Image courtesy: m43.eu.
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M43.eu (google translation here) posted the first website to post a full Panasonic 12-32mm lens review. As you know Panasonic claims that this is the best standard kit zoom of all mirrorless system (with standard they mean not “premium” zooms). And according to their test results Panasonic completely fulfills the promise. The lens is way better than the Olympus 12-50mm lens! If you consider the size of the Panasonic lens this is an incredible achievement. I would like Panasonic to sell the lens separately from the GM1 so that also current PEN or G camera owners can buy it!
Image courtesy: m43.eu.
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GM1 preorder list:
In US at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto.
In Europe at Amazon Germany, Wex Germany, Amazon UK, Fotohanskeuzekamp, Cyberphoto Sweden and Wex UK.
98 Responses
12-50 has a rather bad reputation. It would be much more interesting to compare it to the original Panasonic 14–45.
Bad reputation? Are you kidding? Is one the best kit lens with advanced features in the market!!!
It has no dedicated switch to activate OIS and requires in-camera lens correction.
Both don’t work well on the Blackmagic Pocket. 🙁
The 12mm would have been nice. Just wide enough for steadycam work but not too wide so as to have extreme distortion.
Yawn, please stop crying like a baby about your video needs.
Let’s see what DxO and DPReview have to say about this Panasonic. 🙂
Oh yes. Because the entire photography world revolves around dxo and their non photographic tests on gear rather than actual samples of non corrected images ooc and true life reviews.
I said that tongue-in-cheek (hence the smiley face after my comment).
I think DxO is a joke and that their findings should not even be reported here.
…and although I think that DPR has been very thorough and reliable for info in the past…I think that their recent reviews of the Olympus E-P5 and the Panasonic GX7 have me reassessing the value of there input as well.
Yeah! We should silence anyone you don’t agree with! After all, the world revolves around you and your views, doesn’t it? How dare they have a different opinion?
Bob is right. Who gave you authority to make a detrimental comment. I did not, nore did Bob. So it has been expunged from our memories.
????……… LOL!
Jon…I have to agree…I am not a fan of the GX7 (have EP5 and about to pull trigger on M1)….but in the GX7’s defense…exactly what you are saying…the subjective portion of that review was just STUPID….I moved away from Panasonic cameras for some very solid reasons (in my world)…but the points that the reviewer was bashing the camera for were absurd (sniglets) and then they just completely left out some of the GX7’s strengths which were valid pluses in the playing field of competition in that camera segment. It is easy to pick a review apart…but I think that both of those cameras are top notch and should be recognized as such.
I used to really like DPR reviews, but they have become very inconsistent lately…especially with the subjective portions of their reviews. And the subjective areas are now apparently weighted more than hard fact/features/functionality.
I’m not interested in a GX7 (lovin’ my E-M1), but DPR no longer understands the pulse of the serious photo enthusiast market.
Jon…responded above you…sorry.
12-50 range AND weather sealed – that makes it definitely an all-rounder, and I am not technically equipped to pontificate whether it is great, but my eyes tell me that it is certainly not “little”.
DPR reviews used to be better previously when there were only a few reviewers doing them and before they joined up with Amazon. Since then to cover more reviews they added more reviewers to do more reviews but appear to use an independant chief editor to write the conclusions and maybe even make the score and I began to notice at times a apparent disconnect between the results posted and the summary comments which became more subjective and less objective in my opinion and may have been written even before the testing was complete. Amazon wants high dollar sales so obviously they want big expensive cameras like those produced by the big high volume producers like Nikon/Canon to succeed and do well so not surprising to see these products receive so much attention by DPR as to what gets tested and when and a natural bias in analysis ie FF and larger sensor is always best. There is little emphasis on the fact that smaller senor cameras (or even cell phones) are capable of very good pictures under normal conditions for most photographers for the size of pictures they normally print or view or share on their cameras or cell phones. Not everyone wants or needs the fastest lens for low light or shallow DOF or takes extreme fast action shots.
