Panasonic Lumix G 8mm f/3.5 Fisheye Lens Review

Panasonic Lumix G Fisheye 8mm f/3.5 Handling and Features

Weighing only 165g and being only 60.7mm in diameter, this lens is incredibly lightweight and compact for a diagonal fisheye and complements the Lumix G3 used for testing perfectly. The only drawback of the small size is that care needs to be taken to ensure your fingers don't end up in the corner of the frame if they stray beyond the built-in lens hood.

Panasonic Lumix G Fisheye 8mm f3.5	Panasonic Lumix G Fisheye 8mm f3.5

The shallow built-hood serves to protect the front element if the lens is placed face down on a flat surface and the lens construction is generally very good, with high quality plastics being used for much of the lens barrel and the lens mount being constructed from metal.

No claims for weather resistance are made by Panasonic for this lens, and there is no way to attach filters to the front of the lens due to the extremely wide angle of view, just like with other fisheye optics. A holder for sheet filters is provided in the lens mount, which 22mm square pieces of material can be placed inside.

Autofocus is very fast on the G3 body used for testing and the manual focus ring provides just the right amount of resistance for making fine adjustments easily. The minimum focus distance of 10cm makes the lens suitable for close up images, where the fisheye perspective can be exploited to create other-worldly looking images.

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