Panasonic Lumix G X VARIO 35-100mm f/2.8 Power OIS - Review / Test Report - Samples & Verdict
Lens Reviews - (Micro-)Four-Thirds

Sample Images & Verdict

Click on a thumbnail to view the original file (opens in a separate window). Please note that the originals are FULL SIZE samples (=several megabytes) thus requiring a significant amount of bandwidth so please take care of the limited resources here.

Make Panasonic
Model DMC-GH3
ISO Speed 200
Focal Length 55.0mm
Aperture: f/6.3
Exposure 1/500s
Make Panasonic
Model DMC-GH3
ISO Speed 200
Focal Length 100.0mm
Aperture: f/2.8
Exposure 1/3200s
Make Panasonic
Model DMC-GH3
ISO Speed 200
Focal Length 64.0mm
Aperture: f/4.0
Exposure 1/800s
Make Panasonic
Model DMC-GH3
ISO Speed 200
Focal Length 100.0mm
Aperture: f/2.8
Exposure 1/200s
Make Panasonic
Model DMC-GH3
ISO Speed 800
Focal Length 100.0mm
Aperture: f/2.8
Exposure 1/125s
Make Panasonic
Model DMC-GH3
ISO Speed 800
Focal Length 100.0mm
Aperture: f/2.8
Exposure 1/400s
Make Panasonic
Model DMC-GH3
ISO Speed 800
Focal Length 35.0mm
Aperture: f/2.8
Exposure 1/40s
Make Panasonic
Model DMC-GH3
ISO Speed 200
Focal Length 39.0mm
Aperture: f/2.8
Exposure 1/3200s
Make Panasonic
Model DMC-GH3
ISO Speed 200
Focal Length 100.0mm
Aperture: f/2.8
Exposure 1/2500s
Make Panasonic
Model DMC-GH3
ISO Speed 200
Focal Length 100.0mm
Aperture: f/2.8
Exposure 1/80s

Verdict

The Panasonic Lumix G X 35-100mm f/2.8 Power OIS is an expensive tele zoom lens but it lives up to its high reputation. From a user perspective, there is little to complain. It is dead sharp in the image center and pretty good in the border region. Since distortions are auto-corrected, there is nothing to worry about here. You may spot some light falloff in the corners at f/2.8 but it's not overly disturbing and gone from f/4 onward. Lateral CAs are quite low. The quality of the bokeh - a major aspect of a fast lens - is very good. The background blur is beautifully rendered and there's almost no bokeh fringing. On the downside the less critical foreground bokeh is slightly busy and highlight discs aren't totally perfect. When looking behind the scenes - thus into uncorrected RAW files - you can spot a fairly high albeit not excessive degree of distortion at 35mm. Other than that there're no issues in the original characteristic of the lens.

The build quality of the lens is excellent thanks to high quality materials, weather sealing and a constant physical length throughout the zoom range. The focusing speed is high and essentially noiseless so the AF may also be usable for movies to a certain degree. Panasonic's "Power OIS" (image stabilizer) is well proven by now. It may not excel like the Canon or Nikon counterparts but it can give you some extra potential when shooting without a tripod in low light situations.

All-in-all a very capable lens and as such "Highly Recommended"!

Optical Quality: to
Mechanical Quality:
Price/Performance:
      
   What does this mean ?


Disclosure: When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network and Google Adsense.