Panasonic have announced a new ultra fast, wide lens built for professional daily use. The Panasonic Leica DG Summilux 12mm f/1.4 ASPH lens for Micro Four Thirds cameras seems built to meet the needs of demanding photographers and filmmakers who need maximum resolution and low light performance. Giving the equivalent field of view as that of a 24mm lens on a full frame DSLR, the fast f/1.4 aperture lets in a lot of light for shooting in darker conditions, and also offers a very shallow depth of field for more cinematic environmental portrait shots.
Built for the Panasonic Lumix range of Micro Four Thirds cameras, the Leica 12mm f/1.4 ASPH lens was designed to pick up the fine detail of landsape photography. With an all metal construction, if the splash and dust proofing lives up to expectations, it seems that it should be rugged enough to stand up to the job. Designed for high resolution stills and 4K video footage, a pair of aspherical elements, two ultra extra low dispersion (UED) elements and one extra-low dispersion (ED) elements work together to reduce things like barrel distortion, colour fringing and chromatic aberration, but we’d expect nothing less from a name like Leica.
The smooth, silent autofocus should also make this quite attractive to Lumix filmmakers who may need a wide lens for things like establishing shots, and environmental interviews.
On paper, it looks like a pretty good lens, but we won’t get to see how it performs in the real world for a little while yet. The Panasonic Leica DG Summilux 12mm f/1.4 ASPH lens is expected to be released in August, comes with a price tag of $1,299 and is available for preorder now through B&H.
