The lens was tested by David on a GH3 body:
I find distortion in unnoticeable right through the range, and Chromatic Aberration is minimal-its pretty much not there.
To Sum up, this is a valuable addition to the micro 4/3 photographer's armory, and for many of those, this lens paired to the 12-35mm will be all the glass that they would ever need. You'll have the equivalent of a 24mm wide angle to 200mm tele, all at a constant f/2.8 in just two small optics. Add a weather sealed body like the Olympus OM-D, or the Panasonic GH3, and the result is a very capable and versatile outfit using just 3 items of gear. In so far as it matters, its a really good looker. Focusing speed is lightning quick, especially with the firmware upgraded to the current 1.1 version. It has
excellent performance, handling and build quality-I'm struggling to find any bad points. All I can think of is tha center sharpness is not up to edge sharpness all the way through the range. The only other criticism could be the price, its way more expensive that the other micro 4/3 zooms, but this lens is unique in its field.
For some reasons only known to Tamron's managers, the company chooses to enter the micro 4/3 format with a 14-150mm zoom, closely matching the popular Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 14-150mm f/4.0-5.6 and the elder Panasonic Lumix G Vario HD 14-140mm f/4-5.8 ASPH MEGA OIS lenses.
Now, if they had bothered to shave a millimeter or two off the wide end, it would have been really exciting news, but as it stands now, the micro 4/3 mount is served by no less than 11 zoom lenses all sharing the 14mm wide end. Is there enough playing field for the New kid? . . . read more
That's a whole train of wide angle mirrorless system lenses, and it seems the caboose* has derailed somehow, pretty soft and fringy compared to the other 3, BUT it was used with a GH3, not the best of combinations. Kudos to Sony to make such a sharp wideangle (used with a NEX-5R) zoom lens, they had a slow start but seem to have begun catching up by now. As for the Fujinon xf 14mm (mounted on the X-E1), it performs as expected, very sharp with no visible Chromatic Aberrations. The PanaLeica 7-14mm falls a bit behind, but it is the oldest lens of the bunch, by a wide (heh) margin. Click on the image for the full thing. For those daring enough to delve through the Google translated text, here's a snip: . . . read more
As an aside, whilst the 12-35 comes with built in Panasonic Power OIS, I haven’t tried it out – I’ve been relying on Oly’s excellent 5-axis stablisation in the OM-D, although at some point I reckon I’ll give it a go.
All in all, I’m pretty happy with the results which this lens is capable of. I intend to test it out a great deal more, especially in low-light situations. I picked it up with the intention of using it as a low-light lens for events, and that’s what I’ll post about more when once I’ve given it a good go. In the meantime, here are a couple more sample images… Let me know what you think. . . . read more