Personally, I’m completely underwhelmed by the creative limitations of what this lens’s convenient zoom range, coupled with its rather mediocre variable aperture, offers.
What follows is not an objective or a technical review, but more of a commentary about how I have experienced working with this lens. Please keep this in mind because, quite seriously, your preferences may mean that you will actually love it.
However, for me the aesthetics of this lens mean that it rarely comes out of the camera bag, and I’d much rather grab my iPhone 13 Pro if I need the flexibility of this zoom lens (more on that at the end of this review).
What motivated me to buy the Panasonic 12-60mm f3.5-5.6 zoom lens?
I got this lens shortly after diving back into photography, after purchasing a new Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark III body. I paired up my E-M5 Mark III with two prime lenses I knew I’d love using. First, the Panasonic 25mm f1.7 prime, which is a superb lens at an incredibly low price. Second, I just couldn’t go past the very fun Olympus 9mm f8 fisheye body-cap lens. But I thought I needed something more convenient to cover other shooting situations, to complement the other two lenses.
What don’t I like about the Panasonic 12-60mm f3.5-5.6 zoom lens?
I thought I’d use this zoom all the time. In fact it rarely finds its way onto my camera body. Quite simply, whenever I’ve gone out shooting with this zoom, I’ve always returned with a batch of disappointingly unimaginative results. But yet, that rarely happens for any of my other lenses. Why is that?
Well, partly it could be that the convenience of its zoom range – equivalent to a 24mm-120mm on a full-frame 35mm camera – charms me into over-reliance on zooming, rather than actually stopping for a moment to think about my composition and walking (or running) over to wherever I need to be to get the image I want?
Another factor, though, is that because I shoot almost exclusively either in fully manual mode – or else in aperture-priority or shutter-priority modes, depending on the context – the variable aperture of this lens just interferes too much with how I think about light when I’m shooting.
Finally, its mediocre light-gathering ability, together with the related lack of a shallow depth of focus and depth of field – which go hand-in-hand with its variable f3.5-5.6 aperture range – are both utter nails in the coffin for this lens.
Your mileage may vary.
Although I’m very critical of this lens, it’s worth emphasizing that much of what I’ve experienced is highly subjective.
For instance, my aesthetic preferences and shooting style were formed while growing up on a diet of 1970’s and 1980’s manual cameras and prime lenses. My original outfit was a Pentax MX and Pentax Super-A, teamed up with a Pentax f1.4 50mm prime, the f1.7mm 50mm prime on the Super-A, and a Ricoh Rikenon P 105mm F/2.8 Macro lens, as well as some cheaper wide angle lenses which were fun.
It’s therefore hardly surprising that I would again gravitate to the same kind of equipment with my new Olympus-body based outfit, as what I had with the Pentax outfit. Indeed, back then I also even owned a Pentax 35-70mm f3.5-5.6 zoom lens, and guess what? It too rarely found its way onto either of my camera bodies.
I hope that’s another useful indicator for you of whether you’ll enjoy using this lens or not.
From the many technical reviews I’ve read, this is by all accounts a very decent lens, and it is also very decently priced. Hence, I really mean it when I say that your mileage may vary. Although I hope you’ll find something useful in what I say above about my experiences of working with this lens, please keep in mind that these are simply my personal experiences. You may love this lens, but I really do not like it at all.
Concluding remarks.
If you’re considering buying this lens, and if you generally enjoy shooting with zoom lenses and don’t mind a variable aperture on your zoom, then unlike me you may enjoy working with the Panasonic Lumix G Vario 12-60mm F3.5-5.6 ASPH zoom lens.
Still, on an aesthetic level, this well-built, extremely convenient, and very well-priced lens leaves me utterly cold. Moreover, now that I’ve ordered some more glass – this time, it’s a manual focus Rokinon 85mm f1.4 prime – I suspect I’ll be hunt around for someone who wants to swap with me for a reasonable prime that I don’t yet have. Better that than it taking up space and adding weight to my bag, given that it almost never hangs around on my camera’s body or sees any light.
Here’s a parting thought, though, to emphasize that I really do stand by the above despite it all being very subjective.
On those occasions when I do want (or need) the convenience or flexibility of something more automatic – and especially if I know that the situation will be fast-changing and / or shall involve social interactions and other distractions so that I won’t have the time to reflect on how to get the images I want with my camera, then I’d sooner reach into my back pocket for the iPhone 13 Pro, than to start change lenses and slap this Panasonic zoom onto my Olympus body.
Apart from the advantages of computational photography, the iPhone 13 Pro comes with three separate built-in prime lenses, and each of them has its own sensor-shift optical image stabilisation. I can whip that out of my back pocket in no time, and start capturing many fleeting moments, all long before I would even have finished mounting the Panasonic zoom onto my camera’ body. Eventually, I’d want to slap a prime lens back on it anyway, so that’s why I wouldn’t recommend this lens to anyone. Indeed, I’d rather dispense with variable-aperture zoom lense alltogether.
