Its blunt.

Or am I blunt?

Not Sharp

I cannot produce a sharp picture using the Panasonic 12-35mm 2.8. Reading from various reviews from the internet, I know for a fact that this is one sharp zoom. It is hefty, perfectly heft so that you feel it in your hand, yet, small and compact enough that it does not get in the way. Yet, I cannot get a sharp image from it!

Is it me? Could it be hand shake? This lens has a mega ois button that is suppose to aid me in getting pin sharp images. Yet, I am getting fuzzy images. I know its not the lens, and heaven forbids its me, but pictures don't lie.

One of the few pictures that is acceptably sharp to me is the first few pictures that I took with the lens. One of it, the picture of a bicycle bell, clearly shows the beautiful background blur.

The bell

This must be a dream lens to own! It has to be. But I cannot get the lens to produce sharp images. 

Human Error

Many reasons can attribute to the lack of sharpness in the images it produces. One of which, is mis-focussed. It is part human error and part camera error. Bear in mind that I pair this gem of a lens with a GX1. For somebody who enjoys manual focus, the size of the focussing points that can be varied alludes to the fact that one may end up mis-focussing if one is not made aware of the limits or the pros and cons of the various sizes available. Bigger squares allow easier focus lock, but bigger squares are not as accurate as smaller, almost pinpoint focussing points. This is perhaps one of the main reasons, I am not getting sharp images. 

How I judge a sharp image. Mostly as to how they look. Seriously, mostly as to how the eyes of my subjects look. I would examine their eyelashes and the pupils and from there I will judge. The bigger focussing squares seem to have all of the eyes as part of the focussing zone. As a a result, mis-focuss will occur as the camera focus on other parts of the eye except on the part that you want.

Bearing this in mind, I will continue to shoot with this lens to see if changing the focussing squares to smaller focussing points would help me in getting more keepers.

To be continued as it is almost midnight and I am dead tired.

I leave you now with an image I took of a plant which reproduces not from seeds but from its leaves.

Leaflets

Update: I did it! I finally managed to get a sharp image! I had left the focussing box too big. I narrowed it to the smallest setting and bam! I can make out my son's eyelashes!

Eyelashes

I love the colours from this lens!