This is Panasonic’s new 40mm f/2 prime lens for L-mount cameras, and perhaps the perfect combination for use with the smaller Lumix S9 cameras, as well as other Panasonic cameras, if you’re looking to make your camera setup smaller.

　　Panasonic say the 40mm lens is “close to the natural human field of view” although this is highly debatable of course – but we’ll dismiss our judgement and accept it in terms of photography. If you want to go down the rabbit hole see this video, or just do a simple google search on the FOV of the human eye (120-180°) and you’ll get a completely different answer to Panasonic (and others) who claim that a 40mm (57°) lens is the same thing.

　　The ‘human field of view’ includes peripheral vision out to almost 180° horizontally, but the 40-45mm lens range does give an extremely natural-looking image, with neither telephoto compression, nor wide-angle distortion – its not a natural field of view as such, but it is a very natural perspective, that human beings (myself included) are very used to seeing.

　　At a glance Price: $399 / £349 (RRP) Filter diameter: 62mm Aperture: F2 – F22 Min-focus: 30cm Lens mount: – L-mount Available in silver / black Features The Panasonic Lumix S 40mm F2.0 lens is made up of 7 elements in 6 groups, with 3 ASPH (aspherical) lenses designed to suppress spherical aberration. This makes it a relatively “simple” construction compared to larger more complex design, and no doubt helps with the smaller footprint of this lens.

　　There are 7 diaphragm blades – made with circular aperture designed to give nicer looking background blur, as you’d expect with a nice lens. If your prime lens doesn’t do this, then someone should be asking some serious questions as to why.

　　It’s a nice combination of small lens, and bright-ish F2.0 aperture, which makes it easier to keep your shutter speeds faster and your ISO speeds lower as your light levels drop, as well as letting you throw the background out of focus more easily compared to a standard kit zoom or slower lens.

　　There’s a close focus distance of 30cm, with 0.17x magnification. This should be close enough for some nice looking portraits and products shots.

　　Build and handling The Lumix S 40mm F2.0 isn’t necessarily a particularly stylish looking lens, but functional looking, without being too snazzy whilst also not being too ugly as far as lenses go. If comparisons are to be made, then this would be the “no fuss” serious business laptop, like an all-black Lenovo ThinkPad, rather than the MSI Crosshair RGB gaming laptop. It gets the job done, and doesn’t care too much about what it looks like.

　　The lens is incredibly lightweight for a full-frame lens of this focal length and aperture size, weighing just 144g.

　　It’s impressively compact at just 40.9mm long (just over 4cm) making it is a great combination with the Panasonic Lumix S9, one of the smallest full-frame cameras available.

　　In comparison to what’s available on other systems, Sony’s 40mm F2.5 weighs 173g which is both heavier than the Panasonic, and isn’t as bright. Nikon’s 40mm F2 lens (in Z-mount) is also heavier at 170g. And Canon doesn’t offer a 40mm lens for the RF-mount -the Canon RF 50mm f1.8 weighs 160g, so again heavier, but not a direct comparison.

　　There’s a fluorine coated front element on the lens, designed to repel fingerprints, dirt and grime. The front element is relatively compact, and it’s also recessed meaning that you have to try quite hard to get your fingerprints on it.

　　Like the business style design, the lens feels well built, and with a weather-sealed construction that’s designed to be dust, splash, and freeze-resistant, you can feel confident in the build-quality. In terms of the freeze-resistant design, it’s designed to operate in temperatures down to -10C. This means you could quite comfortably leave this lens on the camera, and not worry too much about the conditions you’re shooting in.

　　A 62mm filter might be fairly common, but you might have spent all your money on 58mm filters, or 68mm filters, but regardless, 62mm filters should be readily available and affordable.

　　The focus ring is smooth to use, and in manual focus feels like it gives a good level of control. You can customise this, choosing between linear and non-linear operation – set this to non-linear and the amount of focus shift varies depending on how fast you turn the ring for example.

　　There’s no dedicated aperture ring, but the focus ring can be customised so that it can be used to adjust shutter and aperture settings, as well as a digital zoom/crop (although features may vary depending on the camera used – and firmware version). This customisation is designed to be used with Panasonic Lumix cameras.

　　There’s a customisable Focus (Fn) button – this can be set to AF lock, AF/AE lock, AF-On, and more, and there’s also an MF/AF switch to quickly switch between manual and auto-focus when needed.

