Lenstip tests the Panasonic 12-35/2.8

perry rhodan wrote:

"The lens didn’t have any front or back focus tendency either." (see page 10)

Seriously?

regards perry
It uses CDAF focusing, why would it?
 
Suppose you're asking LensTip? I do understand the concept of mirrorless not suffering from FF or BF.

It's their statement, makes it look they do not get it (seems highly unlikely) or simply a bad copy paste job.




;P
 
perry rhodan wrote:

Suppose you're asking LensTip? I do understand the concept of mirrorless not suffering from FF or BF.

It's their statement, makes it look they do not get it (seems highly unlikely) or simply a bad copy paste job.

;P
Probably the latter, I'm sure they know really :-)
 
perry rhodan wrote:

Suppose you're asking LensTip? I do understand the concept of mirrorless not suffering from FF or BF.
What I can't understand is people who make the assumption that CDAF on mirrorless is somehow immune to focus errors. Yet there are CDAF camera/lens combinations that give focus errors !?!
 
Big Ga wrote:
perry rhodan wrote:

Suppose you're asking LensTip? I do understand the concept of mirrorless not suffering from FF or BF.
What I can't understand is people who make the assumption that CDAF on mirrorless is somehow immune to focus errors. Yet there are CDAF camera/lens combinations that give focus errors !?!
In my experience the only errors you get is when there is a chance that the focusing system can pick the background out in preference to the subject in front. Knowing this usually means it can be avoided. It's certainly more reliable than PDAF systems and you never need to worry about calibrating lenses and all that nonsense.
 
Sergey Borachev wrote:

I doubt that it is sample variation too. This is not helpful, when reviewers seem to disagree about this lens' performance. Photozone has reservation too about it s IQ.....
I've always put this down to the fact that lenstip are using a camera that does not do any auto correction for panasonic lenses, such as barrel or ca correction, whereas photozone use one that auto corrects. Lenstip also use a raw converter dcraw that does not apply any corrections, a quote from their website

"PITURE RESOLUTION – The test chart picture in RAW format is converted (without any editing) to PPM/TIFF raw format by using the dcraw program...."

photozone also make reference to this in their test saying

"Distortions - Traditionally this is a bit of a weak point of MFT lenses because the system relies on an auto-correction here and as such it isn't really a design priority. You may argue, of course, that this is not relevant from a user perspective because all the applied corrections are done "under the hood". This is also something that we can confirm - standard JPEGs or conventionally converted RAW files don't show a significant amount of distortion throughout the zoom range.

That said it is still interesting to look a bit behind the scenes by using an "unsupported" RAW converter like e.g. RAW Therapee. This converter reveals the native barrel distortion level of about 5.8% at 12mm. This is excessive - and as such it is highly disappointing for such a lens. Please note that the correction of such an amount of distortion is lossy due to the required image stretching and interpolations."

Note: I changed the font to italic on the part of the photozone comments I felt most relevant.

So from all of that I would expect lenstip's reviews to have better corner resolution than photozone when the lens has a high amount of distortion.
 
papillon_65 wrote:
Big Ga wrote:
perry rhodan wrote:

Suppose you're asking LensTip? I do understand the concept of mirrorless not suffering from FF or BF.
What I can't understand is people who make the assumption that CDAF on mirrorless is somehow immune to focus errors. Yet there are CDAF camera/lens combinations that give focus errors !?!
In my experience the only errors you get is when there is a chance that the focusing system can pick the background out in preference to the subject in front.
The lack of experience on your part doesn't change reality.
 
In regard to Flare, I generally avoid shooting into the sun (Photography 101), but when I have shot towards the sun, I have not seen any big problem with lens flare on my 12-35mm.

In regard to vignetting, that too is basically a non-issue. Actually, I often add a tiny bit of vignette in post for artistic impact -- especially for portraits :-)

The image below was shot at a conference I photographed a few weeks back. It has been adjusted for overall brightness and resized for web posting, but no cropping or adjustment to corners. As you can see, it was shot with my E-M5 at f/2.8 @ 12mm.

Any vignetting is virtually imperceptible.

I personally, am extremely pleased with the performance of my 12-35mm.

God Bless,

Greg

www.imagismphotos.com

www.mccroskery.zenfolio.com

www.pbase.com/daddyo

149110126.L0l1knBa.P2286166Marriott.jpg
 
My one concern is that lenstip continues to test with 12mp cameras while 4/3 has moved to 16mp.




I can understanding they want to do this for consistency with earlier tests but i ask how does this impact the test results ?
 
