We’ve seen this lens behind glass at many a trade show in the last 12 months, the first of a pair of high end weather sealed Panasonic zoom lenses for the Micro Four Thirds System. Today Panasonic finally confirmed the last piece of the puzzle, that the maximum f-stop is f2.8 and they officially announced the lens. No word yet on the second of the two but it could possibly come fairly shortly with the expected GH-3 which should also be a weather sealed body to match the lenses.
Being a higher end product, and having seen this lens myself at CES 2012 where I was quite impressed, I thought this was worth a mention. With so many mirrorless cameras and lenses being released these days, it’s nice to see a product aimed at the higher end of the market that could conceivably be used for professional work. The price is high though at about $1,500 so this is going to have to be a sharp when performer when it comes to stores in August.
Both of Panasonic's high end zooms at CES 2012
Press Release
SECAUCUS, NJ (May 21, 2012) – Today, Panasonic announced a new digital interchangeable standard zoom lens, the LUMIX G X VARIO 12-35mm/F2.8 ASPH./POWER O.I.S. (H-HS12035). The newest addition to the company’s premium lens brand “X,” which is compatible with the Panasonic LUMIX G Series and complies with the Micro Four Thirds™ system standard, this lens offers a versatile zoom range of 12-35mm (35mm camera equivalent: 24-70mm) and features constant F2.8 aperture brightness at entire zoom range. Suitable for professionals and enthusiasts, this new lens captures a wide range of scenes from dynamic landscapes to available light and studio-lit portraits and features superb image rendering for lifelike textures and crisp edge-to-edge contrast.
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Following this mornings announcement from Canon that the new 500mm and 600mm lenses were now beginning to ship to dealers in Europe, B&H has updated their site to allow pre-orders of these two exciting new lenses. This usually only happens when items are expected to arrive in stock relatively soon. There’s a lot of buzz around what look likely to be Canon’s sharpest ever lenses and with people having to have waited more than a year for these to finally come to market I would expect demand to be relatively high initially for such a high priced item. If you want to get one quickly I suggest you jump in line!
