Why do all the small standard kit zoom start at f3.5 (Rant!)

Paulmorgan said:

Irrespective of max aperture lenses bolted on to compacts are generally pretty cheaply made using materials that would not last 5 minutes if used in a stand alone lens.

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Of course, I don't know what the G1XII lens is like inside if it was to be disassembled, but certainly the camera feels like a quality product. More so than a Panasonic G7 or GX7, for example. Granted, feeling can be misleading. Also, I will note that the expensive Olympus 12-40mm f2.8 has been shown to be of so-so construction quality:

https://www.mu-43.com/threads/56256/

The lens mount is screwed into plastic. :-(

LarsPolarBear said:

Fri13 said:

12-40mm PRO is "A KIT LENS" and it was designed to be such...

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well, that is the reason why my thread reads: "...SMALL standard kit ...", the Pro is anything but small and it does not sell as kit for most Oly m4/3...

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It sells as Kit for E-M1/5/5II. Not with any PEN (E-PL5/6/7 or E-P5) or E-M10/II.

And the 12-40mm PRO is small! It isn't small like a 25mm f/1.8 or 14-42mm EZ collapsed, but it is extremely small when compared to 24-70mm Canon or Nikon and doesn't lose at all in image or build quality.

So compared to what it is, it is small.

Or we can start comparing even m4/3 pancakes to microfilm cameras objectives..... Size is relative...

LarsPolarBear said:

I am a little annoyed that all the small zoom kit lenses start at only f3.5.

Oly 14-42 EZ f3.5-5.5

Oly 14-42 RII f3.5-5.6

Pana 12-32 f3.5-5.6

Pana 14-42 PS f3.5-5.6

etc. ....

If you look at e.g. the Canon G1x Mark II, it has a larger sensor (1.5") than the m4/3 format, a larger zoom range 24mm-120mm (12-60 in m4/3 terms) with a light sensitivity of f2.0 - 3.5 and the whole package is very small. That would be a lens that I could get excited about.... :-x

Don't get me wrong, I love my E-PL7 and how it works in comparison with the Canon (yes, I like my AF to work in low light...) and the ability to put a large zoom on it, but I think Oly and Pana have to do an effort on the small standard zooms. There are so many fast small lenses now available on the 1" sensor format that I am having problems to believe that it would be not possible to do the same or similar on a m4/3 format and still be cost efficient...

well just my thoughts...

Lars

End of rant...

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The larger the aperture, the larger the lens - if you want the kit lens to be small, then you get a small aperture, you want a fast aperture, then you get a lens like the f2.8 pro lenses...

Lenses like the Canon G1X's can get off with better specifications because they are built in - remove the need for the lens mount and communications, integrate the lens with the body and other pieces of the camera and you get a compact lens with a high spec, add those factors back in and we end up back with the lenses above - small with a slow aperture, or bulkier but fast.

Make the sensor smaller and you can gain yourself even more leeway in the design, hence the 1" cameras. There is a reason why the FX1000 is the size it is with the f.8 lens, while even the comparably shorter range of the Canon or Nikon 70-200mm f2.8's are the sizes they are.

--
www.flickr.com/photos/narcosynthesis
www.illaname.deviantart.com

The answer is simple: because they are - for that sensor size - small. So, why the rant?

I still think marketing:

12 (or 14) to 40/45mm

f3.5-f5.6 cheap

f2.8- f4 (ala Fuji) ~$500

f2.8-f2.8 ~$1000

Would they sell any f2.8-2.8 lenses in this setup?

For example the 14-45 and 14-42mk2 Panasonic lenses are very good, the constant 2.8 lenses are a little faster at wide and 2 stops faster at tele end and a little better (yeah I tested). Putting a lens in between will absolutely diminish (or kill) sales of the hi end. I GUESS they make a nice profit on the Hi end ones and that f2.8-f4 lenses are only marginally cheaper to produce.

And would they sell more cameras with an f2.8-4 kit lens that is $300-400 more expensive?

LarsPolarBear said:

I am a little annoyed that all the small zoom kit lenses start at only f3.5.

