Is Lumix 12-75mm/F2.5-3.3 HD OIS really on the way?

Nityananda_SCSMath said:
Where have people even heard about this lens? I read a lot of blogs but I've only ever heard about this particular description (12-75 f/2.5-3.3) of the Panasonic mentioned "bright zoom" from individuals, maybe I missed it on 43rumors?

I also appreciate the lens suggestions but there's a ton of threads for those, I would like to hear some more info about where these rumors about 12-75 are coming from...
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If you're just curious, that's one thing. However, if you're interested because you'd really like to have this lens and can hardly wait for it to become a reality you may want to take a deep breath. Because it would probably be a year (or more) from the time Panasonic made an official announcement until you could have one in your hands. I just got my 100-300 and it was about that long from the time Panny announced it until it actually shipped to the US.

All that said, the lens you're describing sounds like it may be a pipe dream.
 
As far as I know, the idea of a 12-75 2.5-3.3 is a pipe dream that was dreamed up on a rumor site and then just keeps getting repeated and repeated. But AFAIK the company has never said anything about any such lens. If you need that range, remember Olympus already has a 12-60 2.8-4.0 on the market.
 
richtrav said:
Well I just got the 2nd 14-50 Pan/Leica in and it doesn't focus accurately either. So either I have 2 bad copies of a 14-50 (which both focus perfectly on the L1 by the way) or Panasonic needs to update the firmware on the G2/GH2 or for the lens or remove it from their list of compatible lenses for the G2/GH2. A shame too because the images you get with manual focus are nice, even wide open
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Well I'm gonna have to eat my own words, I don't know what I did but the 2nd lens now works with AF on the GH2. It's still not fast, about what you'd expect from a phase-detect lens using contrast-detect, but it has been very accurate so far tonight. Will test it outside tomorrow.
 
Nityananda_SCSMath said:
Where have people even heard about this lens? I read a lot of blogs but I've only ever heard about this particular description (12-75 f/2.5-3.3) of the Panasonic mentioned "bright zoom" from individuals, maybe I missed it on 43rumors?

I also appreciate the lens suggestions but there's a ton of threads for those, I would like to hear some more info about where these rumors about 12-75 are coming from...
Click to expand...

From what I remember those specs came from some Japanese blogger listing his dream u4/3 lens. This was picked up by a rumor site and it became a "rumor." But other than the one slide from some conference saying a bright zoom was under consideration, I'm not aware of any substantive information about such a lens or even any rumors that are actually rumors and not just somebody's wish list.

Of course, with the Af100 presumably creating a larger base of u4/3 users willing to pay for a higher-end lens, you'd think they would make something like this. An updated version of the PanaLeica 14-50 f/2.8-3.5 with a u4/3 mount and video optimization would be great, and I don't see any reason why it would need to cost tons more than the original. But who knows...
 
richtrav said:
Well I'm gonna have to eat my own words, I don't know what I did but the 2nd lens now works with AF on the GH2. It's still not fast, about what you'd expect from a phase-detect lens using contrast-detect, but it has been very accurate so far tonight. Will test it outside tomorrow.
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I looked into that lens a while back but found several clips of some less-than-optimum manual focus characteristics -- e.g. the entire image would zoom in and out pretty significantly while focusing. Is that also what you're getting? Thanks.
 
mountainradio said:
I looked into that lens a while back but found several clips of some less-than-optimum manual focus characteristics -- e.g. the entire image would zoom in and out pretty significantly while focusing. Is that also what you're getting? Thanks.
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Hmm, you're talking about manual focus? If anything that first copy would stick slightly and it would be hard to turn the focus ring, mostly at 50mm. But no, when you turned the focus ring it did a pretty good job of letting you focus accurately, there was no exaggerated jumping in or out, maybe the ring gets stickier and harder to turn as it ages, which could be a source of the AF issues too. And one other thing, the first copy at least loved to stay zoomed in MF mode even if you weren't touching the focus ring.

If you had money to burn it would be fun to try out the predecessor to the 14-140, the old 14-150. It is faster than the 14-140 (I think it stays at f/3.5 from 14-18mm, is at f/4.7 or so at 50mm and finally goes to f/5.6 around 70mm), it has the silent focus motor, can use contast-detect AF, is supposed to be sharp all the way to 150, and got rave reviews when it came out. Only down side is the price tag, all on ebay right now are over $1000
 
richtrav said:
Hmm, you're talking about manual focus? If anything that first copy would stick slightly and it would be hard to turn the focus ring, mostly at 50mm. But no, when you turned the focus ring it did a pretty good job of letting you focus accurately, there was no exaggerated jumping in or out, maybe the ring gets stickier and harder to turn as it ages, which could be a source of the AF issues too. And one other thing, the first copy at least loved to stay zoomed in MF mode even if you weren't touching the focus ring.

If you had money to burn it would be fun to try out the predecessor to the 14-140, the old 14-150. It is faster than the 14-140 (I think it stays at f/3.5 from 14-18mm, is at f/4.7 or so at 50mm and finally goes to f/5.6 around 70mm), it has the silent focus motor, can use contast-detect AF, is supposed to be sharp all the way to 150, and got rave reviews when it came out. Only down side is the price tag, all on ebay right now are over $1000
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Here's what I was talking about, fwiw. Probably not an issue in terms of getting accurate manual focus, but would obviously not work for rack focusing.
 
Are you constantly pushing down on the shutter to focus? The hunting is pretty normal for lenses that don't have contrast-detect capabilities. If you're interested this is what my "good" 14-50 does when focusing in video mode. Note when it's very quiet you can hear the noise of the OIS

If you're interested, here are some tests for 24o: http://www.mediafire.com/?3p45q1trg5sbas1 and the faster 60i: http://www.mediafire.com/?yv4htc95phbhna6

Again, this isn't abnormal for a lens that is only designed for phase-detect focusing.
 
They said it was "under consideration". But again, there's already two fast bright zooms on the market, the Olympus, which are a heck of a lot faster than anything you can get on Nikon or Canon. It's not like there's a gaping hole in the marketplace. There's an f/2 14-35, an f/2 35-100, and an f/2.8-3.5 12-60 out there already (if you'll use the 4/3 to m4/3 adapter).
 
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