The Primest of the Primes: Panasonic Lumix 20mm f/1.7 Mark II

Important Update: I tested this lens with the Panasonic GX7 and I must say that the autofocus improved significantly. It no longer hunts for focus, and it also snaps very quickly, just like the rest of my MFT lenses. So it's safe to conclude that the use of this lens with older body such as the E-PL6 or anything before that may cause slow autofocus speed.
 

Hello all! Sorry for the lack of posts but with so much travelling and a lot of work recently it's kinda difficult for me to make time to write here. I do appreciate all of you who regularly visit this blog.

My E-PL6 with the 20mm, surrounded by the other lenses that I usually attach to it.

Today I want to talk about the stuff of the legend: Panasonic Lumix 20mm f1.7 Mark II. It's the second generation of the lens that has achieved cult status in Micro Four Thirds world. Delivering a field of view equivalent to 40mm in full frame, it is one of the most versatile lens for street photography as well as general walk-around all purpose prime lens.

Mounted on the E-PL6.

I bought it as a substitute for three of my lenses: Olympus 17mm f2.8, Olympus 17mm f1.8, and Olympus 25mm f1.8. All three of these lenses are fantastic, but sometimes I just wish they are blended together as a single lens rather than three separate lenses. I prefer a lens with the compactness of 17mm f2.8, but with the field of view that could mimic both 17mm and 25mm, with a fast aperture of at least f1.8. Voila, this lens showed up on an online camera shop, and I took the plunge and bought it immediately.

The Good Stuff?

It's very compact and easy to carry around!

It's extremely sharp! Holy, parking, cow! I don't pixel peep too often on my images, but even looking at normal viewing zoom, this lens is noticeably sharper than most of the lenses in my collection. I didn't expect a lens of this size and price to outperform many of my lenses, but it did and it just blew my mind away!

Shoot it at f1.7 and it's very sharp, stop it down a bit to f1.8 and the sharpness will improve. To get even sharper result on the lens, stop it down to at least f2. F2.8 will give you the optimum center sharpness quality, and f4 or f5.6 will give you excellent sharpness all across the frame. Diffraction starts to kick in at f8 and above, so avoid those aperture except if you really must have sufficient depth of field. I rarely stop down this lens and f1.7 never really gives me any sharpness issue.

Speaking of image quality, this lens also has a very good contrast. It is able to deliver images with deeper tone and you can really notice it without even pixel peeping. It's also quite resistant to flare and works really well in most lighting scenarios to generate good images, provided that you are shooting with adequate proper techniques.

It's also small, compact, and as small as the 17mm f2.8. Combined with smaller Micro Four Thirds bodies like my E-PL6, it now fits perfectly into my short pants' large pocket. It will definitely fit into regular jacket pocket and most certainly small bags. This kind of tiny lens with high level of performance on a very small form factor like this is almost unheard of in other camera formats and mounts!

The Bad Stuff...

Obviously, as you may have heard in many other review, the autofocus of this lens is kind of slow in low light, especially when combined with previous generation of Micro Four Thirds bodies like my E-PL6. It's fast in good light though, and the trick with this lens is to really look for contrasty part of the frame and focus on that to get a lock-on in low light conditions.

There is some little audible noise when you are focusing the lens, but it's not as bad as the Olympus 17mm f2.8. So it's not as over-hyped as people had said. Maybe the first generation of this lens is louder, but I'm not sure because I've never tried the older version of this lens. There is also some rattle-snake sound coming out in the audio when you are doing video using this lens, and many had said that it's cross brand compatibility issue that happens when you use Oly body like my E-PL6 with Pana lens. However, it also happened with my Olympus 17mm f1.8, so I think it's the problem that should be associated with the body itself, not with the lens.

Some people also said that they see some banding appearing on their images when they shoot this lens on an Olympus body at high ISO(above 800). I shot mine a lot on E-PL6 at ISO 1600 and 3200, and I didn't find any problem with banding whatsoever, I just couldn't find it in my images. That could be the problem of the older version of this lens that got fixed with this version of the lens. Or maybe my eyes aren't simply not sensitive enough to notice it.

To Sum It Up

The sweet story of this lens doesn't come up perfectly fine all the time. The autofocus mainly got me a bit bummed a few times as I have to wait for the lens to hunt the focus back and forth a few times or even sometimes I have to re-focus the lens multiple times to get the correct lock-on focus. But besides that, this is the lens is focusing as fast as the others in good light.

