Lumix Vario G 14-140mm F4.0-5.8 Mega O.I.S (H-VS014140E)
The full name of this lens is a bit of a handful, so I’m just going to refer to it as the Lumix 14-140 which should be specific enough.
I got this lens as a Christmas present for my little ‘carry around’ camera – the GF2, I’ve only had this lens for a few days but it has made a good first impression.
Price:
The price of this lens can vary dramatically: From £650 online from the likes of Amazon, to over £700 on the high street, so be sure to shop around.
Build:
The build of this lens in very good. It feels solid and has a good weight to it. The zoom and focus rings are smooth but not flimsy feeling.
Performance:
I’ll start with the image stabilisation – mega O.I.S – of this lens, it’s quite impressive. I’ve taken a few shots at full zoom (140mm) as low as 1/40th sec handheld and still had a sharp image. The O.I.S can be turned off if you want to save the battery life or you’re using a tripod, it’s just a simple switch on the side of the lens. Given the extreme 10x zoom range of this lens it does suffer from a little softness. Throughout the zoom range you’re best trying to step it down a couple of f-stops to get the best out of it. F8 seems to be the preferred aperture of the lens, once you go above F11 the image quality starts to degrade a little again.
Specifications:
|
Features |
|
|---|---|
| Lens Construction | 17 elements in 13 groups (4 Aspherical lenses, 2 ED lenses) |
| Mount | Micro Four Thirds mount |
| Optical Image Stabilizer | YES |
| Focal Length | f=14mm to 140mm (35mm camera equivalent 28mm to 280mm) |
| Aperture Type | 7 diaphragm blades / Circular aperture diaphragm |
| Aperture Range | F4.0(Wide) – F5.8(Tele) |
| Minimum Aperture | F22 |
| Closest Focusing Distance | 0.50m / 1.64ft at all focal lengths |
| Maximum magnification | Approx. 0.2x / 0.4x (35mm camera equivalent) |
|
General |
|
|---|---|
| Diagonal Angle of View | 75dig(W)-8.8dig(T) |
| Filter Size | φ62mm / 2.44 in |
| Max.Diameter | φ70mm / 2.76 in |
| Overall Length | Approx. 84mm / 3.31 in (from the tip of the lens to the base side of the lens mount) |
| Weight [g] | 460.0 |
| Weight [oz] | 16.23 |
Verdict:
This is a very nice lens and it’s does exactly what I want, an all in one lens. You don’t get a lens like this without some compromise which this lens has with a bit of softness, but it is handled very well with this lens, better than some I’ve used before on larger D-SLRs. With the weight of the lens vs the weight of the camera it does feel a little odd at first and the GF2 is a bit tricky to shoot one handed with this lens on. If you’re after ‘that one lens’ you can use most of the time then this is worth looking at. I wanted this lens for part of my light travel kit. In the end it will be my GF2, the Lumix 14-140, and the Lumix 100-300. Figure with those lenses I’ll be able to carry them all around all day while travelling without them becoming a burden. I know I couldn’t carry about similar with my D700 all day without my back starting to complain. The little Compact System Cameras are so much less intrusive when shooting as well, often goes un-noticed as you walk around shooting what you see. That seldom happens with a full frame D-SLR in your hands.
Recent Comments