ebay to get rid of it. I must say this must be the worst performing lens in Panasonics arsenal, though I haven't tested the PZ 45-175 lens and to tell you the truth I'm not even going to contemplate it. It's the same design as the PZ 14-42 and since they're smaller than the other lenses it would have saved me a lot of space, if things had turned out ok.
On the G5 the images were quite soft and focusing was a hit and miss affair. The combination is very fast focusing and the image in the EVF looked sharp and I even got a green focusing confirmation box. Well, after running the images through LR5 and opening them in PS I immediately had to throw away about 50% of the images. They were simply misfocused or very soft. The soft images were not misfocused, just soft and I was quite shocked. I never expected this.
My conclusion is this lens will only be used on the GF1 where it perfoms ok and only when I really need to save space. I believe this is the first lens from any manufacturer that I simply cannot recommend. In this case you really get what you pay for - not a lot! Shame.
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