Many people complained about 20mm being not wide enough as they are used to 17mm(35mm equivalent) field of view. It's true, there is a noticeable difference of field of view between 17mm and 20mm and it's a significant difference that could make or break a shot. I personally always found the 17mm to be too wide most of the time so the 20mm really solves that problem, but you may feel different about it. So make sure you try to get the feel of 20mm before you make your decision.

So, is this lens able to substitute those three lenses as I mentioned before? Partially, yes. My 17mm f2.8 is now packed in its original box and ready to be sold soon. My 17mm f1.8 and 25mm f1.8 hasn't been used for a month since I use this lens. But I'm not ready to sell those primes yet as both the 17mm and 25mm f1.8 are very fast when it comes to focus speed, and my 20mm will never be able to rival those lens. The speed difference will matter the most when it comes to street photography under less than ideal light and in that kind of environment, I will want to rely on either my 17mm or 25mm instead of 20mm; but for anything else that doesn't require fast focusing, the 20mm will always be my choice.

See some of my sample images taken with this lens:

This is the field of view of 20mm. It could mimic either 17mm or 25mm.

See those details in the meat, my goodness it's just so sharp!

It's not wide enough, but so is the regular 17mm.

An attempt to get a street photo using this lens. Luckily the light is good so it doesn't hunt focus.

It's very good for general purpose walk-around lens.

Works well enough in contrasty scene.

This is the 20mm working to mimic the 17mm's wideness.

This is the kind of image that I am after with this lens.

I use it in studio environment too, and I love how flexible it is!

Environmental portrait with this lens is fantastic!

I don't know why, but I tend to use this lens for food photo

Let me know if you see some banding in this image. This was shot at very high ISO.

This was also shot at a very high ISO, I didn't notice any banding here.

I hope this post will help you to determine whether the 20mm f1.7 Mark II is the right lens for you or not. Also consider the older version of this lens if you decide that 20mm is the right lens for you as it is cheaper than the Mark II version. Until next post, cheers and God bless you :)

Important Update: I successfully managed to get the banding issue to appear on my shots! Horay! It's actually happening only and only when you take a picture in within just a few seconds, just after you coupled this lens with the camera and turning it on right away right after the coupling. The first few seconds of the shots after I coupled this lens with the camera finally showed some bands. But when you keep this lens on the body for so long without changing lens, the banding issue disappears again, even if you quickly turn on the camera and shoot right away.

My Thoughts on Panasonic Lumix GX7

Hello everyone! As some of you already know, I own a Panasonic GX7 and I shoot with it extensively for both casual and some serious photography needs. It is my main camera since August 2014 and it is still until today and I plan to use it as long as I can until it breaks or needs to be replaced.

In this post, I want to talk a little bit about my opinions on the GX7, my shooting experience, some little details that I find interesting and worth mentioning especially from my point of view. This should be treated as my personal opinion and your mileage may vary.

My Panasonic GX7 with the 14-140mm lens, the perfect combination for daytime photography.

To start

I took one full month researching about the GX7 before I finally settled on it and replaced my Canon kit with the GX7. There are many reasons why I think GX7 is the right camera for me.

First, it has a very compact form that resembles a rangefinder camera but with a viewfinder that actually works and is just awesome. Thus, it is very inconspicuous, unobtrusive, easy to carry, and more comfortable for long session of picture taking and video recording. It weights around 500g with battery and kit lens attached, and it has a tiltable LCD screen that allows me to shoot from the hip easily when doing street photography. The GH3 or Olympus OM-D E-M1 would have better grip and is more rigid but then the big size really hinders me from getting it(though it isn't big at all to be honest, it's just me being picky hahaha!).

Second, the still pictures, while not perfect, is adequate for my need. I don't need full frame picture quality, I don't worship the high-megapixel-big-sensor-is-the-only-way-to-go religion, I need something small and compact with plenty enough dynamic range, adequate signal to noise ratio performance, good color, and enough headroom in the shadow and highlight aspects in the RAW files. Sensor size and big megapixel are just two aspects that is not really a top priority on my list although they are surely nice to have when given by default.

