Loving new Panasonic 35-100mm f2.8

As someone who has owned and used the 24-70mm f2.8 / 70-200mm f2.8 combo in Nikon, Canon, and Sony Alpha mounts I've been eagerly awaiting the arrival of the Panasonic 35-100mm f2.8 to complete my equivalent kit on m43.

This duo of lenses will cover almost any situation, but the big 70-200mm f2.8 in full frame systems was always such a big, heavy beast.

So you can imagine my delight when the small, light & beautifully crafted Panasonic 35-100mm arrived yesterday. When I put the 12-35, the 35-100, and the Olympus OM-D into a small camera bag and picked it up it was incredibly light!

I had a little over an hour or so of light left to take pictures and my initial impressions are overwhelmingly positive. The lens focuses very fast and completely silently. Both the zoom and focus rings feel just right. And the image quality when I got home really exceeded my expectations.

The pictures below could be improved with some minor post-processing, but I am posting the straight out of camera jpgs since that's probably the preference of people looking to evaluate the lens.

And please ... do pixel peep!



Thank you for posting your impressions and pictures. It is a lens I am interested in also.

Nice shots. Looks like a great lens. Did you get it in the US?

Bruce

Thanks.  My wife & I are both photographers and are bad at sharing, so I actually ordered two that both arrived yesterday.

One came from Panacam via Amazon -- Hong Kong seller that I've used twice now and had two good experiences.  The other came from Roberts Camera in Michigan via Amazon -- another good shop that I recommend.

Nice set of initial photos from this new lens.  It is great to hear that you are enjoying this lens.  Hopefully sometime next year I will buy this lens and the 12-35 to pair up with it.

Dave

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Hi,

Thanks for sharing your view on the lens and the samples, this will be to great help.

Br

Steen

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Steen
dotweb.dk
EF 24-70 2.8 L / EF 70-200 2.8 L / EF 100-400 4.5 L / EF 24-105 4.0 L/1D Mark IV / 60D /Tamron 17-55mm 2.8 / SLIK 700 pro AMT/Olympus gear E-1/E-3

Thanks for posting the images! It certainly looks like a great lens.

I have the 12-35 and love the lens so was going to buy the 35-100 however I already had the 45 1.8 and the 100-300 so decided to go with the 75 1.8 instead of another zoom.

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This will be my next lens. That is if Olympus doesn't come out with the rumored 17mm 1.8 beforehand. 

Cool set of images. Thanks for posting. I am loving my 35-100mm as well. Just curious why only one of them was taken at F2.8 though. Isn't the point of this lens over the 14-140mm that it can shoot below F4.0?

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GH2, GF1, & ZS3 Sample movies
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GH2 Setup Walk through
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GH2 Pictures
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Seems like it might have been kind of bright.  He's got some pretty fast shutter speeds all @ ISO 200.

But I concur with your sentiments... the lens is useful because of its speed where the other zooms would fear to tread.

Nice, on my to get list. When I got the 12-35 I waswondering if it would be that much better than my other alternatives but it was and this  lens is appearing to be the same.

Like your shots a beautiful setting...

Bill

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Bill Wallace
http://bwallace.zenfolio.com/
"Mister I ain't a boy no I'm a man
And I believe in a promised land"....

Thanks.  It's my habit with any lens on any camera to usually shoot around one stop down from fully open where most lenses are near their optical peak performance.

This way I avoid most of the common problems so many lenses have wide open (vignetting, soft corners, reduced contrast, spherical aberration, chromatic aberration, etc.)

So, for me, a slower zoom like the Olympus 40-150mm (which I think is a terrific lens) is usually shot at f8 on a sunny day.

Of course this is just a rule of thumb -- in low light, where highest possible shutter speeds are desired, or where minimum depth of field is desired I'll use a lens wide open.

A new picture from today at f2.8 for those looking for wide open samples.

First a straight from the camera jpg and then a 100% crop from that image.

This is my wife trying out hernew 35-100.

(no idea why the first picture is rotated -- it's right side up in the gallery)

Nice images  Wondering if you are finding this lens has more CA on the OMD than an Olympus lens would produce?

Most Panasonic M43 lenses (at any aperture) have noticeable  CA, but it's corrected for  in camera on Panasonic bodies via software.  But not in Olympus.   It's not noticeable unless you enlarge the  image and it can be removed in post-processing, but for high quality work, it's easier and better not to have it.  But it depends on the quality grade of the lens. For example  I experience this CA with the Panasonic 14-24, though  people have told me this is less CA than on lower grand Panasonic lenses.   On the other hand  I've found the Panasonic Leica lenses do not have much CA on an OMD body.  Sounds like this is a high end lens for Panasonic, though not  Leica grade.

http://www.43rumors.com/ft4-christmas-present-17mm-f1-8-to-hit-stores-in-december-for-550-euro/

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OM-D for sale; see classifieds forum.

I haven't seen any noticeable CA with the 35-100mm.  But I've only been shooting it for two days.

What nice images.

I'm tossing up between this and selling the 12-50 and keeping my 12,45, and 75mm. The Pana will be used on holidays and such when I don't have time to swap out my primes.

So the big question. Is it worth the $1500 price tag?

A fine lens.

Seems to be as sharp as my Canon 70-200 2.8 IS L (It's not the MkII, though). Which means, not tack sharp at full zoom and wide open, but sharp enough. And the 35-100 is new about the same money the big Canon lens costs used nowadays.

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Anyone use a UV filter with this lens?

I would try to put those all practices aside and give wide open a chance. The problem is that most people just ASSUME that it should be stopped down at least a stop instead of actually testing it.

The 35-100mm F2.8 has no problems with "vignetting, soft corners, reduced contrast, spherical aberration, chromatic aberration, etc". Lenses like the 14-140mm, 25mm F1.4, and 45-200mm do.

Yes it will sharpen up slightly at F4.0. However, it is not perceptible in normal viewing. You have paid an extra $1000 to get an F2.8 lens. I suggest using it for what it is designed to do. That is work extremely well at F2.8.

Also F8.0 is only the best choice for the 14-42mm lens. That lens is less than stellar even at F8.0 though. Diffraction will start to have a much greater affect at F8.0 than any sharpening of the lens.

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GH2, GF1, & ZS3 Sample movies
http://www.youtube.com/user/mpgxsvcd#play/uploads
GH2 Setup Walk through
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uROQbbiiO2I
http://vimeo.com/user442745
GH2 Pictures
http://www.dpreview.com/galleries/4222674355/albums