GH3 35-10mm F2.8 shipping in the US now!

M

mpgxsvcd

Veteran
Just talked to Samys.com. They got 12 of the 35-100mm F2.8 lenses in stock today. Mine will ship today or tomorrow with next day air so I will have it for the weekend. Any things you all are interested in seeing tested?

I plan on checking for IS and Shutter vibration issues, optimal focal ratio, and sharpness across the focal range. It should perfect for the focal ranges I have already. Approximately 14mm-24mm with the GoPro, 14mm F2.5, 25mm F1.4, 45mm F1.8, 14-140mm, and 800mm F4.0.
 
i would like you to do a scientific test to see on what level from one to ten how kick ass this lens is for event shooting. thanks. hope im not asking for much =) be interesting to see if the iris steps durring zooming like the 12-35.
 
I second Mr. Fanny's query. I'll end up buying one of these for wedding ceremonies. The 14 -140 is a good range, but 5.8 is just so damned S-L-O-WWWWWWW!

To be specific, how's the autofocus when opened up in 24H mode? Is it quick? Is it accurate? Dos it hunt a lot when you follow a subject or zoom?
 
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MR Fanny said:
be interesting to see if the iris steps durring zooming like the 12-35.
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I'm curious about this, too, but frankly, I'm pretty sure the answer is yes. Don't all Lumix lenses have this issue? I know my 14-140mm does. I think a truly stepless smooth iris is very rare in the DSLR world, isn't it?
 
Evaluating one from LensRentals next week to see if it's worth the full ~$1500, or if I should instead dump even money into a used 35-100/2
 
Gerson said:
I'm curious about this, too, but frankly, I'm pretty sure the answer is yes. Don't all Lumix lenses have this issue? I know my 14-140mm does. I think a truly stepless smooth iris is very rare in the DSLR world, isn't it?
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If it's f2.8 throughout the zoom range it shouldn't change at all. The 14-140 is variable so it changes when zooming.
The Iris shouldn't change on the 35-100 because it's constant f2.8.
 
ATL Media Group said:
If it's f2.8 throughout the zoom range it shouldn't change at all. The 14-140 is variable so it changes when zooming.
The Iris shouldn't change on the 35-100 because it's constant f2.8.
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Yes, one would hope so, but the 12-35mm does just that and the speculation is that the aperture motor and electronics aren't infinitetly step-able. I think the 35-100 will display similar issues. Remember, Panasonic toutes these as studio photographic lenses where the slight blips would not matter. Set the aperture and then frame - no live zooming.
 
Samys in L.A. is amazing. They have van delivery service for free. I ordered this lens this morning and it's sitting on my desk. Can anyone else tell me what their lens looks like? Mine has the glossy, purple tint that the pre-production models had which I thought were changed to pure black for the official release.
 
stoneinapond said:
Yes, one would hope so, but the 12-35mm does just that and the speculation is that the aperture motor and electronics aren't infinitetly step-able. I think the 35-100 will display similar issues. Remember, Panasonic toutes these as studio photographic lenses where the slight blips would not matter. Set the aperture and then frame - no live zooming.
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A real constant aperture lens will not do that, even in the world of still photography. There is nothing to adjust.

When I shoot with a Canon, that's the advantage of a constant aperture zoom versus one that varies, true when shooting with video or in still photography. The first time I used my kit lens on the Canon outdoors, I figured I could get away with zooming since the aperture is set to F/8. Since 8 is well beyond the 3.5-5.6 range, the aperture should stay consistent, right? Wrong- since the aperture gets smaller on a mechanical level, the iris has to be digitally adjusted to keep up.
But put my Tamron 17-50mm F/2.8, and it will not flicker during a zoom. Ever. None of my constant aperture zooms ever did anything like that because they don't need microadjustments as they zoom.

So why does the 12-35?? My guess is that is isn't a true constant 2.8. Perhaps on the wide end it is slightly larger (maybe 2.6?) but it microadjusts the iris to keep it at 2.8 because they want to sell something as "constant". I've heard some folks theorize that it has to do with the firmware thinking it has to adjust the iris during a zoom even if it doesn't really. But that doesn't make any sense to me- what exactly would it be adjusting to that would make the visible flicker? Something must be physically changing that needs to be adjusted.
 
