Panasonic Lumix G 12-60 mm f/3.5-5.6 ASPH. POWER O.I.S. review - Chromatic and spherical aberration

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Panasonic Lumix G 12-60 mm f/3.5-5.6 ASPH. POWER O.I.S.

15 October 2016

Arkadiusz Olech

5. Chromatic and spherical aberration

Chromatic aberration

The constructors of optics took proper care of the longitudinal chromatic aberration correction – it is practically imperceptible, no matter what focal length or aperture you employ.

Panasonic Lumix G 12-60 mm f/3.5-5.6 ASPH. POWER O.I.S. - Chromatic and spherical aberration

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The situation of the lateral chromatic aberration is a bit different. Below we present a graph showing its correlation with the focal length and aperture.

At longer focal lengths you see no problems. In the 35-60 mm range the lateral chromatic aberration practically doesn’t depend on the aperture and stays at an imperceptible level of 0.04%. At the shorter end of the focal range only significant stopping down might be an effective way to fight that aberration. Near the maximum relative aperture we got 0.14-0.18% which means that the contrast edges will feature color fringes. In this category the Panasonic 12-60 mm looses to the Olympus 12-50 mm.

E-PL1, RAW, 12 mm, f/3.5	E-PL1, RAW, 60 mm, f/8.0

Spherical aberration

While consulting the first photos of that chapter it is clear the lens doesn’t have any “focus shift” effect. Circles we got in front of and behind the focal point don’t feature anything alarming either and they are similar. All those things indicate the lens doesn’t have any problems with the correction of spherical aberration.