I think you are right. Based on what I have read on DPR, their reviews are sometimes odd and it does appear that higher-dollar products and those from major brands are likely to get higher scores.
Who said anything about silencing anyone? Bob B. expressed skepticism (well deserved) regarding the quality and relevance of certain testing organizations. You’re entitled to disagree, and pay as much attention to those tests as you wish.
Man, sounds like Ragnarok’s wife cut him off.
Hmmmm better for what exactly? Not handy nearish-macro work and not using in the rain I expect, and it’s a bit short for a walkaround lens, personally without a loupe I never have a real problem with the 12-50, it’s not perfect but it’s a great little all-rounder. Good for moving pictures too…
Must admit my 12-50 is quite good… I like the macro and the range…
Its still way better IQ than any of my old “good” glass… better than OM F1.4 50mm, better than OM 35mm F2, better than NIKKOR 85mm F2, better than OM 100mm F2.8… I have yet to find an “old” lens that is sharper, has more micro contrast or just plain more contrast than any m43 kit/native lens!
Jim, try the “old” Leica R 60mm Macro Elmarit… You’ll be surprised.
And the 24mm elmarit M Asph is sharper and has less distorsion than my 25mm 1.4 🙁
Ok yeh, I’m sure they exist… and how did I know they would be manufactured by a company that starts with the letter L 🙂
And I guess there will be others that best the Oly 12-50mm – but on average modern m43 lenses (because i don’t feel on the whole, FF/APSC lenses are so good) are a lot better than old lenses…
I wonder how the Oly 75mm stacks up to a £5000+ lens manufactured by a company that starts with the letter L 🙂
I guess it’s not better at 50mm.
lol +1
I think it’s not a representative comparison either since they are comparing apples with pears. Of course it is good to hear that pany has the know-how to build a compact zoom with good IQ.
A remarkable achievement fr Pana .
This even convince me the incoming Nocticon would be another awesome stuff .
Can’t wait any longer to pair the lens with my GX7 .
Considering its low cost and its range, the 12-50 doesn’t deserve a bad press. Especially for video users. True, it doesn’t deliver the IQ that my 14-45 or 20mm Panasonics do, but as a walk-around lens, it’s okay. But I would love this 12-32 on a GF5 as the ultimate street camera.
The 12-50 is not bad as a kit lens but the 12-32 definitely shines in terms of size. Also, I am sick of all these gazillion of kit lenses starting at 14, glad to see that 12 is beginning to be the starting point
Actually, if you exclude weather-sealing, the convenient range, internal zoom and a very useful macro mode (apparently devoid of the AF troubles), the 12-50 is indeed the worst kit zoom for m4/3, it’s soft yet without character, has – compared to other m4/3 kit zooms – unreliable AF performance, it’s a – relatively – mediocre lens (except for video and “macro”).
On an objective level though, it’s a useful little zoom, I’ve had far worse kit zoom, just not on m4/3.
I still think the E-M5 deserved a better kit zoom than either the 12-50 or the 14-42 IIR.
Rubbish!
Part of it was sarcastic but fine, name just one m4/3 standard kit zoom that is optically inferior to the 12-50 ?
However, it’s less about how bad the 12-50 is, but how much better the others are when it comes to m4/3.
The real strength of the 12-50 is about how versatile it is, not how optically good it is compared to the rest.
Hopefully olympus will release a 12-40/2.8-4.0 kit zoom for its next OMD…
Well, I wish… 🙂
I know it will never happen, but the Panasonic Leica 25mm f/1.4 should have always been the kit lens for the OM-D. A match made in heaven.
When was the last time you’ve used one? The 12mm end is actually quite good & yes, it does get softer at 50mm, but it is certainly a versatile lens though.
Agreed. The 12-50mm is a versatile lens.
Would be more interesting if it were tested on an Oly body.
Why this should be more interesting?
