kshorter's reviews

Panasonic 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 ASPH POWER OIS LUMIX G X VARIO PZ

I've owned and used this lens now for a couple of years. Had read the reported issues with the shutter blur but kept looking back at the SLRgear chart of this lens performance, its price and the compact size and decided to take a chance. For two years this has been the default lens mounted to my Olympus OMD E-M5. If interested you can see a fairly recent example pic of my work representative of this lens. Data is on this link but I'll point out this image was shot at 14mm which is not the sharpest focal length of this lens but worked for this shot.

http://500px.com/photo/61236770

Despite some horror stories, I find this lens to be one of my fav all rounders. For me it gets strong points for ease of every day use due to its compactness, acceptable performance across the range getting slightly marginal at 42mm (at which I use it the least). And it has the distinction of rivaling a prime at 25mm and f8. Quite flat and linear with very good sharpness at this focal length/aperture.

So I've read the howls of doom about this lens, to which I howl back with delight. This lens is one of my favorite purchases. I've graded it a 9 in image quality because of its unmatched combination of form factor and ability to rival a prime when applied at the right settings.