To be totally honest, it’s actually two new lenses in the bag. The first is a 14mm prime which I picked up very cheaply. It was originally part of a Panasonic G series camera kit, but was sold separately having never been used (there are a lot of these on the market at present). The other lens and the subject of this blog is the new Panasonic 14-140mm lens.
I have wanted one of these lenses for a while and my hope is that it will replace my 14-45mm and 45-200mm lenses. This won’t be all the time but when weight and convenience is a factor. Typically this will be when I am out walking in the mountains as I don’t really like to stop to change lenses. I know that sounds lazy but when you’re up a mountain in bad weather, possibly with others, possibly at altitude, you don’t want to start messing around swapping lenses.
My first impression of this lens is that it is well made as you would expect from Panasonic. In terms of size it’s only slightly bigger than my Panasonic 14-45mm and doesn’t weight too much more. The front element is slightly wider at 58mm where the core zooms in my Micro 43 kit are all 52mm.
What matters to me most however is performance. If I compare this lens to the two lenses it needs to replace, my first impressions are that it isn’t quite as sharp as my 14-45mm but performs very nicely within this zoom range. Beyond this I am a little uncertain. It certainly isn’t as sharp as my 45-200mm which is excellent and its performance seems to dip beyond about 60mm BUT I think this may be my technique.
So far the weather hasn’t allowed me to really get the feel for the longer focal lengths. I have been shooting these handheld and the speeds haven’t been as fast as I would like. Every so often I have been able to shoot an image which looks good and the performance has been quite close to the 45-200mm lens. I think I need to get this on a tripod and take some comparison shots.
Hope you like the image.
The Lightweight Photographer 
Lovely image. The rich colours capture the autumnal feel of this beautiful scene.
Thanks. I’m pleased you like it.
Thank you! An excellent Autumnal image with excellent colour, reflections, shadow & light. And there I was, tidying the garden. Including the exposure details would help me/us to learn from you as well as being inspired by you. I look forward to seeing some of your 14mm prime pictures.
On 18 November 2013 21:04, The Lightweight Photographer wrote:
> thelightweightphotographer posted: ” To be totally honest, its > actually two new lenses in the bag. The first is a 14mm prime which I > picked up very cheaply. It was originally part of a Panasonic G series > camera kit, but was sold separately having never been used (there are a lot > of thes”
Hi Mike. Good point. I should really show the exposure details. Then again I could let you into a secret. Most of the time I shoot in Aperture Priority with the lens set between f/5.6 and f/8.0 depending how near to me the subject is and how long a lens I am using. I chose these apertures because most of the M43 lenses perform best within this range. I then set to exposure compensation to between +1/3 to +1 stop depending on how the histogram looks. I then reduce the exposure in Post Processing as this tends to give a better quality image. It’s a bit of a lazy way to shoot but it allows you to concentrate on making the most of the scene. I will also see what I can do when I get out with the 14mm prime.
Stunning image! Perfect lighting & color saturation. Even though the water is not flat the mirror image is still lovely. Terrific shot!
Thank you very much. To be honest, I don’t like perfectly flat water as it sometimes looks too perfect and false. It’s easy to shoot when you come across a scene like this though.
Wonderful picture, reminds me of a Maxfield Parrish painting.
Thank you.