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Panasonic develops Lumix G Vario 14-140mm F3.5-5.6 ASPH. Power OIS

Apr 24, 2013 at 00:00:01 GMT

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Panasonic has created the Lumix G Vario 14-140mm F3.5-5.6 ASPH Power OIS, a second-generation 10x zoom for Micro Four Thirds cameras. The lens offers a smaller, lighter, less-expensive alternative to the original G Vario HD 14-140mm F4.0-5.8 ASPH Mega OIS. The latest version features three aspheric and two ED elements and an internal focus design with linear stepper motors to make the most of the faster focus processing of the latest Micro Four Thirds bodies.

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Press Release
Specifications

Press Release:

A New Compact and Stylish High Zoom Digital Interchangeable Lens

LUMIX G VARIO 14-140mm / F3.5-5.6 ASPH. / POWER O.I.S. (H-FS14140)

April 24, 2013: Panasonic today unveiled a new standard zoom lens LUMIX G VARIO 14-140mm / F3.5-5.6 ASPH. / POWER O.I.S. (H-FS14140) as a new member of LUMIX G digital interchangeable lens. Complying with the Micro Four Thirds System standard, the new lens offers a wide and long zoom range of 14-140mm (35mm camera equivalent: 28-280mm) to suit a large variety of shooting situations yet keeping its profile stylishly compact and lightweight. The lens with this high versatility and mobility can be practically used in a variety of events bringing subjects up close and in shooting impressive portrait with beautifully defocused background.

Comprising of 14 elements in 12 groups, the lens system features three aspherical lenses and two ED (Extra-low Dispersion) lenses to achieve dramatic downsizing despite its powerful 10x optical zoom, while minimizing distortion and chromatic aberration.

The POWER O.I.S. (Optical Image Stabilizer) effectively compensates for not only small, fast movement but also large, slow one making it easy to shoot super clear shots even in low-lit situations such as in night time or indoors.

Incorporating an inner focus drive system and stepping motor, The new LUMIX G VARIO 14-140mm / F3.5-5.6 ASPH. / POWER O.I.S. is capable of smooth, silent operation to work with the camera’s high-speed, high-precision contrast AF system for both photo and video recording. It is also compatible with the sensor drive at max.240 fps to take maximum advantage of cameras with high-speed AF such as DMC-GH3 and the new DMC-G6.

The new LUMIX G VARIO 14-140mm / F3.5-5.6 ASPH. / POWER O.I.S. is built with a highly reliable metal mount, and uses multi-coated lens elements that minimize ghosts. Seven blades give the aperture a rounded shape that produces an attractively smooth defocus effect in out-of-focus areas when shooting at larger aperture settings.

Panasonic Lumix G Vario 14-140mm F3.5-5.6 APSH. Power OIS specifications

Principal specifications
Lens type	Zoom lens
Max Format size	FourThirds
Focal length	14–140 mm
Image stabilisation	Yes (Power OIS)
Lens mount	Micro Four Thirds
Aperture
Maximum aperture	F3.5 - F5.6
Minimum aperture	F22.0
Aperture ring	No
Number of diaphragm blades	7
Optics
Elements	14
Groups	12
Special elements / coatings	3 aspherical elements 2 ED lenses
Focus
Minimum focus	0.30 m (11.81″)
Maximum magnification	0.25×
Autofocus	Yes
Motor type	Stepper motor
Full time manual	Unknown
Focus method	Internal
Physical
Weight	265 g (0.58 lb)
Diameter	67 mm (2.64″)
Length	75 mm (2.95″)
Colour	Black
Zoom method	Rotary (extending)
Filter thread	58 mm
Hood supplied	Yes
Tripod collar	No

LENS NEWS LENS MICRO-FOUR-THIRDS PANASONIC

Panasonic Lumix G Vario 14-140mm F3.5-5.6 ASPH. / Power O.I.S

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Panasonic Lumix G Vario 14-140mm f/3.5-5.6 Lens (Black)●	$698.00	Buy on GearShop
Panasonic Lumix G Vario 14-140mm f/3.5-5.6 Lens (Silver)●	$698.00	Buy on GearShop