Oly 14-42 EZ f3.5-5.5

Oly 14-42 RII f3.5-5.6

Pana 12-32 f3.5-5.6

Pana 14-42 PS f3.5-5.6

etc. ....

If you look at e.g. the Canon G1x Mark II, it has a larger sensor (1.5") than the m4/3 format, a larger zoom range 24mm-120mm (12-60 in m4/3 terms) with a light sensitivity of f2.0 - 3.5 and the whole package is very small. That would be a lens that I could get excited about.... :-x

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Why not look at LX100 it has a 24-75 f/1.7-2.8, much brighter than G1X-II, shorter but smaller and 30% lighter, both at similar price in my city.

Dear friend, I expect you aware that both of the lenses of LX100 and G1X are tailor made and would be totally difference if they are redesign for ICL uses. It's not a problem of Panny not to produce a small and fast lenses. Looking at Canon, its EOS-M lenses are also not able to be as small as the one on G1X.

LarsPolarBear said:

Don't get me wrong, I love my E-PL7 and how it works in comparison with the Canon (yes, I like my AF to work in low light...) and the ability to put a large zoom on it, but I think Oly and Pana have to do an effort on the small standard zooms. There are so many fast small lenses now available on the 1" sensor format that I am having problems to believe that it would be not possible to do the same or similar on a m4/3 format and still be cost efficient...

well just my thoughts...

Lars

End of rant...

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I had been enjoying my Sigma 17-70/2.8-4 for too long, bright and useful zoom range. Sadly the closest lens that mFT has to that is the Olympus 12-50 and it is not bright or very good. That, and the fact that APS IQ is better, is why when I never used my mFTs for more important work.

If only someone will make something like the Sigma I have for my APS I will be very happy.

Fri13 said:

12-40mm PRO is "A KIT LENS" and it was designed to be such...

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No, it really isn't.

The 12-50 was the kit lens for the E-M5. It's not entirely typical -- it's weather-sealed, large for M4/3. But it's not fast and it's not particularly good.

The E-M1 and E-M5 II don't have kit lenses. Look on the Olympus USA site, and you'll see they are sold as body-only.

You're confusing a sales bundle with a kit. Olympus or 3rd party sellers occasionally offer deals where you get a big discount on a lens with a body; that doesn't mean that whatever lens you buy in that deal becomes a "kit lens."

Fri13 said:

PLEASE! Stop claims and believes that "kit lens" is synonym to cheap/bad objective!

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Let's not stop, because that's a reasonable assumption.

Kit lenses are cheap -- by design. A few are bad. Most aren't particularly robust. Most are not particularly fast, have some flaws that won't bother a casual photographer (e.g. softer corners, more distortion when wide open).

These days, most are actually pretty good-- for what they are.

Fri13 said:

Even dpreview staff doesn't understand what is a "kit lens" as they even have difficulties to write about new Leica 28-90mm with SL as they needed to quote the 'kit lens' as it wouldn't be so bad....

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They were being sarcastic. Hence the scare quotes.

I agree. They need a compact zoom with a faster aperture.

LarsPolarBear said:

From my understanding the camera unit and the lens units are also being produced separately at compact manufacturing and only put together at the end, while at ILS they stay apart, meaning it is actually from the production setup probably more difficult to produce a compact.

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I was envisioning a single unit consisting of a lens with a sensor at the end of it (and I think I saw a teardown once that showed something like that - not for the G1x, but an older camera) ... but that doesn't mean they're produced together. The optical elements are certainly going to be produced elsewhere and probably other parts manufactured somewhere other than where the're all assembled. But when you look at the combined assembly, I think the compact is still a single, self-contained unit with no bayonet mount, electronic contacts (on both mount and lens), bayonet release mechanism, focus and zoom rings on the lens ... (I know the G1x has a control ring around the lens and also, I believe, filter threads, so it's not as cheaply made as the average compact).

LarsPolarBear said:

However, your point was rather the construction, which boils down - in simplified terms -to designing a bayonet onto the lens end that would not fall off and make the plastic a little thicker here and there... doesn't sound impossible to me...

