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 Performance

At 14mm, sharpness in the cetre of the image area is outstanding from maximum aperture, with the clarity towards the edges being very good. Stopping the lens down a little improves sharpness slightly, but at this focal length clarity is limited by diffraction as it begins to fall as the lens is stopped down past f/4, which is normal for Micro Four Thirds Lenses at this focal length. Sharpness remains good across the frame until the lens is stopped down to f/11. The resolution at 25mm follows almost exactly the same pattern with outstanding sharpness in the centre at wide apertures and very good sharpness towards the edges.

At 45mm overall resolution drops as it does with most zoom lenses at maximum zoom. At f/5.6 sharpness in the centre is excellent, becoming excellent across the frame when this lens is stopped down to f/8.

Resolution @ 14mm		Resolution @ 25mm
Resolution @ 45mm		How to read our charts The blue column represents readings from the centre of the picture frame at the various apertures and the green is from the edges. Averaging them out gives the red weighted column. The scale on the left side is an indication of actual image resolution. The taller the column, the better the lens performance. Simple. For this review, the lens was tested on a Panasonic Lumix G3 using Imatest.

Chromatic aberration levels are extremely low throughout the zoomm range. At their strongest they can cover up to half a pixel width towards the centre of the frame at f/22 and 45mm.

Chromatic Aberration @ 14mm		Chromatic Aberration @ 25mm
Chromatic Aberration @ 45mm		How to read our charts Chromatic aberration is the lens' inability to focus on the sensor or film all colours of visible light at the same point. Severe chromatic aberration gives a noticeable fringing or a halo effect around sharp edges within the picture. It can be cured in software. Apochromatic lenses have special lens elements (aspheric, extra-low dispersion etc) to minimize the problem, hence they usually cost more. For this review, the lens was tested on a Panasonic Lumix G3 using Imatest.

As falloff and distortion are corrected by the camera's image processing engine when shooting JPEGs, falloff and distortion will only be easily visible when shooting in RAW format.

Falloff of illumination towards the corners is quite pronounced at 14mm. Here the corners are 1.7stops darker than the image centre at maximum aperture and visually uniform illumination is achieved at f/5.6. The level of vignetting drops as the lens is zoomed in to a very low level where the corners are only 0.784 stops darker than the image centre at 45mm. Visually uniform illumination is achieved at f/6.3 at this focal length.

Distortion is very well controlled with only 0.803% barrel distortion at 14mm and 0.453% at 45mm. This low distortion figure will also help to improve the clarity of JPEGs in camera around the edges of the frame, as less severe corrections will have to be applied.

Flare is rarely an issue with this lens, even when shooting directly into strong point sources of light, like the sun. Strong light sources just out of the frame also rarely cause flare and contrast levels hold up well.

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