Review on 📷 Panasonic LUMIX Professional 8-18mm Camera Lens: G LEICA DG VARIO-ELMARIT Review & Specs by Ray Cole

Great lens so far. Bought as a replacement for my Olympus 7-14/2.8. The Olympus 7-14/2.8 is a great lens, but I found it more useful for serious work than walking. It was big and heavy (by m43 standards), didn't take regular filters and the adapter for 100mm square filters was decent but required careful handling. Finally, the bulging front element has always worried me that I might bump something with it. PanaLeica fixes pretty much everything I didn't like about the Olympus lens - it's smaller, much lighter (just over half the weight!) and removes 67mm filters or filter holder adapters. It's the perfect lens for walking around, especially because it's a bit longer. The build quality seems really good - it's maybe half a step down from the impressive build quality found on the Olympus PRO lenses, but it still looks very premium. Metal construction, extremely smooth zoom and focus, and while the front element moves when zooming, it moves inside the barrel. So if you put a clear filter on it, you can be sure that no dust will get in. The "price" you pay is that it's only 8mm wide, not 7mm, and at 8mm it's only 2.8mm wide. I personally think this is a reasonable price for what I'm getting. If I need a faster lens for longer distances, I can switch to other lenses. In terms of image quality - I haven't tested it under load yet - but it seems sharp across the board, even wide open. Autofocus is fast and accurate, like all modern m43 lenses. It's also parfocal. When I finally used it on an Olympus (EM1II) I was a bit worried about the possible issues with purple flare like the Panasonic 7-14/4. I'm happy to report that I haven't encountered these issues so far, despite aggressively shooting the lights.