To summarise this lens is to say a few things. First of all for best results its best on an Olympus body to go into your auto focus menu, gear (cog) AF/MF and turn reset lens to off. This is another one of those annoying Olympus habits of doing things that are detrimental like disabling the live Super Control Panel. I have no idea why. I also have no idea why this is coming up but if it needs to be moved so should it.
This lens is a Panasonic G X series lens and so it has some amount of build quality of it beyond a basic kit lens, I'm looking at you Olympus 45-150 R. The focus ring and zoom ring comparatively feels smooth and buttery where the Olympus feels coarse, with one short coming. The Panasonic lens is fly by wire so there are no physical stops and so this could become problematic especially when shooting at night. Despite this the engagement feels weighted surprisingly well and but for the electronics moving about you wouldn't know this lens was focus by wire.
On that note the zoom mechanism, this is a power zoom lens, hence why I recommended to turn off the lens reset otherwise you pick your camera up after powering down as a member of the Battery Conservation Wilderness Society and you find your lens is set back to 45mm, it's annoying but there is a simple fix, just turn lens reset off.
In terms of sharpness? Well this lens requires a little extra help in post, but the results that do come up are pretty sharp above 100mm reaching full sharpness between 135 at F/5.6 to F/8 and then all the way to 175mm where it falls off a little bit reaching that. The results are bright and vibrant, and I had to turn down the saturation and vibrancy in post processing and this one fell out of the range of best sharpness but its hard to tell as the lens does not record the focal length on the LCD display unless you're holding down the focus button as you zoom, so you have to guesstimate exactly where that point is on Olympus cameras and then get it right while focusing, doing a bit of a dance, or hoping that you've just hit the lenses sweet spot by chance.
On an especially hazy day this lens breaks up as with every other lens. Could I get a usable result from this lens at this distance? Probably but I'd have to do a lot of work in post-processing, but this is atmospheric haze and not a lens issue. I'm a landscape photographer primarily but this is 15kilometres, or 9.5miles as the crow flyies between Point Arkwright and Hells Gate on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland.
As to the so called power zoom features itself, yes it does have a zoom leaver, which might be useful if you're coming from a point and shoot or high end compact camera, but I'd best try to avoid it. They say its for the camcorder user who likes to zoom in and out, but amateur hour is over here guys. If you want to learn how to pan and zoom properly like the big boys in sports photography you're gonna have to get used to using that zoom ring.
You might like Power zoom, but I especially dislike Power Zoom in any sense, mostly because nine times out of 10 when you want to actually zoom to something Power Zoom motors don't tend to move nearly fast enough and secondly, with all that internal electronic business and with powered stepper motors to actuate the zoom mechanism its just another layer of complexity that should not exist in a lens and can break down over time.
I used it once and I suspect I wont use it again, it just reminds me of why I don't like advanced compact, bridge, or point and shoot cameras with electronic motors for everything. You're always in a situation where something is at a point of compromise and in video (what its stated aim is for) that is not being able to pull focus or shift point of view nearly fast enough in a pan and zoom motion.
Overall I like this lens a lot its not a telescopic lens so all its mechanics are internal, it is a made in Japan lens as I've grown to expect from Panasonic, its a G X series lens so its a step up from your basic kit lens in terms of build quality, its quite stodgy for a lens, and almost interferes with the battery grip on my OM-D but it doesn't. It feels like an SLR lens, its made out of durable plastic with a metal lens mount and comes with a lens and hood, something that is essential at this focal length but not included by Olympus.
I'm going to go ahead and give it a 4 out of 5. If it does have a quirk its in the facts of the matter, it doesn't have an OIS switch so on an Olympus body the IBIS takes over and there is no opportunity to say otherwise. Love it or hate it the Power Zoom feature is there like a bug bear from shooting with one too many compacts, the switch is best avoided. It also requires a little helping hand in terms of sharpness you'll find that it goes to something like 25 or so in Light Room or Camera Raw by default, this does not deteriorate the image in any noticeable way. It's challenged in low light and will struggle to focus on subjects closer than 1metre (3feet) away. I could harp on about atmospheric haze but that is nature and not the lens itself at fault. It's just a challenge.
If you like using a travel zoom you might enjoy the power zoom feature, otherwise its best avoided, to be left aside for when you learn how to pan and zoom properly. The last bit I fear is that with an electronically controlled zoom motor you can't just use the zoom at will, all that constant zoom action will eventually wear down the motor.
