Review: Panasonic Lumix 35-100mm f/4-5.6 OIS

April 20, 2015

Jordan Steele

Image Quality

The size of this lens makes it a tempting addition to a small camera kit, but a focus on small size often leads to compromises in other areas. One obvious compromise is in lens speed. The maximum aperture of this lens is variable, and moves very quickly from f/4 to f/5.6 as focal length increases, which will limit the amount of background separation one can achieve. Luckily, one of the compromises that isn’t made is optical quality.

Sharpness

The 35-100mm f/4-5.6 is a surprisingly sharp lens. Given the design priorities on the lens, I expected good, but not excellent performance in this area, and I’m happy to report the 35-100m handily exceeds my expectation in this department.
The lens is very sharp over the central 85% of the frame right from the maximum aperture at all focal lengths. The edges and corners have some slight softening, but are still very usable. Shooting around f/5.6-6.3 is the sweet spot for the lens, and stopping down beyond doesn’t gain additional sharpness and has a minor detrimental effect due to diffraction, but overall, I feel confident using this lens at any aperture. Designing such a sharp lens that is this small is no small feat.

Goose - Olympus OM-D E-M5 with Panasonic 35-100mm f/4-5.6 @ 100mm, f/5.6 — Goose – Olympus OM-D E-M5 with Panasonic 35-100mm f/4-5.6 @ 100mm, f/5.6

100% Crop of image above (click to enlarge)

Bokeh

Well, if sharpness isn’t compromised, then surely bokeh has to be poor, right? Again, This too is wrong, as the 35-100mm puts in a very good showing with regards to out of focus rendering as well. In the vast majority of situations, the lens produces background blur with a relatively creamy character. Specular highlights are round and evenly illuminated, and what generally small amount of background blur you can achieve is very pleasing. See the image below for an example, taken at 100mm and f/5.6.

Tulip - Olympus OM-D E-M5 with Panasonic 35-100mm f/4-5.6 @ 100mm, f/5.6 — Tulip – Olympus OM-D E-M5 with Panasonic 35-100mm f/4-5.6 @ 100mm, f/5.6

Contrast, Color and Chromatic Aberration

In this department, the 35-100mm does fall about where you’d expect a consumer grade lens to fall. Contrast is even and fine, but the images are lower contrast out of camera than what one might get with some of the top-tier Micro 4/3 lenses. Color is fine, but also unexceptional.

The lens does put in a nice showing with regards to chromatic aberration as well. At most shooting apertures, the amount of CA is minimal, though it increases somewhat as the lens is stopped down. Still, a very nice showing all around here. Note that when shooting JPEG or in most major RAW converters, the minimal CA that is present will be automatically corrected.

Distortion, Flare and Vignetting

The 35-100mm features automatic distortion correction built into the RAW files, but when examining the uncorrected images, I found very little distortion anyway. The lens is corrected very well optically in this department.

The 35-100mm shows a mixed performance with regards to flare. In some instances, minimal flare can be observed, but put the sun towards the edges of the frame and you are rewarded with a multitude of ghosts and significant veiling flare reducing contrast significantly. It’s worth keeping an eye out in the viewfinder when shooting with bright lights in the frame. Vignetting is very well controlled, with no field-relevant corner shading visible, even at wide apertures.

Overall, the lens is very good optically. It’s a slow lens, but it’s great to know that the lens can deliver excellent results, even at the maximum aperture.

Continue: Conclusion and Image Samples

Tags:

Comments

15 responses to “Review: Panasonic Lumix 35-100mm f/4-5.6 OIS”

Shiv

May 4, 2015

Nice review! I picked up the Lumix 35-100m f4 lens before a trip to the Carribean – there was a $50 off sale going on and most retailers were selling it for $349. On my trip, I took the DMC-GM1 camera, the 12-32mm lens that comes with the GM1 and the Panasonic 20mm f1.7 (mostly for night/available light). This proved to be a very compact yet versatile kit. I was very impressed with the quality of the shots I was able to take with the 35-100mm f4 lens. I’m surprised that there isn’t more “buzz” online about this lens as the size, quality, and price make it very attractive.