In body corrections.
You can’t “correct” for sharpness or resolving power of a lens.
But you loose corner sharpness due to distortion-correction being applied in-body.
So with sharpness loss f4om correction it still beats it? Wow!
For those wondering, the dotted line is corner sharpness (higher is better), while the solid line is centre sharpness. So the chart is showing the 12-32 is significantly sharper in the corners until you stop down to f/11.
at 12mm yes, but don’t forget, Pana goes until 32mm, and Olympus until 50mm. If you have more zoom range it’s more difficult to have good results over the entire zoom range. I’d like to see a comparison not only at 12 and 32mm, also at 14, 18, 24mm.
Strongest point is still the compact size. For photographing 3 objects the lesser edge performance is not a big deal imo, I mean the edge values are not poor but just ok?
The thing is, since the lens lacks a focus ring, I wonder how manual focus would work on Olympus bodies?
Great corner sharpness.
To bad OlY and Pana dont share eachothers lens correction info so that we can interchange.
Isn’t that part of the shared m43 project? Oly and Pan have been going down this road together pretty much.
They share it… Not only with eachother, but also with most raw converters. The only thing that older oly bodys don’t correct is the CA-but that’s just one click in LR.
Well, one is a 2.5x zoom, and the other is a 4x zoom… So no surprise here. it is much easier to optimise a 2.5x zoom then a 4x zoom (incl macro) – but I’m really looking forward this lens as a tiny zoom to accompany my primes. 😉
Now, maybe it would be possible to ad a small, foldable 2x tele. Maybe 60-120mm f2.8-4 ? Should be easy to get high quality at a reasonable price. I don’t understand that the modern zoom lenses always go to the extremes, with either high price our low quality-just for zoom range…
Other then lower prices, it would be possible to get faster zooms-how about a 17-35mm f2? That would be my always on camera lens of choice. Just as the ply 75&12 and I’m set 😉
The last sentence should say ´just ad oly 75&12 and I’m set’
Damn Swype 😉
“Well, one is a 2.5x zoom, and the other is a 4x zoom…”
I’d agree with you if the 12-50mm was about half its current size. At five times the length there’s really no excuse for performance to fall away so drastically.
The Panasonic lens is telescopic, whereas the Olympus zooms/focusses internally. So you only have the compact lens size when it is switched off.
Well, that’s when lens size matters most to me at least. If I’m shooting, I can hand hold a Nikon D7000 just fine… it’s around my neck and in my bag that it’s annoying.
That seems like a very nice lens indeed, especially considering it’s size!
For 700eur is should better be a very nice lens.
The 12-32 costs half that, 350eur.
yep, it’s the GM1 + 12-32 for 699,-!
When is leica going to rebrand this?
Looking at the size of that panny lens, they’ve pulled off a freak!
That’s probably smaller than Pentax Q kit lens and that’s put in context it’s stupidly impressive and a kick in the guts to all other companies.
hahah, this picture should go along with the description: Olympus 12-50 – EPIC fail
Another epic fail comment. just as m43 vs 35mmFF.
Now this stupid comment.
The 12-32 allthough very compact (kudo’s Pana) is easier to keep up average sharpness quality than for a 12-50.
We compare apples and pears. Like above someone already said, one is 2,5x zoom the other 4,1x. The more zoom the more optical compromises. Both have their purpose for different reasons.
One collapses and is small the other has internal zoom, internal focus, macro and weathersealing.
Well some might have read in previous posts that I earn my living with photography and before Pana came with the 12-35 and 35-100 lenses I used the 12-50 in bad weather and it shines there!
Ofcourse the 12-35 has replaced it now, but still it has a very usefull macro mode and if one can take one lens it might be the best walk around solution.
That is plain bull.
