Today’s Post by Joe Farace
“You don’t make a photograph just with a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved.” ―
If you purchase one of Panasonic’s full frame cameras, like the Lumix S1R, chances are you’ll be able to get it with the Lumix S 24-105mm f/4 Macro OIS lens as part of a kit and typically the package is a good deal.
This lens covers a useful range of focal lengths from wide angle to portrait length and it’s fixed f/4 aperture makes for a pleasant change from many kit lenses that come with variable apertures, although to call an almost $1,000 lens a kit lens seems like a misnomer. The lens is splash, dust, and freeze proof and works in inclement weather conditions down to -14 degrees F, Construction is to a high standard with no trace of corner cutting by using substitute materials to make the lens lighter or cheaper. It’s built like and feels like a bank vault.
Lens Design
The optical design consists of a four aspherical elements, including two made from extra-low dispersion glass to minimize distortions and spherical aberrations throughout the zoom range and two extra-low dispersion elements to reduce chromatic aberrations and color fringing. The rounded nine-blade diaphragm produces pleasing bokeh. The lens also produced pretty nice looking sunstars when stopped down to f/22, its smallest aperture. I give it an strong nine on the Farace Sunstar Scale and considering how I was shooting directly into the sun, the amount of flare produced is minimal and is either acceptable or correctable by retouching in Photoshop if it offends your sensibilities. So I guess the small built-in lens hood did its job
Optical Image Stabilization helps control the effects of camera shake and supports The S1R’s Five-Axis Dual IS provides six stops of stabilization with the Lumix S1R. On the barrel, you’ll find an AF/MF switch permits quick changing between focusing modes and a zoom lock switch can be used to prevent the lens from extending when not in use, although that did not seem to be a real problem when using the lens.
A macro lens is traditionally capable of reproduction ratios of 1:1, so the size of the object being photographed is the same size in the image. But for a long time the term has come to mean any lens that has a large reproduction ratio, despite rarely exceeding 1:1. Panasonic’s 24-105mm f/4, for example, has a 1:2 maximum magnification ratio with an 11.8-inch minimum focusing distance, so it’s “macro” in a way that lens manufactures translate the term as really what to the rest of us is just close focusing.
How I made this shot: The Lumix S 24-105mm f/4 Macro O.I.S. lens was at 105mm with a Program mode exposure of 1/800 sec at f/8 and ISO 320. When I moved in closer for a tight shot of the “dandelions” the camera would not autofocus. The easy work around was to use the joystick on the S1R’s back to position the focus point atop one of the white “stalks” but that takes time and maybe in the grand scheme of the universe, if you’re shooting macro you’re not in as much of a hurry as when you’re doing street photography, a genre the S1R is definitely not suited too.
Next, I first took the 24-105mm f/4 lens to my well-laid wall o’bricks for an informal evaluation: At 24mm and wide open there was no visible barrel or pincushion distortion and if there was any vignetting at the corners it was less than a few percentage points that quickly dissipates as you stop down even a half-stop. At 105mm wide open the results were as close to perfection as my eyes have seen when photographing these bricks for the past several years.
Longitudinal Chromatic Aberration aka LOCA occurs when a lens can’t focus different colors in the same focal plane and when it does occur produces a magenta or green halo around the edges of objects. The 24-105mm f/4 lens passed this test with flying colors, although the S1R or lens continued to struggle with AF on thin objects at the longest focal length.
The Lumix S 24-105mm f/4 lens is an impressive performer but I can hear some of my readers saying, “It should be for rgar price” but that doesn’t change what an incredible feat of optics this lens represents.
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