Panasonic Lumix G Vario 14-45mm f/3.5-5.6 Zoom Lens

Panasonic Lumix G Vario 14-45mm f/3.5-5.6 OIS Handling and Features

The lens barrel is constructed from high quality plastics with a two-tone grey/black finish and weighs only 195g. The lens mount is metal, which is quite unusual for a lens supplied as a kit lens, as it originally was with the Lumix G1 and GF1 cameras. This lens has now been superseded by the newer 14-42mm lens as a kit option, but is still available separately. The small size of this lens means it balances very well on the Panasonic G3 used for testing.

As focusing is performed internally the 52mm filter thread does not rotate during use, making this lens ideal for use with graduated and polarising filters. The manual focus ring offers just the right amount of resistance to make fine adjustments easy and auto focus is performed reasonably quickly.

The minimum focus distance is 30cm, which makes this lens suitable for shooting in tight spaces, or for frame filling close ups at maximum zoom.

A switch located on the side of the lens barrel activates the Optical Image Stabiliser, rather than having to adjust the Stabiliser setting in the camera menu. With a little care, the optical stabilisation system allows sharp shots to be taken just over half the time at 1/8sec, which is roughly three and a half stops slower than the usual rule of thumb would dictate.

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