The Panny has only 64% of the reach, it is not weather sealed, and does not do macro. The Oly also sports power zoom. Moreover, the Oly is made as a fairly cheap kit-zoom, and is not touted as a high quality lens like the Panny. The Oly is a 4.2x zoom, whilst the Panny is 2.7x. So they are different beasts entirely. Looking at just corner sharpness at wide apertures, and assert that this criteria alone makes one lens totally “beat” the other is pure nonsense.
The Oly is a fairly good performer, considering it’s versatility and price point. Not state of the art, but it’s not meant to be either. The Panny is also good, but a much simpler optical formula, being just a plain short std. zoom w/o the Oly’s versatile capabilities. Hence no “epic fail” anywhere! Just different consumer-grade zooms of different designs and purposes.
PS
The Oly lens also has a Fn button, which the Panny lacks.
I meant the picture with the two lenses side by side. Keeping in mind the micro 43 size, the Oly is totally an epic fail as the pana has 12mm, decent zoom and better performance. All other stuff – weather sealed, macro is good stuff, but for a STANDARD zoom I would always choose the pana which is like 3 times smaller :))) So the oly becomes a niche product and when comparing the oly and pana, both targeted as STANDARD zooms – the Oly is a totally total EPIC fail :))) Just check how both will be selling after several months…
And if you look at the whole comparison, the Olympus has troubles *only* in the corners at 12mm. In all the other situation is not worse than the Panny. So kudos to Panasonic (and I’ll buy the G1 and this lens) for doing a great job, but there’s no shame on Olympus
Totally agree, nice to have someone think before they hit “submit comment”
It depends how you define “good performer”. Amongst all my zoom lenses (not a few) it is by far the worst performer, especially in overall sharpness. Event if this is due to my sample, the reports about the 12-50mm lackluster optical quality are so abundant, that it isn’t appropriate to call the lens “good performer”. It does not match with high quality cameras like E-M5 and E-M1. So Olympus should replace this lens quickly. It is mostly a shame for m4/3.
Well said! That’s how I look at the 12-32 and 12-50 too. They have different use. I suppose Panny fanboys hate the truth Erik just pointed out. They behave like rapid dogs in Internet when the truth is posted.
But I can’t stop it man:
12-32 is a EPIC FAIL in 33-50mm. Can’t capture any pic.
12-32 is optically inferior to Olympus 12-40mm by a large margin. Now that’s apple to orange.
No macro and weather-proof? 12-32 is garbage in many situations.
It’s so easy to touch Panny fanboys’ nerve 🙂
Can’t read the link from here. Did they perform the same test with different F-lenght? How does it compare at 32mm?
In the test is written about “Two lenses of a similar focal lengths and similar brightness: 12-50 mm 12-32 mm Olympus and Panasonic”. For me, it’s a big difference if 12-32 or 12-50…
I love the size, but should we wait till the launch of a 32-50 to get proper portraits focal lengths?
Sorry nothing against a 2 lens kit-lens.
Alex you seriously don’t want or need a 32-50 lens as a portrait zoom. Buy the Olympus 45 f1.8 and you have a perfect complement and portrait lens. 50 f6.3 is extremely dull for portraits…
Not really a fair comparison given the large difference in focal length at the long end. Still impressive results for Panny! +1 on selling it separately. Wish it had distance scale markings on it though for zone focusing
There is no focus ring at all!
The lens will be sold separately in Japan on the same day of GM1 sales.
Wow! Nice comparison!!!
The Oly wins 12-50mm when shooting in the rain or doing macro.
From 33 to 50mm, the Oly wins in any situation!!!
Always funny to see how defensive people are about their equipment. No one is critizising you, it is only some of your gear that is not top of the notch.
Oly does a lot of great glass and cameras. The 12-50 is the most versatile kit zoom but lets face it the IQ and focus speed is not quite there. And considering it is the biggest kit zoom that was coupled with their best camera one should be able to expect it to at least outperform the dull 14-42/45 zooms.