What follows is not an objective or a technical review, but more of a commentary about how I have experienced working with this lens. Please keep this in mind because, quite seriously, your preferences may mean that you will actually love it.
However, for me the aesthetics of this lens mean that it rarely comes out of the camera bag, and I’d much rather grab my iPhone 13 Pro if I need the flexibility of this zoom lens (more on that at the end of this review).
What motivated me to buy the Panasonic 12-60mm f3.5-5.6 zoom lens?
I got this lens shortly after diving back into photography, after purchasing a new Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark III body. I paired up my E-M5 Mark III with two prime lenses I knew I’d love using. First, the Panasonic 25mm f1.7 prime, which is a superb lens at an incredibly low price. Second, I just couldn’t go past the very fun Olympus 9mm f8 fisheye body-cap lens. But I thought I needed something more convenient to cover other shooting situations, to complement the other two lenses.
What don’t I like about the Panasonic 12-60mm f3.5-5.6 zoom lens?
I thought I’d use this zoom all the time. In fact it rarely finds its way onto my camera body. Quite simply, whenever I’ve gone out shooting with this zoom, I’ve always returned with a batch of disappointingly unimaginative results. But yet, that rarely happens for any of my other lenses. Why is that?
Well, partly it could be that the convenience of its zoom range – equivalent to a 24mm-120mm on a full-frame 35mm camera – charms me into over-reliance on zooming, rather than actually stopping for a moment to think about my composition and walking (or running) over to wherever I need to be to get the image I want?
Another factor, though, is that because I shoot almost exclusively either in fully manual mode – or else in aperture-priority or shutter-priority modes, depending on the context – the variable aperture of this lens just interferes too much with how I think about light when I’m shooting.
Finally, its mediocre light-gathering ability, together with the related lack of a shallow depth of focus and depth of field – which go hand-in-hand with its variable f3.5-5.6 aperture range – are both utter nails in the coffin for this lens.
Your mileage may vary.
Although I’m very critical of this lens, it’s worth emphasizing that much of what I’ve experienced is highly subjective.
For instance, my aesthetic preferences and shooting style were formed while growing up on a diet of 1970’s and 1980’s manual cameras and prime lenses. My original outfit was a Pentax MX and Pentax Super-A, teamed up with a Pentax f1.4 50mm prime, the f1.7mm 50mm prime on the Super-A, and a Ricoh Rikenon P 105mm F/2.8 Macro lens, as well as some cheaper wide angle lenses which were fun.
It’s therefore hardly surprising that I would again gravitate to the same kind of equipment with my new Olympus-body based outfit, as what I had with the Pentax outfit. Indeed, back then I also even owned a Pentax 35-70mm f3.5-5.6 zoom lens, and guess what? It too rarely found its way onto either of my camera bodies.
I hope that’s another useful indicator for you of whether you’ll enjoy using this lens or not.
From the many technical reviews I’ve read, this is by all accounts a very decent lens, and it is also very decently priced. Hence, I really mean it when I say that your mileage may vary. Although I hope you’ll find something useful in what I say above about my experiences of working with this lens, please keep in mind that these are simply my personal experiences. You may love this lens, but I really do not like it at all.
Concluding remarks.
If you’re considering buying this lens, and if you generally enjoy shooting with zoom lenses and don’t mind a variable aperture on your zoom, then unlike me you may enjoy working with the Panasonic Lumix G Vario 12-60mm F3.5-5.6 ASPH zoom lens.
Still, on an aesthetic level, this well-built, extremely convenient, and very well-priced lens leaves me utterly cold. Moreover, now that I’ve ordered some more glass – this time, it’s a manual focus Rokinon 85mm f1.4 prime – I suspect I’ll be hunt around for someone who wants to swap with me for a reasonable prime that I don’t yet have. Better that than it taking up space and adding weight to my bag, given that it almost never hangs around on my camera’s body or sees any light.
Here’s a parting thought, though, to emphasize that I really do stand by the above despite it all being very subjective.
On those occasions when I do want (or need) the convenience or flexibility of something more automatic – and especially if I know that the situation will be fast-changing and / or shall involve social interactions and other distractions so that I won’t have the time to reflect on how to get the images I want with my camera, then I’d sooner reach into my back pocket for the iPhone 13 Pro, than to start change lenses and slap this Panasonic zoom onto my Olympus body.
Apart from the advantages of computational photography, the iPhone 13 Pro comes with three separate built-in prime lenses, and each of them has its own sensor-shift optical image stabilisation. I can whip that out of my back pocket in no time, and start capturing many fleeting moments, all long before I would even have finished mounting the Panasonic zoom onto my camera’ body. Eventually, I’d want to slap a prime lens back on it anyway, so that’s why I wouldn’t recommend this lens to anyone. Indeed, I’d rather dispense with variable-aperture zoom lense alltogether.
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