Lumix S Pro 16-35mm f/4

[pdk42]

I’ve now got a fair number of L Mount lenses and in general I’ve not had focus issues - except for one. The 70-300 I had seemed to show terrible focus wander, which I documented in this post:

Going crazy with my 70-300!

OK, so I'll preface this by saying that I've now binned all the images so can't back this up with any examples, but... I find myself sometimes extremely disappointed with the 70-300, but not always! It performs absolutely fine up to about 200mm, but above that I sometimes find that images are...

l-mount-forum.com

Normally, I use SAF and it’s very reliable.

 

[Oíche]

The 70-300 I had seemed to show terrible focus wander

I've never (nor I think anyone else) had any problems. Such modern lenses have such complex engineering, both mechanical and electronics. Trying to identify the problem could be difficult.

 

[pdk42]

I've never (nor I think anyone else) had any problems. Such modern lenses have such complex engineering, both mechanical and electronics. Trying to identify the problem could be difficult.

Yes, and I sold it to @Greytop, on this forum, and as far as I know it's working fine for him, so ...

 

[RuleOfThirds]

I bought a used 16-35 end of spring and used it a lot, and from the 100s of pictures taken with I since , not a single one was a bad picture due to focus issues. Even inside a dark salt mine it was ok to focus. Most on f4 for obvious reasons.
Like the rendering of the lens a lot.

• Panasonic - DC-S5M2
• LUMIX S 16-35/F4
• 35.0 mm
• ƒ/4
• 1/20 sec
• Pattern
• Auto exposure
• ISO 4000

I understand that writing, “my copy works on my machine doesn’t help at all… “. Maybe let it check for decentering and other issues by Panasonic?

 

[Jonathan-Mac]

I'm curious - do you acquire that copy new or used?


True, but on the other hand, the 16-35 has been on the market for 5 years now, and as far as I can tell, you are the only one to have publicly talked about having focus issues with the lens. So I'm more inclined to believe that you have had particularly bad luck. However, all I did was a basic google search - did not search FB, for example.


Yeah, I rarely check for focus accuracy anymore either, although I am a habitual pixel-peeper after the fact.

BTW, I did have a few OOF shots recently from my 28-200, which surprised me because I so rarely see that for AF-S, small-aperture images. At the time, I was focusing at infinity, which is not my normal approach. Do you commonly focus at infinity?

My original copy was bought used and I was very impressed with Panasonic that they exchanged it when I discovered it had blue fogging.

The nature of an ultra-wide I think means it's more commonly focused at infinity than many other lenses. Most of my photography is not landscape so I don't focus to infinity particularly frequently. In all the cases of mis-focus that I can recall with this lens it's been in good light, at a small aperture and should have focused to infinity (or very close to it). I was using it in very poor evening light in Bilbao recently until it got too dark and I switched to the Sigma 24/2 and the 16-35mm didn't struggle to focus or produce any mis-focused shots at all, so the quantity of light available is certainly not a factor.

 

[Greytop]

Yes, and I sold it to @Greytop, on this forum, and as far as I know it's working fine for him, so ...

Hi Paul, yes it doesn't get a whole lot of use but when it does the focus performance seems to be fine for me

 

[Babylonia]

The nature of an ultra-wide I think means it's more commonly focused at infinity than many other lenses. Most of my photography is not landscape so I don't focus to infinity particularly frequently.

Even when doing landscape, I never focus to infinity. Always keep in mind the margins of DOF area.
It doesn't mean that I do focus typical to the hyperfocal distance. It is dependant what is important within the scene, to be sharp.
Mostly that isn't the far infinity distance, but more important closer areas.