Reply
Joe Kashi

May 6, 2015

I initially hesitated buying this lens due to sparse initial reviews and uninspiring optical results with other Panasonic telephoto zoom lenses. I finally bought this lens when it was briefly on sale at BH. I won’t keep a lens that is not optically acceptable under a wide range of circumstances.

For its size and price, it’s really quite good optically and versatile. I took in a night Red Sox game while back at MIT last week and did not find the f/4-f/5.6 maximum aperture to be a problem, even under the Fenway lights, with an E-P5 at ISO 800. We got crisp, quite detailed burst-mode photos without problems.

I also tested this lens, and many other M4/3 optics, on an Olympus E-M5 Mark II in its 9216-pixel high-resolution RAW mode, processed with DXO 10.4 and Lightroom 6. Under these more rigorous conditions, the 35-100 was not quite up to the best M4/3 prime lenses, but still acceptable at f/5.6 with some judicious DXO pre-processing.

It’s an excellent travel lens, as well as a more than adequate all-around M4/3 telephoto.

Reply
John R. Parks

January 29, 2016

I’m considering this lens (the Pan. 35-100 f/4-5.6 OIS) for use on an Olympus E-M10 II, but what about the OIS? There’s no switch. Do I have to turn the camera’s image stabilization off to use it? And how would the AF work with the E-M10? Would I have to alter the camera menu setting for that?

Thanks,

John~

Reply
1. Jordan Steele
  
  January 29, 2016
  
  The AF will work just fine. For IS, you can can choose in the camera to use either the IBIS or the OIS. By default it’ll shut off the OIS and use the IBIS (and I’d suggest leaving it that way…with most lenses, the Oly’s excellent IBIS is superior to the OIS on almost all Panasonic lenses. ) If you like, though, the setting is “Lens IS Priority,” and it’s the second to last item in the Gears->C menu. Set to Off to use IBIS and to On to use the lens OIS.
  
  On older Olympus bodies like the original E-M5 (and likely the original E-M10), you can’t use lens based IS at all…it just uses the IBIS.
  
  Reply
  1. John R. Parks
    
    January 31, 2016
    
    Thanks for your response to my question. I had decided on this lens over the Olympus 40-150 f/4-5.6 even though it costs more and does not have quite the reach, but I didn’t know how the Olympus body would handle that OIS. —John~
    
    Reply
Benoit

April 7, 2016

Hello Jordan,

I am actually working for french television as an assistant and we are making a 90 minutes documentary about Le puy du fou, a huge entertainment park in France. With my G7, I have a 25 mm and a 7.5 mm. Plus some old non stibilized Pentax telephotos (the result is shaky and unusable). I want to film spectacles with a telephoto (to follow actors in close up), so I would need some lenses like the 14-140 or the 35-100 f2.8. The problem is that some users refers to huge problems of jitters, shakiness, despite the image stabilization which make footage clearly unusable, even on a tripod… What is about the 35-100 f4 when filming at 100 mm on a good Fluid head tripod while slowly panning and tilting ?

Thank you in advance for your answer, and thanks for your blog,

Benoit

Reply
1. Jordan Steele
  
  April 7, 2016
  
  I’m really not the person to ask. I shoot so little video that I really can’t give advice on how certain lenses perform in video in certain situations…simply not enough experience there. I shoot 99.9% stills.
  
  Reply
2. ukeolo
  
  November 22, 2016
  
  Hello, I just received a brand new 35-100 f4-5.6 and I am sad to report that my copy shows this strange behaviour… I would describe it as ‘hiccup’ when the stabiliser is turned on in camera (gm1)… video are ok, and I think also stills are ok, but during live view this is really annoying.. any solution? the lens firmware is updated.. too bad..
  
