Panasonic will split their lens range into high end and low end, in much the same way Canon does with their L lenses.
The Lumix high-end optics will be designated Lumix X.
Since Panasonic can’t launch a new high end brand of optics without a product line-up, this leads us to a more important question… What are the X lenses?
We don’t know yet. But I am expecting the long-rumoured 12-75mm or 12-50mm to make an appearance before the end of the year. One lens only is not really a range, so it’s highly likely there will be others. The 45-300mm could be designated X. Maybe we’ll get some new fast primes like a stabilised 35mm HD X or 50mm HD X as well, or even better a fast wide like the Olympus 12mm F2.
Something that often marks out a Canon L lens is a constant aperture through the zoom range, so we can probably expect that on the 12-75mm HD X.
It is good to see Panasonic are still committed to the high end, since the mass market GF2 and GF3 didn’t really appeal to me. To compete with the NEX-7, the GF7 really will have to be as bigger leap as the number suggests over the GF1 and GF3.
Also I am pretty sure we will see some more video orientated lenses from Panasonic for the AF100. These could also be designated X HD.
What’s more, I particularly like that if you put a hyphen in Lumix-X it looks like a cross eyed Japanese smilie x-X.