Panasonic Lumix G Vario 14-140mm f/3.5-5.6 Lens (Silver)	$698.00
Panasonic Lumix G Vario 14-140mm/f3.5-5.6 Asph./power O.i.s. Lens H-fs14140-k	$675.00
Panasonic Lumix G Vario 14-140mm f/3.5-5.6 Lens (Black)	$675.00
Panasonic Lumix G Vario 14-140mm/f3.5-5.6 Asph./power O.i.s. Lens H-fs14140-s	$771.55
Panasonic Lumix G X Vario PZ 14-42mm/F3.5-5.6 Lens for Panasonic Lumix G-Series Digital Cameras (Black)	$284.00
Panasonic H-HS12035 LUMIX G X VARIO 12-35mm/F2.8 ASPH X Series Lens	Too low to display
Panasonic 14-140mm f/4.0-5.8 OIS Video Optimized Micro Four Thirds Lens for Panasonic Digital SLR Cameras	$497.90
Panasonic LUMIX G VARIO 14-45mm/F3.5-5.6 ASPH./MEGA O.I.S. Lens \| H-FS014045...	$259.85
Panasonic LUMIX G 20mm f/1.7 Aspherical Pancake Lens for Micro Four Thirds Interchangeable Lens Cameras	$399.95
Panasonic H-HS35100 35-100mm Lens for G-Series Lumix Cameras	Too low to display
Panasonic 14-150mm f/3.5-5.6 OIS Four Thirds Lens for Panasonic Digital SLR Cameras	$929.00

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Comments

Total comments: 60

I was interested in the old 14-140, but didn't get it eventually since it was too much of a compromise on every aspect... too expensive, too heavy, worse IQ on both wide/tele ends compared to the 14-42 and 45-200 (which also has a wider tele range), with the only positive thing of not having to swap lenses... but even then, by getting the 45-200 plus another camera like a Pana GF3, it was going to be overall cheaper, lighter, better IQ, and no need of lens swap neither. And hey, you also had a free extra camera!
So I've been hanging on, hoping that a better superzoom lens would come out... maybe this one could be a decent all-purpose travel lens... I'm not really hoping that the IQ could be significantly (or any) better than the old one, but being cheaper and lighter is already quite a lot, so if just the quality didn't drop, it could already be quite good!

1 upvote

it never occurred to me that you can actually buy a new camera AND the 45-200 lens with the 14-140 money. thank you for pointing this out.

the only downside is that you would the need to buy another type of battery (I like to always have a spare battery with me).

Comment edited 21 seconds after posting

0 upvotes

Yeah, the doubling of battery (and chargers to carry around when travelling) and having photos from two memory cards to merge them back later might be a bit annoying... but still this is interesting to consider anyway.

By actually double checking the current figures, the overall weight would be higher with the 45-200 - but considering the new 45-150, we get the same total weight - and prices are still lower if only for a tiny bit (considering a GF5 camera, and today's prices on amazon.co.uk):

Option 1) superzoom lens
Lens 14-140: £575 460g

Option 2) camera + 45-200
Lens 45-200: £240 380g
GF5: £330 267g
Total: £570 647g

Option 3) camera + 45-150
Lens 45-150: £225 200g
GF5: £330 267g
Total: £555 467g

Comment edited 1 minute after posting

0 upvotes

the way i imagined it, one would just buy a new small body like the GX1. this way there will be two 16MP cameras, and you would use the existing 14-42 lens instead of buying another one (anyone considering the 14-140 lens most likely has it anyway).

0 upvotes

Yeah, that's also how I was thinking it (I just assumed the basic kit of first camera + 14-42 lens, in addition to each of the 3 options above - although to be fair the weight of the 14-42 lens should be taken off option 1 since you won't need it with the 14-140 lens).

0 upvotes

When will it be out?

0 upvotes

this is bad. only 47 comments 24 hours after the news of this lens is published. the Sigma f1.8 zoom had a few hundreds. guess which one will DPReview dedicate an in-depth review of and which one will go unmentioned (unless it's part of the G6 review kit, in which case it will get a passing mention).

while the discussion about the Sigma was certainly fun and full of expert level trolling, i'm actually interested in buying the Panasonic lens.

2 upvotes

But c'mon, they are completely different lenses... after all, the Sigma f/1.8 zoom is a quite groundbreaking lens, whereas this Pana 14-140mm is something that exists already in other ways - and as the name says, it's the second (improved, hopefully) version of a lens that already existed before.
Having said that, my interest in the Sigma would probably just remain theoretical (I couldn't justify it for my non-pro use, especially considering the quite limited zoom range, and would rather choose 1-2 fast primes instead), whereas I'm also quite interested in buying this Pana superzoom.

0 upvotes

true, the Sigma is interesting but it doesn't actually matter to me.

i'll just do what i always do: read the amazon product reviews. at least there's no equivalence trolling there.

0 upvotes

Not fast enough for me. I never buy anything slower than f2.8.

0 upvotes

Good luck ever buying a superzoom lens then.

5 upvotes

f/2.8 on 4/3" is still not fast but it's not too slow, either.