M. Gilden said:
...what exactly would it be adjusting to that would make the visible flicker? Something must be physically changing that needs to be adjusted.
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The iris is making slight visible adjustments at several specific focal lengths. Why, I don't know. I wish it wouldn't but according to some people, Panasonic states that's the way it was designed. Perhaps Panasonic doesn't understand the true meaning of constant....

:(
 
I think I do too. Still strange that they're shipping these...Maybe I should admit the obvious. I may have a used pre-production model. Feels great though. But I think Pana owes me a black one for free.
 

This video shows a demonstration of the new Panasonic 35-100mm F2.8 lens. It is an expensive but very versatile lens. I received mine from samys.com today. The lens is exceptionally sharp even wide open at F2.8. The 35-100mm has in lens image stabilization that as you can see in the video works extremely well in both stills and video modes.

This lens is not that much longer and actually narrower than the 14-140mm. The weights really are not that much different either. However, the 35-100mm has about 2 stops advantage over the 14-140mm across its focal range.

The 35-100mm is par-focal so it maintains its focus as you zoom. However, the 14-140mm is par-focal as well.

I haven't seen any of the stepped aperture issues that plagued the 12-35mm F2.8 lens. However, I have not been able to fully test that yet. In addition I have not seen in CA(Chromatic Aberrations) or other distortions with this lens. The image quality of it is unmatched by any other m4/3s I have tested. This is expected with a lens this expensive though.

The 35-100mm lens emits very faint whirring and whining noises from the continuous auto focus motors. They are faint but you can hear them if you put your ear up next to the lens. I couldn't hear the noises in any of the videos I took.

The auto focus with the GH2 + 35-100mm is extremely accurate and it does not hunt at all. However, it can be slow to refocus in very dark situations where the focus point changes very quickly.

I have uploaded the still images from the video at the link below.

http://www.dpreview.com/galleries/4222674355/albums/35-100mm-f2-8-samples

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/thread/3293287
 
Gerson said:
I'm curious about this, too, but frankly, I'm pretty sure the answer is yes. Don't all Lumix lenses have this issue? I know my 14-140mm does. I think a truly stepless smooth iris is very rare in the DSLR world, isn't it?
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I tested the stepless aperture and I could not find any indication that it does what the 12-35mm does. I saw the 12-35mm video and I tried to reproduce it with the 35-100mm. I didn't include any videos for that in my demonstration video because I simply could never get the aperture to be non-stepless.

However, my tests are not completely done yet. I would like to test it even more. I wonder if it was a case of the aperture was stopping down because the light was too bright? When I tested the 35-100mm lens it wouldn't change the aperture at all while zooming unless there was too much light for it to maintain the proper exposure. I will keep testing it. However, I don't think it is an issue with this lens.
 
I'd be interested to hear what the manual focus ring action is like? On the stepless aperture while zooming issue, if you get a chance, try zooming in/out with different aperture settings in manual movie mode. Repeat this in Aperture Priority and Manual mode ( as if shooting stills ). Is there a difference? Cheers
 
AdrianF said:
I'd be interested to hear what the manual focus ring action is like? On the stepless aperture while zooming issue, if you get a chance, try zooming in/out with different aperture settings in manual movie mode. Repeat this in Aperture Priority and Manual mode ( as if shooting stills ). Is there a difference? Cheers
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I think that the manual focus and zooming on the 35-100mm is much better than on the 14-140mm. I had to buy the little zoom lever for the 14-140mm because it wasn't smooth. I tried it on the 35-100mm and it totally wasn't necessary and it actually got in the way more than anything.

I can understand that the price of this lens will make some people shy away. However, the focal range and the fact that it has MUCH better IS than even the 14-140mm is something that must be tempting for some people who want to shoot run and gun.

When I shoot videos at the bigger climbing competitions I always see my friends shooting with 7Ds and their huge and expensive 70-200mm L lenses. Those lenses are actually about the same field of view on the 7D that my 35-200mm is on my GH2 in 16:9 video mode. They are always complaining by the end of the comp how much their arms hurt from holding those big lenses. They are not going to be happy when I show up to the next comp with my tiny little lens that gets roughly the same results.

70-200mm F2.8 lenses.
http://www.dpreview.com/news/2008/5/16/canon70200review
 
Thanks for the update. The zoom motion on the 14-140 isn't really it's strongest point, so glad it seems to have been addressed on this. I was impressed by the size of the lens in your shots, didn't realise it was so small!

If you get a chance to test out the aperture stepping, that would be cool.
 
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