Panasonic G X VARIO 12-35 mm f/2.8 ASPH. P.O.I.S review - Distortion

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Panasonic G X VARIO 12-35 mm f/2.8 ASPH. P.O.I.S

18 March 2013

Arkadiusz Olech

6. Distortion

As long as you work on JPEG files or develop RAW files using the company software the distortion won’t bother you. At 12 mm focal length there is low barrel distortion of –1.39%. At longer focal lengths the problems are even less pronounced because at 23 mm you get –0.17% distortion and at 35 mm (already after changing into the pincushion variety) the value of that aberration gets to 0.80%.

As our review concerns the lens itself, it’s always interesting to check how the optics manages that aberration on its own. We can do it by developing RAW files with the dcraw program which doesn’t correct the geometrics faults of a lens. In that case at the wide angle of view you must take into account a huge barrel distortion which reaches −6.54%. It’s worth comparing it to a value the Olympus 12-50 mm got at the same focal length; it was −6.87%, so slightly higher than that of the tested Panasonic. With the increase of focal length the distortion decreases swiftly and, at 23 mm it reaches just −0.51%. At higher focal lengths there is a sign change and at 35 mm we deal with pincushion distortion of 0.89%.

Olympus E-PL1, 12 mm, JPEG

Olympus E-PL1, 23 mm, JPEG

Olympus E-PL1, 35 mm, JPEG

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