  Reply
sakis doumas

August 17, 2016

Hello,nice review,do you recommend this lens or the 45-150 as a first zoom lens for gx80?
I can find this lens bulk cheaper than the 45-150..
Thank you

Reply
1. Paul C
  
  January 29, 2021
  
  I have both those zooms – and my experience goes like this….
  
  …the 35-100 is great for travelling light and mixing with lenses that share the 46mm filter thread – so the 25mm and the mark 2 14-42 kit zoom make a good 3 lens set that weighs litttle and fits in a tiny bag. You can get cheap new versions from dealers that split up kit packs that sell a body with 2 zooms as 3 items – so this can undercut the cost of the 45-150 a lot. The IQ is really good – just don’t try to zoom with video as the zoom is not reallly smooth (get the “power zoom” lens for that). That 3 lens set exemplifies what is great about the M4/3 system – it gives me a 28-200mm range and an ultrasharp fast “standard lens” – together that covers ?90% of what I ever take and you need to print to >10×12 to see the difference over full frame or APS. The 25mm with a +3 or +4 dioptre close up filter makes a good addition in a travel set for getting good autofocus close ups….and saves on the cost and weight of a macro-lens.
  
  The 45-150 is faster aperture at all but the widest point, and has just a bit more contrast as well as being longer – a 300mm equivalent. It takes 52mm filters. If I can afford the extra weight and size – I take the 45-150 and a double set of filters (46 and 52mm) only because 300mm is the first perspective when you get real “super-telephoto” conpression of objects in your photos — and that is a real advantage in creative value in travel photography.
  
  Both lenses are very sharp over the fisrt 3/4of their zoom range – but fade in the final 1/4 of the telephoto end (by a little bit of resolution and a more obvious step of contrast). Both the 35-100 and 45-150 are better than the 45-200mm, which also has a much bigger size and weight penalty. If you want to go longer the 100-300 is good.
  
  Needless to say – don’t loose the lens hoods; they are made to fit each zoom with a bayonet attachement and make a big difference to contrast.
  
  Reply
Moreno Tagliapietra

November 3, 2016

Hi, when I want to travel light, I use the lens combination mentioned in this review – Olympus 9-18mm, Panasonic pancake zoom 12-32mm and 35-100mm f/4-5.6 on two OMD bodies. It’s an extremely small and lightweight system that, with proper shooting and processing, allows me to print enlargements up to 24×36″ with my own Epson printers (I sell my prints as a part-tine fine art pro). I love my M43 pro lenses but this combination is the most fun and comfortable with which to work.

Reply
Pavel

March 14, 2017

I really enjoy the approach you take towards lens and body reviews. The real world approach, is what makes the most sense in the field, not charts and myopic specs, and it’s a refreshing, practical angle.

What I get the most, however, is that you are a photographer with a unique eye, and more talent than most photographers who lean towards testing ever, have or hope to one day have. You really are very, very talented and have a way of making the every-day, mundane details of one’s surroundings look interesting. Perhaps you should consider putting many of your images up for sale.

Reply
1. Jordan Steele
  
  March 14, 2017
  
  Thanks! I do sell prints of my images, though I haven’t built an online storefront or anything. I generally sell between 10 and 20 prints each year. (not because of limitation, but because that’s how often people ask to buy one).
  
  If you’re interested in purchasing any image, just drop me a line and I can have a print shipped.
  
  Reply
bryanjames

March 25, 2017

I got this lens for 120euros as a backup. never really used it. stumbled across this review and I relaly love the results. will try it out next weekend

Reply
Jacques

May 11, 2021

Despite already having a 14-140, I recently bought this lens so that I could carry my GX9 with the much smaller 12-32 and still have a tele option in my pocket. Your reviews, and my own testing, have borne out my confidence in this combo.
In fact, your comparison of the GX1 and EOS 1Ds MkII clinched my decision to move to Micro Four Thirds many years ago. Thanks for the excellent reviews!

Reply