I don't think anyone is trying to imply that CDAF has no accuracy problems -- however, front and back focus issues are next to non-existent compared to PDAF.

I've used both enough now to see the difference in real life use -- neither is perfect, but for certain shooting situations, each has its clear benefits.

For me, shooting portraits is clearly better with CDAF. If I focus on a person's eyes, the focus locks on their eyes, not half way between their eyes and their ears. Generally, if CDAF is off, it's way off because, as was earlier stated, it has simply locked on to an area of higher contrast adjacent to the focus point. In real-life shooting this is rarely a problem.

God Bless,

Greg

www.imagismphotos.com

www.mccroskery.zenfolio.com

www.pbase.com/daddyo
 
Big Ga wrote:
papillon_65 wrote:
Big Ga wrote:
perry rhodan wrote:

Suppose you're asking LensTip? I do understand the concept of mirrorless not suffering from FF or BF.
What I can't understand is people who make the assumption that CDAF on mirrorless is somehow immune to focus errors. Yet there are CDAF camera/lens combinations that give focus errors !?!
In my experience the only errors you get is when there is a chance that the focusing system can pick the background out in preference to the subject in front.
The lack of experience on your part doesn't change reality.
Well I beg to differ as I've owned and used a considerable number of cameras, both DSLR's and mirrorless, but let me guess, you know something everybody else doesn't right???
 
tjuster1 wrote:

Actually, to me the biggest issue isn't the flare but the vignetting--which appears to be really extreme at wide apertures. Has anyone noticed this in real photos being a problem?
I've started using the Lumix 12-35mm after DxO Optics (which automatically corrects vignetting) became part of my routine for developing RAW to JPEGs. So this is not a problem for me : even if DXO Optics wouldn't do its job perfectly, I wouldn't see vignetting unless that's very obvious. I simply don't have an eye for that.

So in a nutshell, if vignetting is critical for you, since this lens is expansive, don't buy it. But you have to take into account that vignetting was reported by Lenstip with all the m4/3 lenses they have tested at 12mm (and the Samyang 7,5mm). So at very wide angle, it's seems to be part of life...
 
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I think Lenstip reviews are mostly relevant and consistent.

Personally I guess I'd be bothered most by the nervous background bokeh (seems front bokeh is smooth but that's rarely useful). Though, some of the image samples show better bokeh than the test images. I guess bokeh looks different at different distances...
daddyo wrote:

In regard to Flare, I generally avoid shooting into the sun (Photography 101), but when I have shot towards the sun, I have not seen any big problem with lens flare on my 12-35mm.
Well, the flare samples at Lenstip don't look good. Though it should be admitted that their flare studies are not consistent across different lenses.

I have a particular issue with one point:

"What’s more, artifacts can appear even if a source of bright light is outside the frame. Such problems shouldn’t have happened to a lens of this class."

I've been checking a few cameras and lenses lately, following the findings of Anders W regarding the 7-14 on OM-D, and I believe this is in fact a much more common issue that one may think. Really odd and intense effects tend to show up if you have a strong light source (the sun, LED flashlight) just outside the otherwise dark frame at certain angles. I believe this is a sort of a diffraction phenomenon.
In regard to vignetting, that too is basically a non-issue. Actually, I often add a tiny bit of vignette in post for artistic impact -- especially for portraits :-)
I think vignetting wide-open is a bit above certain standards. It may indeed be corrected in post, but sometimes this is not without cost - for instance, the dynamic range is reduced, and the known issues of lifting shadows tend to appear.

There is a similar thing with distortion at WA. But the corners remain sharp enough after correction, and I guess it'd be better at some more megapixels. And, I believe this distortion helps keep size and weight reasonably low (the bigger a mFT lens, the less sense it makes).
I personally, am extremely pleased with the performance of my 12-35mm.
That's most important of all :)
 
Finally a Lenstip m43 review where I can agree with most of it. As others have stated their flare issue con is overstated for most photographers. Overall I find this a satisfying lens.
 
_sem_ wrote:

I think Lenstip reviews are mostly relevant and consistent.

Personally I guess I'd be bothered most by the nervous background bokeh (seems front bokeh is smooth but that's rarely useful). Though, some of the image samples show better bokeh than the test images. I guess bokeh looks different at different distances...
And likely different at different FL's.

I'm not too sure one buys a wide angle lens for its bokeh though. Almost none of the M43 lenses in this range, including the primes, have good bokeh. This probably applies outside M43 too.
daddyo wrote:

In regard to Flare, I generally avoid shooting into the sun (Photography 101), but when I have shot towards the sun, I have not seen any big problem with lens flare on my 12-35mm.
Well, the flare samples at Lenstip don't look good. Though it should be admitted that their flare studies are not consistent across different lenses.