Talking about shadow and highlight, I was also looking for a camera that has better dynamic range than my EOS M and EOS 650D so that I don't have to do HDR bracketing too often for landscape shots. For Canon shooters, the only way to increase dynamic range is either by buying a 5D Mark III or switch to Nikon/Pentax/Sony. Upgrading to 7D or 70D only gives you the same dynamic range and noise performance since the sensor is not too different (even the sensor on the 7D it is exactly the same as with the ones in 60D, 600D, 650D, EOS M, and so on). My GX7 delivers better dynamic range although it is still not in the range of Nikon or Sony; but it is not too far and is enough for me. Keep in mind that dynamic range is important for me since I also shoot landscapes and city scapes and I don't want to get white/grey sky on what supposed to be a clear sunny-bright-blue-sky day.

Third, I also shoot some video and the GX7 is an excellent little video recording device. It is not perfect since it doesn't have mic input and headphone jack, but it gives good video output in both AVCHD and MP4. My previous Canon also does good job on video but the output quality is still not as good as the GX7; they also lack important features such as focus peaking, fast autofocus during video, and high bitrate options. Most of the time, I record audio separately for my video so I don't really mind the absence of mic input and headphone jack.

Fourth, surprise, there is a built in image stabilization in the body, so you can attach any kinds of lenses that doesn't have optical stabilization and the GX7 will stabilize it! This is really a surprise for me because it actually works! It is not the best stabilization ever, but it just works and it helps at least to get one stop of exposure with it, so it is just nice! There is no other Lumix camera to date that has built in body stabilization, even for some cameras after the GX7 was announced.

Also, there is Silent Mode operation, where all the sounds will turn off and the camera switches to electronic shutter. This is an ABSOLUTE BLESSING FROM HEAVEN for us street shooters and events documenter! I can now be really inconspicuous when doing candid, street photography, and shooting events. I can also now shoot birds and the birds won't hear a clicking sound from the camera so they stay longer on the same spot. My goodness, I wish every camera has this option!!

With the added Olympus flash for some product photography.

Some cons that you need to know

Well, I won't go into technical details, this is not a review and you can find so many people that already wrote so much technical stuff about the GX7. But I do want to address some of the negative issues that I encountered with the GX7 that I think you should know before you buy this camera.

First, I confirm that there is a shutter shock issue. Shutter shock will cause your pictures to appear blurry on some mid shutter speed range. It is noticeable, but it actually isn't as bad as what people say on the forums. The way to completely fix this shutter shock issue is by either shooting very fast or very slow, or also by switching on the electronic shutter option. Be mindful that if you turn on the electronic shutter(or silent mode), you need to watch some light sources as computer screen, projector screen, light bulbs, and other light sources because they can cause banding if you are not careful. Also be careful with "rolling shutter" effect when shooting moving objects when you are in this mode, moving objects will appear stretched when you shoot with electronic shutter.

Second, the battery life of this camera can only go for a few hours on a serious shooting day. Be sure to carry extra batteries with you since you will definitely need it! This is a shame since my E-PL6 can go even longer than the GX7 when shooting on the same conditions.

Third, there are some delays happening when you switch from the LCD screen to the viewfinder. It is only less than a second but I find it very annoying especially when you switch between screen and finder quickly and frequently.

Fourth, while the grip is very dense and comfortable, the placement of the shutter button is a bit uncomfortable for my taste; I would like to have it on the front part of the grip so I can comfortably grab the camera without my index finger keeps getting sore from gripping the camera and get stuck on a weird angle by the sharp edge of the PASM dial.

Last but not least, the color in the GX7 is different from the E-PL6 and it is actually very good. But after owning the E-PL6, I tend to prefer the color from it and I always try to match the pictures I took with GX7 to look like the E-PL6 by reducing the green/yellow hue and adding just a hint of purple hue into the color balance. Well, this is actually only a minor thing and the difference is only noticeable when you shoot indoor or under low light. It's still worth mentioning if you are switching from Olympus, since Olympus white balance is the best for low light and indoor usage. If you never shoot Olympus before, then the color won't even become a problem at all.

The whole Micro Four Thirds kit. The GX7 accommodates all those lenses very well thanks to IBIS!

That are some of my thoughts about the GX7. Once again, this is based on my personal review so please treat this post accordingly. If you are now seriously considering the GX7 as your camera, definitely read some of the cons and pros that I wrote above, filter the aspects above that you find important for you, and do some further research on the camera on other sites as well. Even with the cons that I listed, I still find that GX7 is the perfect camera for me!

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed the post. Cheers and God bless :)

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