Panasonic Lumix S Pro 50 mm f/1.4
11. Summary
Pros:
- very solid, metal,and weather-sealed casing,
- sensational image quality in the frame centre,
- very good image quality on the edge of the APS-C sensor,
- good image quality on the edge of full frame,
- negligible longitudinal chromatic aberration,
- excellent correction of lateral chromatic aberration,
- slight coma,
- moderate vignetting,
- sensible performance against bright light,
- out-of-focus areas pleasing to the eye,
- fast, accurate, and silent autofocus.
Cons:
- huge distortion on RAW files.
Why? There are several reasons. First and foremost – this wretched distortion. I find a decision to produce a huge, flagship, expensive, optically complex lens and pass on correction geometric deformations completely weird. Especially that in previous chapters we showed clearly that it entails squandering as much as 14% of pixels of the sensor.
As if it wasn't enough, from a lens that costs $2100, a show of force of the new system, you could expect a tad better performance by f/1.4 and f/2.0 and a bit lower level of astigmatism. Not to mention focus breathing which medium level of 8% allowed it to avoid the cons list but it was also was a kind of surprise. After all we speak here about a producer that claims video recording is one of their priorities.
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I wouldn't like to end this summary in a pessimistic way because the tested Panasonic definitely doesn't deserve this – after all I was very close to award it our 'Editor's Choice' badge. I am also very sure that it will stay on the podium for a very long time as a record-breaking lens, regularly mentioned in the resolution chapter concerning all L-mount models.
