Panasonic 7-14mm f/4 ASPH LUMIX G VARIO

Name: Panasonic 7-14mm f/4 ASPH LUMIX G VARIO
Brand: Panasonic
Rating: 9.5 (11 reviews)

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Lens Review
Specifications
Description

7-14mm	$765 average price

Lab Test Results

Panasonic GH1

Blur
Chromatic Aberration
Vignetting
Geometric Distortion

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SLRgear Review
May 18, 2009
by Andrew Alexander

PMA 2009 saw the announcement of this lens for the micro-four-thirds system. The lens is very small and uses a complex design of 16 elements in 12 groups, with 2 aspherical elements. As the four-thirds system mount produces a 2x ''crop factor,'' the lens produces an effective field of view of 14-28mm when mounted on a Panasonic G1 or GH1.

The lens features a constant ƒ/4 aperture and a fixed lens hood; the large protruding front element precludes the use of screw-mounted filters.

Sharpness
The 7-14mm ƒ/4 produced very sharp images. At the wider end of its focal length, images are sharp even when used at the lens' widest aperture; between 7-12mm at ƒ/4, the central region of the image is tack-sharp at 1 blur unit, with the corners showing just the slightest hint of softness at around 1.5 blur units. At 14mm there's a slight increase in corner softness as the central region of sharpness shrinks and the corners increase to 2 blur units. Stopping the lens down to ƒ/5.6 produces its best results, with the central region at a consistent 1 blur unit and the corners between 1.5 and 2 blur units.

Diffraction limiting seems to set in at ƒ/8, with a marginal increase in softness. Overall performance is still excellent, with the corners not exceeding two blur units. At ƒ/11 performance is still very good, and by ƒ/16 we begin to note a substantial impact on image sharpness as the corners hit 3 blur units and the small central region of sharpness stands at around 1.5-2 blur units.

With the lens fully stopped-down at ƒ/22, we note dramatic image softness - around 3 blur units in the center, and upwards of 6 blur units in the corners.

Chromatic Aberration

Upper left corner at 7mm and f/8

If the lens has a fault, it would be the strong presence of chromatic aberration in the corners. CA is well- controlled in the central region of the image, but as is typical of wide- angle lenses, is dramatically evident with purple fringing in areas of high contrast, in the corners of the image.

CA is most prominent between 7-11mm; at 12-14mm, it's slightly less evident.

Shading (''Vignetting'')
Unfortunately, for some reason our testing software can't process our test images from the GH1 to assess corner shading. Looking at the sample images, there does appear to be some slight corner shading, but nothing dramatic.

Distortion
The Panasonic 7-14mm produced some raised eyebrows for us when we looked at the distortion chart. Distortion is extremely well-controlled in this lens, with practically no distortion between 8-12mm, very slight barrel distortion at 7mm and very slight pincushion distortion at 14mm.

Autofocus Operation
The 7-14mm focused very quickly our GH1 test body, slewing through its infinity-close-focus-infinity range in under one second. There was virtually no focus noise.

Macro
The Panasonic 7-14mm doesn't make a good macro lens, with just 0.15x magnification. However it does have a good minimum close-focusing distance, at just 25cm (10 inches).

Build Quality and Handling
The Panasonic 7-14mm is small and light, weighing in at just 300 grams (just over 10oz), due to its plastic construction. The finish is a matte black and grey texture, with a larger zoom ring, mounted closer to the camera, and a smaller focus ring. There are no switches or controls on the lens, and Panasonic has also decided to produce the lens without a distance scale. Accordingly there is also no depth-of-field scale or infrared index.

The zoom ring is 1/2''-wide, composed of a dense rubber. The texture is of raised ribs running parallel to the body of the lens. The ring turns smoothly with a hint of firmness, and requires only a 30-degree twist to run through the focal range of the lens.

The focus ring is 1/4''-wide, composed of the same material and design as the zoom ring. The GH1 uses a fly-by-wire focus design, and combined with the lack of a distance scale, we can't assess how much turning is required to go from infinity to close-focus. Going into manual focus mode is very good, however; the LCD screen automatically produces a magnified field of view, making it very easy to get a perfect focus.

The integrated, petal-shaped lens hood precludes the use of thread-mounted filters. The interior of the lens hood is ribbed to help reduce any stray light from entering the lens. There is some front element extension as the lens is focused and zoomed, but nothing that protrudes the element beyond the lens hood.

Alternatives

Olympus 7-14mm ƒ/4 Zuiko Digital ~$1,750
At present, this is the only lens available in the four-thirds mount that can offer the equivalent focal range. The lens can be used on the G1/GH1 camera with an adapter, but is more than twice as heavy. Similarly to the Panasonic lens, the integrated lens hood precludes the use of filters. We haven't yet tested this lens.

Olympus 9-18mm ƒ/4-5.6 ED Zuiko Digital ~$540
If you don't need the extreme wide angle capability, the 9-18mm is a much less expensive lens that also provides wide angle capability in the standard four-thirds mount. With the micro four-thirds adapter this lens could be used on the G1/GH1. We have not yet tested this lens.

Sigma 10-20mm ƒ/4-5.6 EX DC HSM ~$440
The Sigma 10-20mm is available in the four-thirds mount, and with the micro four-thirds adapter could be fitted to the G1/GH1. The lens is much less expensive, but with the four-thirds sensor would actually provide an equivalent focal length of 20-40mm. The Panasonic 7-14mm would appear to be optically superior.

Conclusion
The Panasonic 7-14mm tested very well, offering images that were very sharp all the way to ƒ/11, and provided extremely impressive distortion correction with minimal light falloff. There's more chromatic aberration than we'd like, but even this can be corrected in image post-processing software. Unfortunately, at the time of writing (May 18, 2009) we don't yet have pricing information on the Panasonic 7-14mm, but history suggests that the lens will be relatively expensive. However, for the money you'll get a lens which performs very well.

Sample Photos

The VFA target should give you a good idea of sharpness in the center and corners, as well as some idea of the extent of barrel or pincushion distortion and chromatic aberration, while the Still Life subject may help in judging contrast and color. We shoot both images using the default JPEG settings and manual white balance of our test bodies, so the images should be quite consistent from lens to lens.

Still Life shot

VFA target

As appropriate, we shoot these with both full-frame and sub-frame bodies, at a range of focal lengths, and at both maximum aperture and ƒ/8. For the ''VFA'' target (the viewfinder accuracy target from Imaging Resource), we also provide sample crops from the center and upper-left corner of each shot, so you can quickly get a sense of relative sharpness, without having to download and inspect the full-res images. To avoid space limitations with the layout of our review pages, indexes to the test shots launch in separate windows.