I have a particular issue with one point:

"What’s more, artifacts can appear even if a source of bright light is outside the frame. Such problems shouldn’t have happened to a lens of this class."

I've been checking a few cameras and lenses lately, following the findings of Anders W regarding the 7-14 on OM-D, and I believe this is in fact a much more common issue that one may think. Really odd and intense effects tend to show up if you have a strong light source (the sun, LED flashlight) just outside the otherwise dark frame at certain angles. I believe this is a sort of a diffraction phenomenon.
Right on. It's been my experience as well, whatever luxurious-sounding coating technologies are claimed. However, in most cases, you have to be very careful to obtain these fantastic light spots. Small perturbations in positioning and they weaken considerably and even disappear altogether. You have to try hard to get them, and don't need to try too hard to avoid them. I think this is the reason why a lot of users of this lens say that in real situations this is not that bad a problem at all.
In regard to vignetting, that too is basically a non-issue. Actually, I often add a tiny bit of vignette in post for artistic impact -- especially for portraits :-)
I think vignetting wide-open is a bit above certain standards. It may indeed be corrected in post, but sometimes this is not without cost - for instance, the dynamic range is reduced, and the known issues of lifting shadows tend to appear.
How practically this affects pictures can be debated. I have an example from a lens at an aperture which is supposed to vignette really badly (PL25 wide open). As can be seen the vignetting is evident, but most people who viewed the photo have not noticed it. This is in an example scene where you'd think vignetting would be highly undesirable with a lens set to an aperture noted for a high level of vignetting, and in practice it did not matter that much. In most other situations this level of vignetting (kind of similar to what the 12-35 is capable of) would probably hurt even less.
I personally, am extremely pleased with the performance of my 12-35mm.
That's most important of all :)
Exactly :)
 
tt321 wrote:
"What’s more, artifacts can appear even if a source of bright light is outside the frame. Such problems shouldn’t have happened to a lens of this class."

I've been checking a few cameras and lenses lately, following the findings of Anders W regarding the 7-14 on OM-D, and I believe this is in fact a much more common issue than one may think. Really odd and intense effects tend to show up if you have a strong light source (the sun, LED flashlight) just outside the otherwise dark frame at certain angles. I believe this is a sort of a diffraction phenomenon.
Right on. It's been my experience as well, whatever luxurious-sounding coating technologies are claimed. However, in most cases, you have to be very careful to obtain these fantastic light spots. Small perturbations in positioning and they weaken considerably and even disappear altogether. You have to try hard to get them, and don't need to try too hard to avoid them. I think this is the reason why a lot of users of this lens say that in real situations this is not that bad a problem at all.
With a single spot, it should indeed be possible to work around by changing the angle or shading the lens (a circular hood doesn't help here, and the hood typically doesn't help with a zoom - it'd take a zooming petal one). But I think it is more difficult with large lights or reflections which "cover" problem areas, producing a veil. I wander if there is perhaps a solution to this on the lens mount or sensor side.
 
Sergey Borachev wrote:

Thanks. An excellent review. The "bad" flare problem is the only signficant one found by Lentip.

Interestingly, there was no problem at all for Steve Huff, who listed flare control as a Pro for this lens
Hmmm.

I think what that tells me is that I need to be very suspicious of any Steve Huff reviews ......
That would be a good place to start :)
 
Could the flare issue be due to sample variation?
I doubt it. When we had the 7-14/4 discussion a while back, my samples were in very bright sunlight in Asia (Cambodia). Another's were from a desert town, again with very strong sun. These were the worst examples posted. Others samples with evidently less strong light were not as severe, which to me suggested a correlation between the intensity of the source and severity of the flare, but I don't think everyone agreed (lol, it is the m43 forum).

-Najinsky
 
…and the budget says that situation ill continue for a while.

In practice, the flare thing is not a problem. You know it is there, you see it, you control it.

And while I'm waiting for the dollars to add up a bit, I'll just keep on using that wonderful 14 as my standard lens -- it can do a bit of creative flare too! :)

Cheers, geoff
 
After using the 12-35 for some time (and the 7-14) I'm strongly considering ditching all of my primes other than the 25mm f/1.4 and just sticking with the 7-14, the 12-35 and picking up the 35-100. Quite an expensive 4 lens kit but figure you save about 15 pounds and $3000 over a DSLR kit covering 14-200mm with that kind of quality optics.
 

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