Panasonic Leica DG Vario Elmarit 12-60mm 2.8-4.0 ASPH

The Leica DG Vario-Elmarit 12-60mm f/2.8-4 ASPH Power OIS delivers a very good job without being brilliant - which is hardly surprising given its 5x zoom ratio. The resolution is perfectly fine (tack sharp) in the image center. However, like many MFT standard zoom lenses it suffers from aggressive distortion auto-correction at the wide end of the range which is limiting the border quality to max. good to very good results at 12mm. Due to field curvature you should also stop down a little here although this doesn't increase the technical performance anymore other than reducing corner noise (due to less vignetting compensation). The quality is great in the middle range and still impressive at 60mm. Lateral CAs are low and generally no issue. Vignetting and distortions are handled via image auto-correction so you don't need to worry about these two aspects in real life. The quality of the bokeh is a bit on the rough side. The build quality is very high - the used materials are top-notch and everything is tightly assembled. The weather-sealing and a freeze-proof designs are reassuring. It's also very compact lens relative to it's zoom range and speed. The AF is very fast and absolutely noiseless. Panasonic Power OIS (optical image stabilizer) wasn't overly convincing unfortunately. It's hard to tell whether I'm a shaker or whether I have simply a different definition of critically sharp results but during the field session it gave me 2-3 f-stops max. Coming to a final conclusion is difficult - less so because of the Leica lens itself but because there are so many MFT standard zoom lenses. It tries to find the "right" balance between range, quality and size and it certainly succeeds here in our opinion. Whether this specific balance is right for you is a different question.

Highly recommended – Great handling and generally excellent performance.