During our meeting with Panasonic about their new LUMIX S1r II, the company showed us a lens roadmap with two major curiosities. In two locations were generalized names. There was one from the 24-60mm range and another from the 100-500mm range. Looking at the company’s current lenses, we can’t see them replacing the 24-70mm f2.8 so soon. Furthermore, in the roadmap, the lens that we saw wasn’t reaching into the 70mm range at all. We highly doubt that they’d make a 24-60mm f2.8 — that would be wildly unpopular and unreasonable.
Panasonic is known for sometimes making unconventional focal lengths like their 20-60mm lens along with their 14-28mm lens. So something like this wouldn’t necessarily be out of the ordinary. However, we’d expect them to do something completely different in this case. They’ve already proven it with their super compact 100mm f2.8 macro lens. But when would be get something like this? We’re not sure. However, if there indeed is a 24-60mm f2 coming, then we’d be insanely excited about it.
The really exciting thing for many photographers will be what they’re calling an ultra telephoto zoom lens. On the roadmap range, we saw it in the 100-500mm area. Canon is the only one with a lens like this already, and we’d be very curious to see and know how Panasonic tries to enter this arena. The company has always been very video-centric but is now taking more of an approach to bolstering what they provide the stills market. That would then mean that Panasonic is trying to get into the wildlife photography market. However, they’d be a bit behind to it. And that’s fine in this case because the brand mostly focused on working with photographers who shoot people. Now that they’re very saturated in that part, they can focus on the wildlife sector. This could mean huge things for cinema, television, and stills.
What’s even cooler is that pretty much all of Panasonic’s lenses are weather resistant with the exception of the 26mm f8. So of course lenses like these would be weather resistant. In fact, we haven’t seen a LUMIX S Pro lens launched in a while, and arguably, the brand is behind in that sector. Maybe these new lenses will give us what we’ve been yearning for for years now. At the moment, there are fewer LUMIX S Pro lenses than I can count on two hands.
We’re very hyped for this to happen. And more importantly, we hope that they come this year. 2025 seems to be hinted at by all the manufactuerers are a very exciting year for photography. It’s nice to see that they’re coming back to their roots and stepping away from all this video and hybrid camera nonsense for a little while. The thing is that with video and going after YouTubers and Social Media stars, there’s only so large that they’ll want to make their videos. And any sort of innovative features that they’d need are already present in the cameras.