Panasonic G Vario 12-32mm f/3.5-5.6 ASPH for afocal?

[hans]

Wondering if anyone has tried out this common micro four thirds kit lens for afocal use?

[hans]

Bump. Anyone own one and willing to do a bit of quick testing, handheld, taking photos through an eyepiece? I mainly interested in whether it is possible to get a reasonable field of view, not necessarily a detailed image quality assessment.

[MichaelG.]

Sorry, Hans ... I don’t have that lens
Gut feeling is that 32mm might be a a little short for the job, but I may be wrong.

There’s a fairly detailed review of it here: https://www.imaging-resource.com/lenses ... io/review/

MichaelG.

[hans]

Gut feeling is that 32mm might be a a little short for the job, but I may be wrong.

It is a Micro Four Thirds lens so I think the zoom range could work nicely if vignetting is not a problem. With 20 mm intermediate image and 10X eyepiece, 12 mm captures the entire image circle (10 mm diameter on 13.5 mm tall sensor) and 32 mm crops ~90% diagonally (26 mm diameter on 22.5 mm diagonal sensor).

[MichaelG.]

Gut feeling is that 32mm might be a a little short for the job, but I may be wrong.

It is a Micro Four Thirds lens so I think the zoom range could work nicely if vignetting is not a problem. […]

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Yes, I realise that it is a Micro Four Thirds lens ... but the ‘kit lens’ for my older model [G1] is 14-45mm
Hopefully someone with actual experience of the 12-32mm will advise you about its performance.

MichaelG.
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Edit: Another review, with lots of sample images :
https://www.dpreview.com/products/panas ... ple-photos

[hans]

... but the ‘kit lens’ for my older model [G1] is 14-45mm

Have you tried afocal with that one? I had seen it on some older models but was considering it not very promising because it looked so similar to my Nikon DX 18-55mm 1:3.5-5.6G kit lens which I had been thinking did not work well. However I tested the 18-55mm a while ago when I was still confused about how aperture setting in live view worked on the D5100. (Lens gets set to the current aperture setting when you enter live view initially but not updated if you change aperture setting while in live view -- the changed setting is applied only temporarily while taking photos then reverts back to the initial live view aperture.) My Microstar IV is put away at the moment but I just retested quickly on my SMZ660 and there was no vignetting at any focal length with aperture wide open. The SMZ660 has Olympus WHSZ10X-H/22 eyepieces with quite a bit higher exit pupil than the Reichert 181 (24 mm vs. 18 mm) but I think there was more than 6 mm clearance possible at all zoom settings.

I have not found anything saying whether there is typically much difference in entrance pupil depth on the newer collapsing/retracting designs like the Panasonic 14-42 and 12-32 kit lenses compared to the older ones.

[MichaelG.]

... but the ‘kit lens’ for my older model [G1] is 14-45mm

Have you tried afocal with that one? I had seen it on some older models but was considering it not very promising […]

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No, I have never bothered ...
There seems to be no convenient way of pre-setting the focus to infinity [or thereabouts], so I didn’t consider it a particularly good option.

I will be interested to see how you get on ; but unfortunately don’t think I can contribute any further.

MichaelG.

[TomFid]

I don't have that lens, but I get a reasonable FOV (circular image, cropped a bit at top & bottom edges) with the Panasonic 25 f/1.7, using the 10x photo eyepiece in the trinocular tube on my Optiphot. Since that's within your zoom range, a similar setup should work. Not sure if there are implications of the slower aperture.

[hans]

Good to know, thanks. I actually just made an offer on a GX850 with the 12-32mm and a broken-off battery door a couple days ago, should be here next week. Has a few limitations like no fully manual control in video mode and limited record time due to heating but for $120 it was the cheapest option I found with 4K video and the lack of EVF doesn't matter for microscope use. So the 12-32mm question should be answered soon.