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I agree that it's not impossible ... I just think that the size and cost are both going to be greater than a G1X would suggest.

I'm all for it, myself ... My cameras are a Nikon D7000 (where my midrange zoom is the older 16-85/3.5-5.6 but I don't use that particular lens so much any more), an A6000 (with the usual, dull 18-55/3.5-5.6 which also doesn't get much use) and an RX100. (I also have a Nikon 1 J1 w/kit lens, but I bought that used, recently, just to put in an underwater housing that I bought for $70 on clearance ! All of the midrange zooms are uninspiringly slow enough that I just tend to use my RX100 instead. I mostly only shoot the ILCs with faster lenses.

There are options, of course, but they get a little big and/or expensive. (For the A6000, the 16-70/4 has nice specs and isn't terribly big, but isn't small, either, and is quite expensive for its performance). In film days, you used to find affordable compact 2X zooms like 24-50/4 or 35-70/4 (and that was with available technology 25 years ago).

LarsPolarBear said:

Further more, with each new generation of smartphone cameras it gets more difficult to sell cameras.

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Speaking of competing with phones ... I bought my daughter an FZ200 to replace her broken ZS25, then took a look around for an affordable "bang around" compact to carry places where none of us wants to risk a "good" camera. I looked at the Canon line and coiuldn't believe the lens specs ... the Elph line has 1/2.3" sensors with f/3.6-7 zooms ! It's like they're not even trying to compete with phones.

LarsPolarBear said:

Saying "the others don't have it either", is like being on the Titanic and looking at the person standing next to you and saying

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Agreed ... my point in saying that was to sort of pile onto the manufacturers, saying they all ought to do something in this area, particularly as sensors get smaller. APS-C with f/3.5-5.6 is sort of an established standard, and it's unlikely they'll get faster without getting bigger, more expensive or dropping the zoom range. But micro 4/3 ought to have a little room to design for the slightly smaller sensor (as illustrated by the G1X) and Nikon 1 ought to have even more room to make a faster lens.

LarsPolarBear said:

Ok, enough ranting, let's go out and shoot some photos with the lenses that we have and enjoy them.

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I've had a few too-busy weekends lately, but two "social" events this weekend that will give me a chance to do some fun shooting

Nice chatting with you, Lars !

- Dennis
--
Gallery at http://kingofthebeasts.smugmug.com

Wuite easy to answer in my view. A camera body without a lens is harder to sell than one with some kind of lens. So the manufacturer has to have a cheap lens so it is still a low price and a package one can start with.
Then there is the rest of the lens range that they want to sell. If the kit lens is to good there are no aftersales and the distinction between the kit lens and the more expensive lenses is to small.

So many brands balanse their kitlenses at f/3.5 but of course f/3.5 in a olympus camera (cropfactor 2) does not give you the same end result as a f/3.5 on a canonikonsony full frame camera. But the beginner doesn't know that.

So in the end it's a matter of marketing.

koprol said:

So many brands balanse their kitlenses at f/3.5 but of course f/3.5 in a olympus camera (cropfactor 2) does not give you the same end result as a f/3.5 on a canonikonsony full frame camera. But the beginner doesn't know that.

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Beginners and casual users have no idea what an f/stop is in the first place.

In order: cost, cost, cost, size, cost.

Because people are zoom-centric they insist on them and since most cameras are entry to mid-level the kit lens must fit with the program by being small and cheap. Sadly, it's generally the only lens the camera will ever see. They're generally decent but they can't exploit the camera's potential.

I recall Oly selling kits (E-M5/10?) with the 25/1.8 in a nod to the classic nifty fifty sold with every SLR. IMHO that's a better way to showcase the camera than a slow zoom of modest range.

Cheers,

Rick

Dennis said:

I agree that it's not impossible ... I just think that the size and cost are both going to be greater than a G1X would suggest.

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And on that note, it occurred to me that there is a precedent ... the 12-40/2.8.

