News

The Panasonic 16-35mm F4 Lens Focuses Crazy Fast Now

Chris Gampat
No Comments
05/12/2021
3 Mins read
Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Panasonic 16-35mm f4 PRO review product photos 2.81-40s2000

The Panasonic 16-35mm f4 lens review has been updated to reflect recent changes.

For a while, the Panasonic 16-35mm f4 Lumix S Pro was one of the L Mount’s fastest focusing lenses. Then that changed with the introduction of a few primes. But with the recent Leica SL2s firmware update, we’re updating our 16-35mm f4 review. The lens is even faster than it was before, and we’re not honestly surprised by this. Technically, it means that this lens is an absolute cheetah when autofocusing. In practice, that’s indeed true. Also true is the fact that people don’t really need super-fast autofocusing motors when using wide-angle lenses. It matters a lot more with telephoto lenses. 

The Panasonic 16-35mm f4 Lumix S Pro is overall an excellent lens. It’s weather-resistant, so it can stand up to the elements when you go hiking. With the Leica SL2s, it can autofocus in low light pretty easily. In fact, it was pretty much a solid and perfect lens for what you got. It’s lightweight too! In our previous conclusions, we said: 

“The good news about the Panasonic 16-35mm f4 PRO is that it’s an excellent lens. What’s holding it back most is the autofocus on L mount cameras. But once you nail that focus, you’ll get beautiful photos each and every time. Cityscape, landscape, and interior photographers will like the lens. And with the right post-production, you’ll do even better with it. The problem otherwise is the price point; I’m not quite sure I want to pay for a slower aperture lens that’s smaller when Sigma’s closest competitor is more affordable and lets more light hit the sensor. With that said, if Panasonic dropped the price on the Panasonic 16-35mm f4 PRO and improved the autofocus on their cameras, it would be one of the reasons to switch over to the system.”

Now that the autofocus has improved on the cameras, the performance of this lens will improve too. Let me also address a few facts here:

  • This lens is a wide-angle zoom.
  • The Panasonic 16-35mm f4 has fantastic color.
  • It’s great for architecture, landscapes, cityscapes, etc.
  • There’s perceived distortion, but that just makes sense for what this lens is.
  • It can photograph groups of people with great face and body detection algorithms.
  • It works and autofocuses well in low light.
  • It’s one of the lightest L mount zooms made that’s this high grade.
  • With firmware 2.0 on the Leica SL2s, the 16-35mm f4 is faster on this Leica body specifically than on the Panasonic S1 and the Panasonic S5. We haven’t tested it on Sigma camera bodies. Considering what we went through last time with a Sigma camera, we’ve got little faith.
  • If you were to have any zoom lens for the L mount, this is one of the ones that we’d recommend, along with one of the excellent 24-70mm f2.8 lenses.

The biggest question, though, has to do with pricing. This lens is $1,497.99. The Sigma 14-24mm f2.8 DG DN Art costs less money, but it larger and heavier in every way. I haven’t tested the Sigma since the Leica update, but it may be slower than the Panasonic. So you’re paying for arguably better weather sealing, a lighter lens, and faster autofocus. Truthfully, if all you’re going to shoot is landscapes and cityscapes, it makes more sense to just reach for the Panasonic.

autofocus firmware 2.0 leica Leica SL2s lens panasonic Panasonic 16-35mm f4
Shares
Written by

Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.