As they say though folks I'll leave it at that, yibida, yibida and all that.
This lens is a Panasonic G X series lens and so it has some amount of build quality of it beyond a basic kit lens, I'm looking at you Olympus 45-150 R. The focus ring and zoom ring comparatively feels smooth and buttery where the Olympus feels coarse, with one short coming. The Panasonic lens is fly by wire so there are no physical stops and so this could become problematic especially when shooting at night. Despite this the engagement feels weighted surprisingly well and but for the electronics moving about you wouldn't know this lens was focus by wire.
On that note the zoom mechanism, this is a power zoom lens, hence why I recommended to turn off the lens reset otherwise you pick your camera up after powering down as a member of the Battery Conservation Wilderness Society and you find your lens is set back to 45mm, it's annoying but there is a simple fix, just turn lens reset off.
In terms of sharpness? Well this lens requires a little extra help in post, but the results that do come up are pretty sharp above 100mm reaching full sharpness between 135 at F/5.6 to F/8 and then all the way to 175mm where it falls off a little bit reaching that. The results are bright and vibrant, and I had to turn down the saturation and vibrancy in post processing and this one fell out of the range of best sharpness but its hard to tell as the lens does not record the focal length on the LCD display unless you're holding down the focus button as you zoom, so you have to guesstimate exactly where that point is on Olympus cameras and then get it right while focusing, doing a bit of a dance, or hoping that you've just hit the lenses sweet spot by chance.
On an especially hazy day this lens breaks up as with every other lens. Could I get a usable result from this lens at this distance? Probably but I'd have to do a lot of work in post-processing, but this is atmospheric haze and not a lens issue. I'm a landscape photographer primarily but this is 15kilometres, or 9.5miles as the crow flyies between Point Arkwright and Hells Gate on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland.
As to the so called power zoom features itself, yes it does have a zoom leaver, which might be useful if you're coming from a point and shoot or high end compact camera, but I'd best try to avoid it. They say its for the camcorder user who likes to zoom in and out, but amateur hour is over here guys. If you want to learn how to pan and zoom properly like the big boys in sports photography you're gonna have to get used to using that zoom ring.
You might like Power zoom, but I especially dislike Power Zoom in any sense, mostly because nine times out of 10 when you want to actually zoom to something Power Zoom motors don't tend to move nearly fast enough and secondly, with all that internal electronic business and with powered stepper motors to actuate the zoom mechanism its just another layer of complexity that should not exist in a lens and can break down over time.
I used it once and I suspect I wont use it again, it just reminds me of why I don't like advanced compact, bridge, or point and shoot cameras with electronic motors for everything. You're always in a situation where something is at a point of compromise and in video (what its stated aim is for) that is not being able to pull focus or shift point of view nearly fast enough in a pan and zoom motion.
Overall I like this lens a lot its not a telescopic lens so all its mechanics are internal, it is a made in Japan lens as I've grown to expect from Panasonic, its a G X series lens so its a step up from your basic kit lens in terms of build quality, its quite stodgy for a lens, and almost interferes with the battery grip on my OM-D but it doesn't. It feels like an SLR lens, its made out of durable plastic with a metal lens mount and comes with a lens and hood, something that is essential at this focal length but not included by Olympus.
I'm going to go ahead and give it a 4 out of 5. If it does have a quirk its in the facts of the matter, it doesn't have an OIS switch so on an Olympus body the IBIS takes over and there is no opportunity to say otherwise. Love it or hate it the Power Zoom feature is there like a bug bear from shooting with one too many compacts, the switch is best avoided. It also requires a little helping hand in terms of sharpness you'll find that it goes to something like 25 or so in Light Room or Camera Raw by default, this does not deteriorate the image in any noticeable way. It's challenged in low light and will struggle to focus on subjects closer than 1metre (3feet) away. I could harp on about atmospheric haze but that is nature and not the lens itself at fault. It's just a challenge.
If you like using a travel zoom you might enjoy the power zoom feature, otherwise its best avoided, to be left aside for when you learn how to pan and zoom properly. The last bit I fear is that with an electronically controlled zoom motor you can't just use the zoom at will, all that constant zoom action will eventually wear down the motor.
As they say though folks I'll leave it at that, yibida, yibida and all that.
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