Panasonic 35-100 f/2.8 First Impression

Agreed about the bokeh. Maybe this is why Olympus has been opting for the small fast prime route as opposed to making zooms.

 

Having owned a Pentax DA* 50-135/f2.8 and extensively used a Canon L 70-200/f2.8 II, the new Lumix looks bloody tiny to me :smile:

Not my thing, but a fantastic addition to MFT nonetheless.

 

I didn't think the bokeh was all that bad till I saw this shot:

 

To show the opposite opinion, I personally very much like the bokeh, or and think it's comparable to that of most SLR lenses.

I don't mean to be contratian or argumentative, but I am curious as to what makes people think this bokeh is unnatractive. Is it the cat's eye and slight edge highlights? I can see why the bokeh in the image immediately before mine is unnattractive to some, but that seems like a one-off case.

I guess the thing for me is that I like my bokeh to have a bit of character. The 45mm f1.8 is my favorite lens ever(that might change if I get the 75mm =P), but sometimes it bores me a bit. If bokeh is so even and circular, then I feel like I can just imitate it with photoshop and a plugin, like I used to do for years before owning a camera other than my cellphone:

https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8022/7593812570_c36753c822_z.jpg

100% crop
http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/299968_10150352015711327_7031532_n.jpg

Not my best samples, those I can't share. But despite their flaws, no one ever suspected their Palm-phone origins =P

At the end of the day, it's just a matter of preferences. I do however wonder, if there's a correlation between age/amount of time shooting film and preference for "perfect" bokeh. I feel like in many cases, if you were used to imperfections in photos as the norm, things that were more "perfect" seem better. Whereas if you're used to things being cleaner(my E-PL1 in december was my first ever dedicated camera), sometimes a bit of imperfection adds character. I feel that might explain my generation's fascination with instagram, which I certainly don't share haha.

Imo the leica 25mm has much more annoying qualities in it's bokeh wide open, like lots of green and purple fringing and much worse edge highlights. Particularly noticeable in small bokeh circles. Now that I find distracting, and has discouraged me from buying the lens

Normally I think technical perfection in a lens is better. Character traits caused by a technical shortcoming like vignetting, color cast, softness, and low contrast are very easy to imitate in post. But imitating unique and realistic bokeh with character, like cat's eye, is much more difficult. So in this case, I don't think the bokeh is bad, like I might say softness is. Just different from what the norm is nowadays.

Issues of preference aside though, I do think the types of shots used accentuate what might be considered bad bokeh on this lens. I believe most lenses would suffer at framing that encouraged the same "size" bokeh. For portraiture use the first image on the site is most representative, and that looks perfectly fine to me.

 

There is something going on with that particular shot ... Like it was taken from in the tree or something. See how one patch of leaves is in very sharp focus, but then there's all the weird bokeh around it?

The other more traditionally framed pictures don't have any problem with the bokeh in normal foreground-subject-background scenarios.

That said ... Panasonic, I will buy this lens to replace my 45-200 once a teleconverter is announced! But not before!

 

It's the one shot that I don't like out of the whole set. I think the rest are rather nice

 

First of course it fits m43 as it has an m43 mount! ;P

The size of the 35-100 is about the same as the 12-35 zoomed out. I shot with the 12-35 for 8 hrs several days this week paired up with a FF system. Not once did I find it large. The FF, now that was large.

I can't wait for the 35-100 to start shipping!

 

It is slightly smaller in diameter and 1.1 inches shorter than length than the Panasonic 100-300mm.

 

For a zoomlens the bokeh doesn't look too bad to me, especially not compared to that of the Panny 45-200mm or 45-175mm. Granted, the Olympus 75/1.8 looks better, but that's out of my scope because I want a zoom lens with OIS. I will wait a little bit after it's on the market, I already noticed a € 100 price drop this week for the 12-35/2.8 and I have a hunch that this will happen for the 35-100/2.8 as well.

Another consideration is zoom range. I really love the 45-200mm or 45-175mm zoom range (have used both lenses). Almost half of the pictures I took with these are at a focal length over 100mm, so that backs up my feeling that I don't want to lose the range over 100mm. And no, a 100-300mm would be an extra lens in my bag, adding too much weight and size to my kit. Could well be that I'll buy a G5 instead and pair it with the 45-175mm to alleviate its OIS issues (electronic shutter -> no shake-up of OIS lens elements by shutter vibration).

 

And lots/usefully faster! ...which probably accounts for its size.

 

The "ugly bokeh" is not bokeh at all. It is a result of leaves which are out of focus in the foreground combined with leaves in focus that shimmer through. Nothing to worry about. The background bokeh is quite nice.

 

Nice that the zoom does not physically extend the lens (apparently).

 

Does anyone know the actual dimensions? I'm wondering length wise how it compares to the 12-50

 

Dimensions are here