The panasonic is of course a totally different beast but it is very impressive that they manage to deliver this good IQ in such a small package. And no a slow portrait zoom is definitely not needed to complement the missing range, 50 f6.3 is very unsexy for portraits. If you want a portrait lens to match up with GM1 and 12-32 the small and great Oly 45 f1.8 would be the best choice.
Very, very small, acceptable IQ (not superb, but not bad). Tiny 45/1.8 looks like giant near 12-32mm. GM1 (or EM2) + 12-32 + 45/1.8 is beautiful and very small set. And maybe 20/1.7 additionally.
Can’t beat it in macro mode ^o^
It’s not a true macro though. More of an “almost macro” mode. Nothing wrong with that and always a plus to have, but no one that likes to shoot macro is going to use the 12-50. I think they wanted to sell the EM5 to the masses and Oly wanted a lens that made the point and shoot crowd feel like they got what they wanted in one lens. It was all for the marketing and IQ was never a priority. For most of us here (excluding Oly fan boys) it is just another lack luster kit lens.
Man, some of these comments are idiotic. “Better” clearly refers to the criteria tested. Saying it’s not better at 50mm, or at macro, is just stupid. The lens wasn’t designed for those areas, and no one is claiming it’s a replacement for the 12-50 in those areas. I could as easily say “The 12-50 is a terrible match to the GM1 because it’s not tiny and doesn’t collapse, so it’s a bad lens.”
Each lens was designed with different criteria in mind. Where they can be compared, though, is in sharpness, contrast and distortion in the range they have in common. That’s what lens tests are for!
The Oly fandiots just can’t accept anyone else building something good, so they have to find some way to nitpick it to death. Sounds a lot like DPR.
Or maybe that’s why they can’t really be compared to each other.
One has the main selling point of being very versatile, a jack of all trades, and the other’s usp is the small size (but less flexible ).
I don’t own the Oly 12-50mm btw preferring to use the Panny 14-45
some of the comments on this forum make me want to quit humanity & forsake the internet
Remarkable IQ in such a small lens and if Panys figures are correct equally good at the normal end. To put this high resolution from this lens into perspective 100% greater than EM5 kit lens at center and 50% at edge. One could crop your picture to 80mm equivalent and still get as much resolution as the Oly kit lens so no need to worry about the shorter reach in this comparison. For video cropping to 4x is even possible and still have sufficent resolution for 2k. The biggest advantage in addition to top IQ wide open is its very small size. Even though not internal focusing, even when extended to full length it is no larger than other kit lenses retracted! As for lack of focal reach perhaps many may not have noticed that Pany is releasing a small 35-100 lens to go with it in early 2014 and 100mm or 200mm equivalent is much more useful and frequently used focal length than 50mm At any rate this small zoom coupled with coming 17mm/f1.4 or existing 20/f1.7 and 45mm/1.7 should make a perfect combo for this GM1 and any other m4/3 compact camera for that matter.
This remarkable lens should be a terrific boost to m4/3 once people get to realize its potential and small size advantages. With such a high resolution of 3,700 lines up to f7 where diffraction starts, potential pictures from it should rival those from even FF cameras using kit zoom or even prime lenses! With the GM1 with very good high ISO, slower zoom lenses are much more viable than previously and for landscapes no longer a need to cart along a tripod as FF users do to get deep focus by closing down the f stop and hence need lower speeds to keep ISO low.
Just my opinions and you have yours,
Sorry I just noticed when going back to the chart at the beginning of this post that I had made some major errors which need to be corrected. Must have not had enough coffee this morning and not wearing my glasses and miss read the legends or descriptions. No the EM5 and GM1 kits lenses have about the same resolution on center, it is on the edges that the 12-32mm lens shines in comparison. This obviously effects some of my other comments made accordingly. My apologies should have checked closer before posting.