2 upvotes

f/2.8 is fast on any system. What it is not as much on m4/3 is shallow. DOF, not brightness, is affected by crop factor.

5 upvotes

> f/2.8 is fast on any system

wrong. think about it again and you should be able to find why yourself.

1 upvote

Smaller, lighter, less expensive are all moves in the right direction. I bet this will sell very well. I'd buy.

5 upvotes

Only if they come with "and improved optically" as well. Otherwise no thanks.

1 upvote

It's probably a similar situation to the 14-45 vs 14-42 - new lens is smaller lighter cheaper but slightly worse IQ, hence the old one continuing to be sold as a slightly more "premium" lens.

0 upvotes

what if it's a case of the 14-42 vs the 14-42 II?

1 upvote

This new lens is shorter (when not zoomed) than Oly 12-50! And just 60g heavier! If only it would be weather-sealed and start from 12mm...

1 upvote

So much lighter... and even a little faster... now they can compete with Oly 14-150. But it should have been 11 or at least 12 at the wide end.
Tamron 14-150 will have a hard time on the market now. :( I hope this will not discourage Tamron from developing further m43 lenses. But again, on 4/3 sensors, 14mm is not nearly wide enough.

0 upvotes

Since when has 28mm equiv been "not nearly wide enough"?

10 upvotes

Reminds me of the MP race. Soon 24mm equiv will be passé.

2 upvotes

28mm is not really wide in 35mm terms. 14mm is wide.

0 upvotes

MPA1 by definition anything between 35mm and 24mm equiv is wide angle, below 24mm is ultrawide. (An ultra wide-angle lens is a lens whose focal length is shorter than the short side of film or sensor).

2 upvotes

On non-MAR 4/3 sensors, 14 mm is about as wide (in width, not diagonal) as 29-30mm 3:2 FF. I often hit even against 24mm.

0 upvotes

This might be a good walking around lens, lighter than the original. Look forward to the tests.

2 upvotes

Wish Panasonic would update the 20 1.7. Keep the optics the same, with a more modern AF motor. I'd pre-order it immediately. Not many really good options for large aperture wide-to-normal lenses in m43 so I'm hoping that the almost perfect 20 1.7 gets a refresh.

8 upvotes

I agree, but I think it still sells well enough that they have no motivation to update it. I'd love to see the internal focusing of the 14/2.5 in a 20mm model. And the optics are great, but if they could do something about the heavy purple fringing that would be nice as well.

1 upvote

The old 14-140mm lenses are now worthless. This version is better in every aspect but not really what I am lookibg for.

2 upvotes

But how do they compare on sharpness?

1 upvote

the MTF charts seem to indicate that the sharpness is slightly lower but more evenly distributed. however, i'd like to see real world performance. it still looks better than my 14-42mm lens, though.

Comment edited 60 seconds after posting

2 upvotes

I have the old 14-140 and it is very sharp. I also have the two power X zooms and they are a challenge, although they are very light and quite handy for video. And since the old 14-140 is not bad for video (admittedly it lacks smooth power zoom) maybe we should wait to see how the new power OIS version tests for sharpness before celebrating the death of the old version. Remember the 14-45 ...

6 upvotes

i'm actually more concerned about the glass itself. the old version had more elements. now, either it was overdesigned, or the new design is considered "good enough".

2 upvotes

Am I missing something?

What's the fundamental difference between this lens and the previous version?

OK it's got fewer groups/elements, faster aperture, and it's cheaper? But what else?

Has this cheaper price come as a result of lower performance do you think?

Or d'ya reckon they were simply able to make cost savings because it's basically the same design as the previous lens with a few tweaks? Or perhaps the original lens was overpriced to begin with??

1 upvote

apparently the OIS is twice as effective.

2 upvotes

It also weighs half as much. It'd make a great hiking lens.

2 upvotes

it is said that this new lens is designed to be compatible with the GH3 and the G6 in therms of 240 FPS shooting and focusing speed. so i'm assuming that it will be faster than the old version on these bodies.

0 upvotes

It is MUCH lighter. The older one is pretty heavy. This new one lost abaout 200g ! And it is much cheaper.

In short: This is the MFT-Lens i was waiting for.

0 upvotes

beautiful .. and versatile .. Panny!

I would still demand 24-100mm FE F2.8 lens!!!

2 upvotes

a side-by-side review with images and movie clips would be ideal in this case. any word on when it should reach the market?

Comment edited 49 seconds after posting

1 upvote

should half the price of the current 14-140 and save the review for a future, better one.

2 upvotes

Inceribly slow glass for such small sensor.

