Comparing Pana 12-35mm zoom to some primes

Hello,

in the German "Olympus forum" we hat a discussion whether the Panasonic 12-35 zoom can deliver IQ similar to prime lenses.

I decided to boost the discussion with some sample pictures.
I think these pictures could be of some interest in the English forum too, so here they are.

First a practical exercise:
I borrowed the 12mm prime from a friend (thank you Franz) and did a landscape at 12mm.
Pana 12-35/f2.8 @2.8 and Oly 12mm/f2.0 @2.8.

Panasonic 12-35 @f2.8

Olympus 12mm @f2.8

Now some theoretical pictures:

100% crops from a test chart, center and upper left corner.

• At 12mm: Pana12-35mm, Oly12mm, Oly9-18mm
• At 25mm: Pana12-35mm, PanaLeica25mm, Oly 14-150mm
• At 35mm: Pana12-35, Oly 35mm Macro
  

At 12mm: Pana12-35mm, Oly12mm, Oly9-18mm

At 25mm: Pana12-35mm, PanaLeica25mm, Oly 14-150mm

At 35mm: Pana12-35, Oly 35mm Macro

You see, the old FT Macro rules!!

And now something very theoretical (in my opinion):
100% crops from RAW files without any correction, full barrel distortion and CA.

Uncorrected RAW file screenshots

Here ist my personal conclusion from these tests:

The zoom has quite good sharpness and contrast. In practical use it is hard to distinguish from the 12mm prime or the other primes. Only the purple fringing in the trees shows that we are using a zoom lens.

Stopped down the IQ looks very similar, for example Oly 12@f2.0 and Pana12-35@2.8. I think I can live with the zoom lens, loosing only one step of aperture while having similar IQ.

What do you think?

Christof