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Hmm, cheapo Kit-Lenses with Pro-lable?…

Their you have it – m4/3 now has a kit lense labeled as “pro”, and you’ll zoom it by pushing camera buttons.

Keep dreaming about bright zooms. You will never get those. Never.

I think the “X” could be like the Canon “DO” Lenses. I don´t believe, that Panasonic mark small lenses as “Pro”.

“Pro” lenses must have a big aperture, an outstanding image quality and the Telelenses must have enough control Buttons for AF and Hold-AF. That´s all nothing for small lenses.

For me i hope of something between Sony 70-400 G SSM and Nikon 200-400/4 for around 2000-3000 € with half of the weight of the Nikon 200-400

PS: Please excuse my bad english^^

The term pro implies that it’s not your typical aperture compromised zoom. I have no interest in a f/3.5-5.6 zoom, no matter how compact it is. I’d rather use a compact prime. To appeal to the “pro” segment, the new X lenses would have to be brighter than the average kit zooms.

Would like a Pro-GF1 with a super fast Pro wide angle pancake lens. Oh yeah, and with a built in Pro viewfinder. Built in ok flash as well…

Super wide,super distortion fisheye please Panasonic-more than the 8mm with low F-stop.like the century .3x on a VX1.

Nice! Hopefully, it is gonna be soon, as I am thinking of buying something new )

PRO-lenses with such “professional” characteristics as power-zoom and/or video ability!?! Professionals would prefer fast zooms (e.g. halfway compact 35-100/f2.8) over such stupid gimmicks; but Panasonic doesn’t seem to get it…

Gee, what a lot of negative crap gets burbled here. If even half of this rumour is true I’ll be delighted. Don’t be afraid of a rocker type power zoom, one of the P&S upgraders you sneer at will be happy to show you how to drive it……!
And go take a look at Lord Nelson’s telescope to see how a collapsible zoom could also have a large objective lens and decent aperture.
Two years ago, the only large sensor alternative to a DSLR was a $10,000 Leica, and that’s before you bought a MF prime lens to feel clever with!
I’m really looking forward to seeing what’s available when my E-PL1 stops working. Might be a while though, given that my first Olympus, an IS-1000 with a POWER ZOOM is still going strong 20 years later. Just can’t trust these sneaky Japanese optical engineers, can we!

I love all the clamoring for fast zooms. I’ll tell you what killed 4/3 in one word: Zooms. But since high spec fixed lenses have been introduced first this time, I think is ok to make a few for the zoomers.

feature table:
-> pro optic quality, to satisfy prosumers, check
-> power zoom, to satisfy both video and P&S upgraders, check
-> small size, to meet general demand and beat Nex, check
-> cheap price, to sell to all the above, check

yeah… maybe cheap price can be achieved by selling the lens to all mkt segment.

What if:
-> the powerzoom can be triggered by turning a zooming wheel on the barrel. Could feel almost as natural as a regular zoom.
-> the powerzoom can also be triggered by a “rocker” around the shutter button (as in LX5 for instance) on future bodies…but can still be triggered with the zooming wheel also

Finally, what if:
Following the collapsible design of the new X lenses, Panasonic develops a new “consumer grade” 14-175 small & cheap… It will appeal consumer of the “bridge” market if the package body+lens is similar form factor as a bridge… well maybe I am going too far, am I?

I remember how the new Oly cameras (E-P3, E-PL3 etc.) got rave predictions for groundbreaking image quality here on 43Rumors. Later, when the cams were actually there, DPreview found they are at least one generation behind in image quality.

Now we hear that the new tiny motorized Panasonic kit-zooms have tremendous quality. Anybody wants to bet on it? Would like to know how many “sources” are actually paid by the industry for spreading – whisper, whisper – favorable “rumors”. Viral marketing 2.0 maybe.

-> pro optic quality, to satisfy prosumers, check
-> power zoom, to satisfy both video and P&S upgraders, check
-> small size, to meet general demand and beat Nex, check
-> cheap price, to sell to all the above, check

Yes It will all come true — this is the new tech liquid lens folks! Google it!

Stuff of wet dreams heh!

New, high quality 14-42 and 45-175 lenses that are super compact, ultra sharp, and have power zoom? I’ll take one of each, thank you very much Panasonic.

Olympius

I’d love for these X lenses to be small and high quality.

Ditch the focus and zoom rings and make it sealed and powercollapsable.

Then let me save focal length in-camera. That would be awesome.

Then cycle through the focal lengths with a dedicated or fn button. 14mm, 17mm, 25mm, 42mm boom

could be cool if the optical quality is up to par

I would rather see Panasonic do an “enthusiast” line of autofocus lenses that get rid of focus by wire (for when we want to manually focus) and feature an aperture ring, distance indicator, weather sealing, fast glass plus great optical specs without resorting to digital trickery – of course maybe my hopes do not really fit within the m43 small aesthetic…

You guys are so doubtful and negative. If Olympus had announce this people would be jumping in joy and anticipation. Why so much criticism toward Panasonic? lol!

It doesn’t matter what they call ; PRO or X , if Panasonic can’ t deliver a good result or A Wow factor , we dont have to buy it and hope that Oly would come up with HG &SHG GLASS

I was in a camera store again yesterday comparing all the mirrorless units against each other and the APS-C DSLRs. It struck me how similar in size they were when fitted with the larger zoom lenses. There was a new EPL3 with the 14-150mm lens fitted and next to it was a Pentax K5 with the longer of the kit lenses fitted. Really not that much difference on overall length; 2.5 – 3cm at most. Body was of course larger, but maybe more manageable with this size lens fitted. Body and lens were well balanced and not out of proportion like a NEX.

I had read this post about smaller zooms before the shopping excursion and thought that the real benefit of M43 is size and portability. If it were not the case, then how many would be using a camera which costs the same, if not more than a DSLR with comparable quality image output and functionality.

If a company attempts to create smaller lenses for M43 then I fully support and welcome any efforts to do so. If these new lenses have similar or improved image quality to my longer 40-150mm and was at the right price I would seriously consider it.

IMHO this is what M43 has over the DSLR category. If not, what is the point.

Admin, any news on whether these new lenses will have Power OIS, rather than Mega OIS? It’s puzzled me why some of Panasonic’s compacts such as the TZ10 have more advanced OIS tech than on its interchangeable lens range, especially as the TZ lens is, of course, collapsible.

Whilst I’m at it, any news on Fuji’s ‘big announcement’ next month?:-)

A new Panasonic “X” series? In product design, the prefix “X” is short for “experimental”. It’s used to denote “alpha” or “prototype” hardware. I tend to doubt Panasonic’s marketing would be foolish enough to name a shipping product “X” anything. Perhaps their reasoning is that if Sony can call a product line “Alpha” then they can too, essentially. Monkey see, monkey do…duh.