6 upvotes

It ends up being about an effective stop slower on the wide end and about a half stop slower on the telephoto end. I'd hardly call that incredibly slow, at least compared to a comparable APS-C superzoom. But if you care about whether or not glass is fast or slow, why bother commenting on superzooms in the first place? That's like complaining that a zebra has stripes.

20 upvotes

it has very small apertures and thus is slow.
no need to look at the sensor.

the speed, light gathering capability at a certain AoV is decided by the aperture size (in mm, not f-number which is irrelevant) only, together with all the photographic effects that are controlled by the aperture, like DoF and diffraction, across all the formats.

Comment edited 3 times, last edit 2 minutes after posting

1 upvote

yabokkie: DoF of this glass on 4/3 format is similar to 7-11 on fullframe. If the price is $100 then it doesn't matter, .. .

1 upvote

not only DoF but everything, every photographic result we can get in the output image that's controlled by the aperture.

since there is near two stop difference in aperture size, there will be near two stop difference in price. this is not very accurate because there are other factors though.

Comment edited 4 minutes after posting

1 upvote

So what? If you look at the image quality of the 14-140 v1 it had far better sharpness, CA and distortion than any other tested APS superzoom at any aperture. But the physical dimension of the aperture is the only metric of image quality for you right?

11 upvotes

It's also a small lens, you dolt.

3 upvotes

@Dolan and Zinedi!
Slower how come .. compative to the predecessor its faster on both wider angle and tele end!!

0 upvotes

Perhaps it's because too many "photographers" simply post images online these days, but nobody considers print sizes (and specifically their aspect ratios) when discussing equivalence (or crop factor.) I like to print 8x10 and 11x14 images a lot. Using those aspect ratios (both of which are squarer even than m4/3), the effective crop factor (ratio of diagonal of sensor area actually used) between a Canon APS-C and m4/3 is just 1.14x. That makes this equivalent (in FOV and DOF) to a 16-160mm f/4-6.3 on a Canon APS-C. On a Nikon (or Sony, etc.) APS-C, it's a little worse, being equivalent to a 17-170mm f/4.2-6.8, but still not particularly bad. Now, if you prefer 11x17 (or obviously 4x6) or some other more rectangular format, then that changes (GH2's multi-aspect ratio sensor helps there.) Without knowing the end use, it's hard to compare native 2:3 images with native 3:4 images.

0 upvotes

I was hoping for an X version of the 14-140.

1 upvote

me too, and higher resolution.

0 upvotes

if you don't care about AF-C, you can try the old leica 14-150mm f3.5-5.6.

0 upvotes

Where does it say the price?

3 upvotes

nearly half the weight is good, and I like the improved materials, but I have to wonder how it will perform with the trifecta of lower price, smaller size and brighter aperture

2 upvotes

i'm a little suspicious about it myself.
on one hand, maybe they reused some of the R&D data from the f2.8 zooms, and were able to save on costs. this would be a good scenario.
on the other hand, maybe the image quality is worse than the old 14-140, but they are marketing it to people who were put off by the price. the fact that it's being called an "alternate" and not a "replacement" seems to indicate this.

speaking of price, what does " less-expensive alternative to the original G Vario HD 14-140mm F4.0-5.8 ASPH Mega OIS" mean exactly? because the MSRP/official Panasonic price for that lens is about $850, but you can get it for $670 from Amazon. if "less expensive" means a launch price of $670-$700, then it will not be much of a deal initially.

in any case, it looks like it will need yet another set of filters (58mm).

Comment edited 2 times, last edit 13 minutes after posting

3 upvotes

Interesting to see that Panasonic managed a slightly larger aperture, lower weight (460g to 265g) and intends to lower the price. Olympus recently did something similar (in terms of cost and performance at least) with the 75-300mm telephoto lens. Definitely good news for all M4/3 system users!

8 upvotes

Well the previous 14-140mm was more of a video oriented lens(hence being the standard kit option on the GH1/2). All of this would be impressive if this is still is video focused(i.e. quiet AF).

1 upvote

The press release seems to think it will still be quiet:

"Incorporating an inner focus drive system and stepping motor, The new LUMIX G VARIO 14-140mm / F3.5-5.6 ASPH. / POWER O.I.S. is capable of smooth, silent operation to work with the camera’s high-speed, high-precision contrast AF system for both photo and video recording."

2 upvotes

Must due to some improvement in stepping motor design. The 1st generation 14-140 was designed alongside 1st generation EVIL/mirrorless. They must have figure out some tweaks over the past few years.

2 upvotes

Total comments: 60

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