Will this lens be available on its own or only bundled with the GM1? I find zoom lenses in this focal range boring, so paying $1,000+ for the Olympus 12-40mm or Panasonic 13-35mm seems like a waste for the rare occasion I would need this focal length. I would really like to buy the 12mm 2.0 from Oly but that is excessively overpriced, should be $450 tops. For the record, I once owned the 24-70mm 2.8 for my FF DSLR and I sold it because I found the photos uninspiring. I replaced it with prime lenses and I have never been happier.
I can’t speak to the 12-32, but the 12-50 really isn’t a bad lens at all. Pseudo-macro mode, weather sealed, sharp, good quality images, electronic zoom. It’s just slow as hell. It gets a bad rap for just the slowness.
If you are talking about the motorized zoom being slow, then understand that it is that way because it is supposed to be used for video. Realise that there is “focus by wire” manual zoom if you pull the snap ring back and that is what you want to use when not shooting video.
If you are not talking about the motorized zoom function, then I don’t know what it is you found slow. This is a MSC lens, which in Olympus terminology means great focusing speed. Olympus MSC and Fast Af are well known for speed.
No, I was referring to the optics. F3.5-6.3, which isn’t so bad for the wide end, as everything will be in focus anyway for landscapes, but for the far end, 6.3 is just atrocious. M43 already gets berated for its lack of shallow DOF, but that’s equivalent to almost f13 @ 50mm for 35mm. It also works against it when trying to shoot low light at any focal length. It’s my only sticking point with that lens, as I otherwise like the quality of the images it produces. But I guess it’s trying to be too many things to too many people, that speed was thrown under the bus. Other than that, it’s still a good lens, and I use it a lot.
Bearing in mind the uncertain market success, and their own financial issues, this lens was always going to be a compromise. It almost certainly had to be weathersealed. IMHO, they gave us a versatile lens that, before I bought my primes, was always on my camera. It’s still the walkaround lens of choice when I have no shooting ideas in mind. It probably appealed to the widest market,and versatility is always at the top of people’s list when describing it. In that respect, they got it right.
I hope it will come in black and as a non kit lens.
The Olympus is better from 33 to 50mm, though. Somebody should mention that.
@Admin
If memory serves me correctly I vaguely recall admin posting something about Olympus releasing another camera with a new kit lens. I wonder if it’s the
12-50mk2 or perhaps a toral
…or perhaps a totally new lens from Oly. Any insights Admin?
12-50 is an epic fail from Olympus. Useless wide end, vastly oversized for such a slow lens, macro not bad but not great, useful for video only outdoors… An epic fail for an OM-D kit lens. The only real plus is the weathersealing, but, honestly, when taking pictures under the rain you will want a much better lens, won’t you?
12-32, on the other hand, is an excellent lens for its ridiculous size and much better overall IQ than 12-50. I hope Olympus learned the lesson (12-40 is sensational) and will not release a kit lens as mediocre as the infamous 12-50.
Great kit lenses are the 14-45, 12-40, 14-42 II and this 12-32.
The 12-50 is a fantastic lens from Olympus. I’ve carried on an EM-5 through downpours in the forests of Costa Rica, through driving rains and winds day after day hiking along Hadrian’s Wall. I dared the elements to dampen the spirits of the camera and the lens, and it did nothing of the sort. The gear performed well, and I got very memorable pictures. I can’t think of any other lens I would have used on that camera in those conditions. Great job, Olympus.
Memorable pictures? For your memories, yes. For image quality? Well..maybe downsized to 3mp, yes…
Pana 12-32mm looks much like a burden. If I want to use macro, I have to change lens. If I want to take pictures of birds or animals, I have to change lens. And its image quality is not better than 14-140mm lens?
I won’t want to bring a piece of shit in a trip. Wasteyard is to where the 12-32mm belongs.
Are you really that big an idiot, Sniper? If you think the 14-140 is the answer to everything, you/ve got a lot to learn. Maybe you should just buy a superzoom. Then you won’t have to deal with those pesky interchangeable lenses.
You are all assholes. Just use a Polaroid and be happy.