New product from Panasonic Lumix S9 definitely steal the title related to the company’s camera launch, but less mentioned is the extremely strange lens that was launched with the camera, the lens featured in many of the camera’s beauty shots: Lumix S 26mm f/8 lens.
Well, at least two people are talking about it, and none of them are positive. The comedy camera duo is impeccable Kai Wong And Lac Truong Let’s take Panasonic’s smallest full-frame camera and Panasonic’s smallest full-frame lens to go with it and discuss why it’s just a real pain in the ass of a release from Panasonic. .
The big headline is the lack of features. The lens does not have autofocus, it has a fixed f/8 aperture and no filter thread.
You can expect some of that when you adapt vintage lenses to modern bodies, but for Panasonic to release lenses in 2024 for bodies in its own ecosystem, that’s crazy. Does anyone have anything to do with this? Wouldn’t be great for fixed aperture video, and there’s no ability to adjust that with neutral density filters. It doesn’t activate the manual focus aids when you turn the focus ring, and heck, why doesn’t it autofocus in the first place?
It seems that in the pursuit of producing a lens that looks good for product photography, the marketing department that designed this lens forgot that people need to take photos with it. Surely there couldn’t have been a single photographer at Panasonic who made these design decisions. I hope.
I can certainly get behind the odd lens. I bought Olympus fisheye 9mm f/8 lens because it’s a cheap way to put on a fisheye lens and it can also be used as a body cover. For $100 for the Micro Four Thirds mount, the fixed aperture and manual focus can be overlooked as this is essentially a “fun” lens with a fisheye effect. However, for $200, the Panasonic lens doesn’t have any quirky features to warrant the price.
As Wong and Cheung point out, if Canon and other manufacturers can produce full-frame lenses with f/2.8 aperture at the same price and size, then there’s no reason why Panasonic should choose a this glass from the start with the S9. It’s a misstep that can ruin a good camera product.
Watch the video above to see how the lens performed in Wong’s tests. This is definitely an eye-opener on what not to do when removing lenses.
What do you think of Panasonic’s new 26mm pancake lens? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.
