Conclusion

The Leica DG Vario-Elmarit 12-60mm f/2.8-4.0 ASPH standard zoom offers a versatile focal range of 24-120mm in a relatively small and lightweight package, backed-up by excellent image quality throughout the focal range and impressively fast and silent autofocusing. It's just a little soft wide-open at 60mm, where it's best used stopped down for the best results, and thhere's some barrel distortion at 12mm, but otherwise it delivers fantastic sharpness at all focal lengths, even at the edges of the frame.

This lens is small and lightweight considering the zoom range on offer, making it well suited to life as a walk-around lens. It's also very fast to focus and silent too, making it well-suited to candid stills and particularly video work, making it a perfect partner for the GH5 camera that we tested it with. Build quality is very good, to be expected given the premium price-tag, and the fact that this lens is weatherproof is the icing on an already rich cake.

The Leica DG Vario-Elmarit 12-60mm f/2.8-4.0 ASPH is a great addition to the Panasonic lens line-up, especially if you shoot a mixture of stills and video, where the completely silent operation and versatile 24-120mm focal range really come to the fore.

Ratings (out of 5)
Design	5
Features	4.5
Ease-of-use	4.5
Image quality	4.5
Value for money	4.5