Panasonic quietly adds two more lenses to its L-mount lens roadmap

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The news comes from an event in China and is yet to appear on Panasonic's official roadmap

L-Mount cameras and lenses
Panasonic's L-mount lens line-up might soon get a double-barrelled boost. (Image credit: L-Mount Alliance)

Panasonic's two new lenses will be a 'non-S Pro super-telephoto' and a 'large aperture standard zoom lens'. This information comes courtesy of website asobinet.com and is pretty much all we have right now.

The last official update to the Panasonic L-mount lens roadmap came in January 2023, and listed new Panasonic Lumix S PRO 100mm f/2.8 Macro and Panasonic Lumix S 28-200mm f/4-5.6 O.I.S lenses. These have yet to be released and are not the same as the two new lenses revealed in this latest story.

Lens roadmaps are a useful guide to what's coming and can give some reassurance about the future usefulness of a lens range, but there's often a long gap between lens roadmaps and on-sale dates.

The addition of a super-telephoto lens looks a smart move on Panasonic's part, as there's currently a pronounced hole in that part of the Lumix S lens range, with nothing longer than the Lumix S 70-300mm. Neither this nor the mystery new super-telephoto is a Pro lens, so professional sports and wildlife photographers will have to look elsewhere.

Panasonic isn't the only company making L-mount lenses. Sigma makes plenty too, including three different super-telephoto zooms. (Image credit: Sigma)

Fortunately, Panasonic is part of a three-way L-mount Alliance with Sigma and Leica, and if you're looking for the best L-mount lenses, Sigma is always there to fill any gaps in the Lumix line-up. In particular, it has the Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 DG DN OS Sports, Sigma 100-400mm f/5-6.3 DG DN OS Contemporary and Sigma 60-600mm f/4.5-6.3 DG DN OS Sports in that super-telephoto zoom space.

The large aperture standard zoom lens sounds interesting, though Panasonic already has the Lumix S Pro 24-70mm f/2.8, so any new lens will have to fit in around that. It's possible Panasonic will offer a cheaper and lighter alternative, as Nikon has with the Nikkor Z 28-75mm f/2.8, but much more exciting would be a constant-aperture alternative to its extremely useful Lumix S 20-60mm f/3.5-5.6 kit lens. 

Now if Panasonic was to make a constant-aperture version of its 20-60mm kit lens, that WOULD be exciting. (Image credit: Future)

Panasonic has made fast-aperture zooms before, notably the remarkable MFT format Leica DG Vario-Summilux 10-25mm f/1.7 ASPH. If Panasonic were to make an equivalent Lumix S 20-50mm f/1.8, that would be quite something, but even a Lumix S 20-60mm f/2.8 would be a great lens.

The reality may be less exciting, and all this is roadmap territory, so these are not going to make our list of the best L-mount lenses any time soon, but for now we can only hope.

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Rod Lawton
Rod Lawton
Contributor

Rod is an independent photography journalist and editor, and a long-standing Digital Camera World contributor, having previously worked as DCW's Group Reviews editor. Before that he has been technique editor on N-Photo, Head of Testing for the photography division and Camera Channel editor on TechRadar, as well as contributing to many other publications. He has been writing about photography technique, photo editing and digital cameras since they first appeared, and before that began his career writing about film photography. He has used and reviewed practically every interchangeable lens camera launched in the past 20 years, from entry-level DSLRs to medium format cameras, together with lenses, tripods, gimbals, light meters, camera bags and more. Rod has his own camera gear blog at fotovolo.com but also writes about photo-editing applications and techniques at lifeafterphotoshop.com