Panasonic 35-100mm f/2.8 - Bill Castleman review

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httivals
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p.1 #1 · Panasonic 35-100mm f/2.8 - Bill Castleman review

There's an excellent review of the 35-100mm lens on Bill Castleman's site. Looks like it's not all that good for landscape/architecture due to the poor edge/corner resolution. Even the 14-45mm Panasonic trumps it at 45mm for edge/corner performance for overlapping apertures and it gets worse as you zoom to longer focal lengths. . . . The review confirms to me, at least, that I'm better off just using the 75mm f1.8 and cropping, if necessary, even for travel. It seems like it's designed as primarily a portrait/even lens.

Dec 07, 2012 at 05:26 PM

jojomon11
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p.1 #2 · Panasonic 35-100mm f/2.8 - Bill Castleman review

I returned mine, def was not worth the 1,500

I wouldn't even use it for a portrait lens

Dec 07, 2012 at 06:45 PM

snapsy
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p.1 #3 · Panasonic 35-100mm f/2.8 - Bill Castleman review

Wow, those corner MTFs look horrible. I wonder if it's really indicative of the design or just a bad copy.

Dec 07, 2012 at 06:47 PM

Jman13
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p.1 #4 · Panasonic 35-100mm f/2.8 - Bill Castleman review

That's not been my experience at all. I've been extremely pleased with my 35-100. Quite sharp at f/2.8 and very very sharp at f/4. The corners aren't as sharp as the 75/1.8, but frankly there are VERY few lenses that are.

The 'wouldn't even use it as a portrait lens' comment seems extremely off to me. Is the 75/1.8 better? Yeah...but I think the 75/1.8 is one of the best lenses of all time, frankly...for any system. If I could only keep one, though, I'd keep the 35-100.

I also think you're looking at MTF vs one of the sharpest primes in existence and making big jumps in logic. At the end, he concludes by saying "Overall, this light weight, compact, high performance zoom is well worth the cost of purchase if you shoot candid event photos. I'm not sure I will be needing my Canon EOS system 70-200mm f/2.8L lens since this Panasonic 35-100mm lens will provide most of the photographic performance of the 70-200 at a fraction of the weight and size."

These are all with the 35-100:

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100% crop of above (this is at 100mm, f/2.8):

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100% crop of above:

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And a few landscape/architecture shots:

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Dec 07, 2012 at 06:59 PM

Jonas B
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p.1 #5 · Panasonic 35-100mm f/2.8 - Bill Castleman review

Another thing to consider is that Castleman's MTF charts sometimes are very much wrong. I recall when he compared micro 4/3 25mm lenses and did the same huge error as Lenstip and concluded the Voigtländer is the sharpest ever, especially so at borders and corners. Lol, yes it is but only when shooting at very short distances (for example indoors framing a resolution chart).

I haven't tried the long zoom and have no idea about how it performs - but if I had been interested in such a lens I certainly would have tried it myself rather than decide anything based on Castleman's or Lenstip's or xxx's charts.

Dec 07, 2012 at 08:12 PM

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