　　Autofocus Looking through over 100 photos taken, there was only one photo that missed focus – focusing on the background rather than the foreground subjects (whether this was a lens issue or a camera issue is unknown). As this was a one off I decided I didn’t need to spend much more time thinking about it, and didn’t notice any issues in any of the following images I took.

　　Focus speeds were completely adequate for my needs, as I used the camera for general photography (portraits, product shots, and general scenes) and I didn’t feel myself impatiently waiting for the camera and lens to focus – unlike some other prime lenses I’ve used. Focus is internal, therefore nothing moves externally.

　　The linear stepping motor is electronically controlled, and this is true when using manual focus as well – it’s just that you’re now controlling the focus rather than the camera.

　　For my video use, and for all intents and purposes, focus breathing appeared to be minimal. Panasonic has designed it to suppress focus breathing, and appear to have been successful in this. There’s also “micro-step” aperture control designed to stop sudden exposure changes when recording video.

　　Focus noise during video recording should not be an issue, and in my testing the noise from the lens focusing was very low, easily covered by general noise in the scene. It also seemed fast enough and accurate enough for my needs.

　　Image quality Sharpness is good in the centre of the frame at f/2, with some softness towards the corners. Stop down to f/4 and sharpness extends into the corners, and by f/5.6 you’ll find crisp sharpness across the frame. Where you need sharpness from f/4 onwards, there is sharpness and detail in spades. If you’re shooting portraits at f/2 with a subject in the centre of the frame, then the corner softness shouldn’t matter.

　　If you are expecting sharpness across the frame when shooting wide open, then perhaps this isn’t the lens for you. On higher resolution Panasonic cameras, the levels of sharpness may be more or less apparent and stopping down may be beneficial, especially if you’re of the pixel peeping variety of photographers.

　　Purple fringing and chromatic aberration, for the most part is barely visible, however, there were some images where I captured that elusive beast the dreaded purple fringing monster. If needed this can be corrected in raw editing software, from the usual suspects. Chromatic aberration (of the green, magenta or teal colours) was something I looked for and couldn’t find. Panasonic has been correcting these kinds of optical aberrations for a long time now.

　　Vignetting is strongest and clearly visible at f/2 (even with vignetting compensation switched on in-camera), still quite strong at f/2.5, and gradually decreases as you stop down the lens, just remaining slightly visible at f/3.2, and is completely gone by f/4.

　　When photographing brick walls, or other uniform subjects, the vignetting is very clearly visible, but look at the sample photos throughout this review, taken at F2.0, and you’ll often find the vignetting isn’t that noticeable and depends heavily on the scene being photographed.

　　Distortion is automatically corrected in JPEG images, as well as raw images, when opening them in modern software such as Adobe Photoshop / Adobe Camera Raw. Even if you somehow manage to get uncorrected images out of the camera (perhaps by using some old raw processing software) the distortion is quite minimal.

　　There’s minimal lens flare too, but can be induced if wanted. If you want an old-school lens with lens flare aplenty, then this is unlikely to be the lens for you, as it’s so well controlled.

　　I really like the look of the background blur produced by this 40mm F2.0 lens – I took a number of shots at the brightest aperture, and found the sharpness levels very pleasing (with crisp detail on the subject), and some smooth creamy bokeh adding to the look of the image. The results produced will vary depending on how close the subject is to the lens, and what’s going on in the background, but it’s pleasingly easy to throw the background completely out of focus when needed.

　　Verdict Currently this is the only 40mm prime lens available in L-mount from Panasonic, Sigma, and Leica*. There are the usual 30mm, 35mm, and 50mm options, as well as one 45mm option, but this is the only 40mm, making it somewhat unique, and combined with a compact size and bright F2.0 aperture I feel like were on to a real winner. (*Look outside these brands and you’ll find the 7artisans AF 40mm F2.5 prime lens as well as at least one dedicated CINE lens).

　　40mm prime lenses are few and far between, so it’s nice to see this option has a relatively bright F2 aperture, combined with a compact design. Add in an extremely affordable price point (particularly in todays market), and if you have good image quality too, then you’re on to a real winner.

　　I can say I was certainly impressed with this lens, with sharpness in spades when used on the Panasonic Lumix S9 camera. Yes, there is strong vignetting when shooting wide-open, which doesn’t completely go until F4, but if you’re able to live with this (for creative framing) or edit it out if it really needs it, then this lens should be high on your list. It’s a lovely lens, and for me, 40mm is a happy place to be.

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