Panasonic camera/lens try event in San Francisco

Panasonic and Sammy camera in San Francisco had this event. You could try different bodies and lenses in one place.

This is the summary.

-I own G7 and I tried all the lenses on my body. I wanted to try different bodies more but with limited time, I thought that I don’t have time to figure out the buttons and layouts. I could try one body(gx8). 
-From 7:30pm to 9:30pm I could try 6 different lenses and one body(gx8).
-This is not a lens review. It’s more of the first impression on the size, weight, feel, and build quality.
-I didn’t have enough time and couldn’t take enough pictures to experience the picture quality. That’s bad since that’s the most important factor!
-My experience was mostly in-door from evening to night so it was a more favorable condition for either fast primes or fast zooms.
-As I have 25mm/1.4 and 75mm/1.8, I was more interested testing out the zoom lenses.

42.5mm/1.2 Nocticron

Finally, I got my hand on it. It wasn’t as heavy as I thought. The first minute was confused because of my aperture dial on camera didn’t work. Then realized that it has the aperture ring on the lens. That was fun to play with the aperture ring. I see why people say this is the number one (portrait) lens on m43. The bokeh quality was the best(sorry 75mm). However, this lens was not the one that I got most impressed tonight.

12-60mm/2.8-4.0 Panasonic Leica

Wow, the first impression was… it was light. For the size and “name value”, it was feather weight. Honestly, to me, it wasn’t heavy enough if you know what I mean. In terms of lens quality, I will say more below for 2.8 zooms, but this variable aperture wasn’t that great for me. It got close to 4.0(3.9) too quickly at 40mm. Essentially it’s 4.0 lens from 40mm to 60mm. I “personally” wish they made it 12-60mm/2.8 for bigger size. I’m not sure how big it will be but I expect the size of Olympus 12-100mm or a bit bigger. Anyways, nice lens, but I liked 2.8 constant zooms more.

100-400mm/4.0-6.3 Panasonic Leica

I watched/read so many reviews of this lens. I don’t think I can afford it and that’s why this event was great for me to try the lens out. For the size, it was completely hand-holdable. I could understand why reviewers saying the zoom ring was stiff. It was not smooth at all. Of course, I made sure the zoom lock is completely loose. Still the zoom experience did not match the price nor the name tag. However, the OIS was great even at 400mm. I tested video with G7 which doesn’t have IBS, but it was doable. I wish I experienced this lens during a day not at evening.

100-300mm/4.0-5.6 Panasonic

If I ever get a tele zoom, it will be this 100-300 version 2. I tried this lens right after 100-400 to directly compare the size and weight. Of course it was much lighter and more “compact”. For amature like me who doesn’t want to spend close to $1700 on a lens, this is a great alternative. I didn’t have enough time with those lenses to feel the difference of an extra reach of 400mm from 300mm.

14-140mm/3.5-5.6 Panasonic

This do-it-all lens was light and compact. Again, I wish I had this lens during a bright day. Unfortunately, it got already dark(9pm) when I got this lens. In door test with this lens was… impossible. Or I have to say it was possible but not usable. I only paid attention to the zoom reach. The zoom was certainly nice but 14 was not wide enough for me.

12-35mm/2.8 Panasonic

Finally 12-35. After trying 12-60 and 14-140, I thought 12-35 will be similar to 12-60 or just somewhat better than 14-140. No, it was miles better than those lenses. I could see why a lot of people choose this lens for most of their uses. I have to try Olympus 12-40 to see which would be better, but 12-35 was the best experience so far. Again, most of the experience at this point was in-door so it’s not fair for the slower lenses. 12-35 was totally doable in-door. It’s not just about between 12mm and 14mm. Or 2.8 vs 4.0. The quality of the glass and the build mechanism was, hard to explain, certainly in the different league. There is something that’s not on the spec sheet. There is a “reason” why this lens is close to a grand. On daylight, those lenses might be similar, but in-door or darker situation, this will handle beautifully, when others can’t.

35-100mm/2.8 Panasonic

This was even better experience than 12-35. I guess I’m just more into this focal length. More intimate and closer to the subject. Having this quality at 100mm with OIS was unbelievable. The best lens "to me" tonight.

This is my short impression on the Panasonic lenses. Please understand that this is completely subjective. Also, as I mentioned, I didn’t have enough time with these lenses. Also, I couldn’t properly experience the picture quality. So even my impression on those lenses will be different if I tried them during a day with different subjects with more time with them.

Thank you for reading this.

p.s. I asked a Panasonic person when 50-200mm/2.8-4.0 might come out and he wasn't sure. His "guess" was not this year, but next year.