Certainly not as cheap or small as the lens on the Canon G1x, and not a viable "better kit lens". On the other hand, as an APS-C user who has looked at m43 (as well as FF) as possible future alternatives, the 12-40/2.8 seems like a really good alternative. A very nice blend of speed, size, weight, performance, price. In the same price range as the Sony 16-70/4 with less range, but a full stop faster (which, given the performance of recent m43 bodies is more than sufficient to compensate for a smaller sensor) ... and likely a faster focusing as well as better performing (optically) lens.

I think what a lot of people would like, for a variety of platforms, is the "in between" lenses ... better than kit but cheaper/smaller than "pro". The classic f/4 zooms (or f/2.8-4).

Leica also has you covered with the new 24-90/2.8-4 for the SL

- Dennis
--
Gallery at http://kingofthebeasts.smugmug.com

Reading some of these comments about how unbelievably slow f3.5 is makes me chuckle. Sure, that's only at the wide end, but as far as I know from my previous kit lens use, that's where they are best wide open anyway.

As far as actual T-stops, the kit zooms are probably not much slower than the 12-40 wide open at the wide end.

The point of a kit zoom is to have something basic and cheap to throw on a camera body. Personally, I found my MFT kit lenses to be pretty decent when that was my only option.

When you buy a higher end zoom lens, you aren't just paying for speed, you're paying for a whole feature set, as well as better performance wide open. Also, these comparisons about price for the EZ kit lens seem silly, as that lens was created to sell with a premium on size/compactness more than anything else, so of course it costs more than it's optical properties alone would suggest.

Would it be nice if there were cheaper, better, faster lenses around for MFT? Sure. But I don't really see things in MFT land to be far off from the reality of any other camera systems, or find the current kit situation to be untenable by any means.

Just my rant.

Wally

LarsPolarBear said:

I am a little annoyed that all the small zoom kit lenses start at only f3.5.

Oly 14-42 EZ f3.5-5.5

Oly 14-42 RII f3.5-5.6

Pana 12-32 f3.5-5.6

Pana 14-42 PS f3.5-5.6

etc. ....

If you look at e.g. the Canon G1x Mark II, it has a larger sensor (1.5") than the m4/3 format, a larger zoom range 24mm-120mm (12-60 in m4/3 terms) with a light sensitivity of f2.0 - 3.5 and the whole package is very small. That would be a lens that I could get excited about.... :-x

Don't get me wrong, I love my E-PL7 and how it works in comparison with the Canon (yes, I like my AF to work in low light...) and the ability to put a large zoom on it, but I think Oly and Pana have to do an effort on the small standard zooms. There are so many fast small lenses now available on the 1" sensor format that I am having problems to believe that it would be not possible to do the same or similar on a m4/3 format and still be cost efficient...

well just my thoughts...

Lars

End of rant...

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Quite a poor rant IMO. The first thing I'll mention is that the LX100 stomps all over the G1X II from virtually every perspective I can think of.



It's just a better camera from an IQ and usability perspective, based on every review I've read. It's also smaller physically and faster at the wide angle.

The G1X II sensor and the LX100 sensor are both marginally smaller than the MFT sensor.

Now for the technical reason why compact (i.e. fixed lens) zooms can have faster wide angles in a smaller package. It has something to do with the FFD (flange focal distance) of compact cameras.

Camera manufacturers can bring the lens as arbitrarily close to the sensor as they want in compacts, which apparently allows them to more easily make the wide angle zoom faster in a smaller package. Look at the RX100 series for a prime example of this. ILC's still seem to be able to make small primes fast (e.g. the 20mm), just not zooms.

You should also note that the G1X II aperture drops off drastically and quickly as you zoom in. It's not exactly a fast lens overall, just at 24mm eq.

If you want a compact, then buy a compact camera. No need to rant about it. For me personally, I prefer interchangeable lenses. There are always trade-offs.


Edit: There are IQ quality tradeoffs to having a short FFD, so it's not exactly a panacea. There are good reasons why ILC's use longer FFDs.

