Register a free account now!
If you are registered, you get access to the members only section, can participate in the buy & sell second hand forum and last but not least you can reserve your preferred username before someone else takes it.
B&H's $280 sale price ended late in the day on 2/14/26. It was in effect for about week prior to that. They also sold it at that price in December 2025. The price has gone up & down the same amount at least twice in recent months, so maybe there's a chance they'll offer another discount on it soon. Good luck!
Can you imagine the image quality of a 24-400 at f/2.8. It would only be rivaled by the weight. LolFor me it's... An ultrazoom lens. Yes, yes, yes, right after release of 28-200 I am telling that I am missing al ultrazoom. Why? Because I am completely unhappy with 28-200. Ultrazooms are meant to be "All in one" lenses. So you can take one lens with you and it will cover at least 90% of what you will want to take pictures of. However, 28 is not wide enough, 200 is not long enough. So with this lens I will be limited from BOTH sides! That's why I am not happy with this release. It should be either 24 on the ide end or 300+ on the tele end to interest me, or both, which would surely make me happy.
So yes, I am still waiting for a good ultrazoom lens. But now I don't think I'll get one
It seems like the variable aperture lenses never start at 2.8.
Tamron make a few I think and in the film days Sigma and Tamron, maybe others, made some f/2.8-4 zooms as one step away from being constant aperture. But of course f/3.5 and f/4 are far more common.
I received the 7Artisans AF 24mm f1.8 lens a few days ago. So far I've only snapped the test images attached below. The Kolari OLPF was installed in my S5iiX when I snapped these pix. The view of my backyard is through a double-pane glass window. The photo of the lens itself is an iPhone snapshot.
I agree. A nice little 50-200mm f/4-5.6, compact, sharp wide open (of course) - small size for when that's the priority and we don't need a fast aperture.
As a superzoom with overly compromised image quality and inflated price in order to get that big range into a very small size. I think it should be possible to make a 50-200mm f/4-5.6 that's a similar size but with faster aperture at the long end, better optical quality and lower price.
Inevitably, I think it is prohibitive to get one lens to be fast and compact with a long range. I have the 14-28 and the 24-60. I like the 14mm when I want that near fisheye look and I rarely dial it up to 28, so I think I would prefer a 14mm prime. I also have the f/4 16-35 which is an excellent lens, but I think I will sell it since my 24-60 all but covers that range and more, has excellent image quality, and I get an additional stop of light.
It's not too dark, it's a compromise for weight. And you acknowledge it by your next sentence about 28-105 being too heavy. I like your 16-50 suggestion!
The 16-60 together with this 50-200 would be a very nice travel setup.
If you use AF-C the lens may give some AF problems, I think. I always use AF-S, centre point only. My copy does not misfocus. I use a Leica SL2-S and the camera automatically chooses a higher shutter speed when zoomed in.
no, I almost only use af-s, and only have misfocussed photo's at the long (dark) end, especially if the subject is darker or low-contrast. I think that s5ii gives focus confirmation, while the af actually did not achieve proper focus. It's not the lens it self. And it is only more common with far away subjects. In a zoo or whatever it works fine also with af-c, but a distant building or mountain (like >1km), especially with some haze/low contrast is very difficult for this lens/af combo. Used the lens for about 1/3 of my pictures in total in my last vacation, so fair amount.
The 28-200mm is not my favourite lens, because it is not wide enough for me. But every time I use it, I am surprised how sharp the pictures are from corner to corner. Last year I bought the 24-60mm and did some "testing" at aperture 8, because that is the aperture I use most. A reviewer came to the conclusion that the IQ of the 20-60mm and the 24-60mm is very close. I tend to agree with him. I also "tested" other Lumix lenses and my conclusion is that the IQ of different Lumix lenses is quite universal at aperture 8. The best zoomlens I ever had was the Pentax* 16-50mm/f2.8 PLM: excellent IQ which is very close the prime lenses.
Did the same in Poland and Italy last year. One city with just the 16-35 and the next with 24-105. (Lucca was the outlier, only 24-60).
Perhaps I didn’t express myself quite correctly. Of course, 24–105 isn’t “too dark.” I meant that it’s 1 stop darker than f/2.8.
I’m glad I’m not the only one.