[No message]

Maybe this is more an Olympus then Panasonic problem. AFAIK and from the lenses that I used and tried, non of the Olympus kit lenses were very brilliant. But the Panasonic 14-45 14-42mk2 and 12-32 are really nice lenses and I have no problem shooting with them all the time. Even the 14-42mk1 I had was almost as good as the 14-45 (little better in the mid range a little worse on the tele side). That might explain why Olympus users are so happy with the 12-40 cause when I compared it to my 14-45 it was almost identical except the speed and size of course. Even my friend, the owner of the 12-40 I tried, admitted that when we compared them it was to close to warrant the expense (and he already spent it....). But compared to his 12-50 or 14-42 mk2 Oly it was a big step up.

No harm or battle intended :-D

Peace

Frasier Kane nails it (IMO) with the short FFD. I'm sure the need to support different lens designs precludes a shorter distance on interchangeable lens cameras.

To start another rant, I don't mind the F3.5 at the wide end, it's the F5.6 at the long end that bugs me. Give me a F3.5 - F4.0 zoom.

SpinOne said:

Fri13 said:

12-40mm PRO is "A KIT LENS" and it was designed to be such...

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No, it really isn't.

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*sigh*

SpinOne said:

The 12-50 was the kit lens for the E-M5. It's not entirely typical -- it's weather-sealed, large for M4/3. But it's not fast and it's not particularly good.

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It was on the begin as there was no 12-40mm PRO available at the time. Not until E-M1 was released. Then Olympus re-released "E-M5 PRO" kit that had E-M5 + 12-40mm as kit.

And the 12-50mm is a good one, except for pixel peepers who have no realities what is bad and what is good.

SpinOne said:

The E-M1 and E-M5 II don't have kit lenses. Look on the Olympus USA site, and you'll see they are sold as body-only.

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*sigh* "United States is the whole world!"

If you would look the Olympus sales in other parts of the world than USA, you would find out that Olympus is selling E-M1, E-M5 and E-M5 II with 12-40mm PRO as the kit.

SpinOne said:

You're confusing a sales bundle with a kit. Olympus or 3rd party sellers occasionally offer deals where you get a big discount on a lens with a body; that doesn't mean that whatever lens you buy in that deal becomes a "kit lens."

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*sigh* There is big difference what the retailers do, and what Olympus does. If you can't read that I say "Olympus" and not "retailer X" or "eBay" it is your problem.



But Olympus sells (and different retailers as well) E-M1, E-M5 and E-M5 II with 12-40mm PRO as kit, meaning BODY AND THE OBJECTIVE ARE IN THE SAME PACKAGE!



If you still don't understand what that means, it means that Olympus packages E-M1/E-M5/E-M5 II with the 12-40mm f/2.8 PRO to single box that is then shipped to retailers to be sold.

SpinOne said:

SpinOne said:

PLEASE! Stop claims and believes that "kit lens" is synonym to cheap/bad objective!

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Let's not stop, because that's a reasonable assumption.

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Reasonable?



"Oh, I don't want to stop even when I am wrong!".



Leica doesn't ship bad objectives with their kits.

Samsung didn't ship bad objectives with all their kits.

Olympus didn't ship bad objectives with all their kits.



If Canon or Nikon does it for most of their kits, it problem in their customer program.



If you don't want to demand that all/most camera manufacturers would actually start shipping their camera kits with good objectives, it is your problem.

SpinOne said:

Kit lenses are cheap -- by design. A few are bad. Most aren't particularly robust. Most are not particularly fast, have some flaws that won't bother a casual photographer (e.g. softer corners, more distortion when wide open).

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You seem to be very picky....

SpinOne said:

These days, most are actually pretty good-- for what they are.

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Most kit objectives are very good. And there is very little reasons for average photographer to buy anything better. Because they ain't doing larger prints than 20-30", not photographing sports or weddings in low light, or not being afraid from using high ISO or flash because most are not pixel peepers.

SpinOne said:

SpinOne said:

Even dpreview staff doesn't understand what is a "kit lens" as they even have difficulties to write about new Leica 28-90mm with SL as they needed to quote the 'kit lens' as it wouldn't be so bad....

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They were being sarcastic. Hence the scare quotes.

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But it is a kit.... There is no reasons to be sarcastic or something.