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.

On Top of The World: Panasonic Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm f/2.8

Hello everyone, today I want to talk about the Panasonic 12-35mm f2.8 that I acquired few months ago that has been my main lens since December 2014 until today in my Panasonic GX7. To start, the 12-35mm f2.8 is what considered by many as the professional grade lens from Panasonic for the Micro Four Thirds cameras. This lens has the constant f2.8 aperture at all zoom settings, complete with weather sealing and a very effective Power O.I.S. Stabilization which is very useful for Panasonic shooter.

First of all, this lens covers full frame equivalent of 24-70mm which makes the zoom range of this lens really useful as a general purpose mid-zoom lens with moderate wide angle territory at its widest zoom up to normal portrait territory at its tightest zoom. This could be the perfect event photographer and wedding photographer lens for covering wider shots as well as a good solid walkaround lens for general travel and day to day use. 

Let's start, what do I like from this lens?

The size of this lens is very similar to my Panasonic 14-140mm f3.5-5.6 as well as my Olympus 75mm f1.8 which I admit is on the big side for the Micro Four Thirds world, but then again, this is only as big as your APS-C 18-55mm kit lens for Canon or Nikon DSLR which is actually a LOT smaller than the real 24-70mm f2.8 of the real full frame. The lens comes with lens hood and pouch. I recommend to use the hood all the time, not only to protect against flare, but also to protect the front element of this lens.

The sharpness of this lens is definitely very sharp as expected from a professional grade lens, and the f2.8 aperture really helps to gather a lot of light especially on low light situation. Combine that with a good optical stabilizer in the lens, this lens does very well in low light and can save you a few stops of light so that you don't have to go higher than ISO 1600 when shooting in dim light conditions.

I love the fact that this lens cover all the standard normal prime lens focal lengths such as 14mm, 17mm, 20mm, and 25mm. This makes me approach the lens as some sort of a collection of prime lenses in a single lens as opposed to a lens with zoom capability. I shoot very often deliberately at dedicated focal length and leave it there to simulate the field of view of the prime lens that I have in mind. This makes this lens the best lens for street photography. Again, coupled with the fast aperture of f2.8, this lens is very flexible when shooting streets.

Autofocus is as fast as the lens can be which is as fast as every other lens that I've reviewed in my blog. There was one or two instances in my personal experience where the focus was actually locking and armed but it actually mis-focused completely although it was on single small point autofocus and the light was good(mid-day sunny outdoor light). This happened at least once every 40 or 50 shots which isn't bad by any means and not worrying at all, but at least you should know. To compare, my 14-140mm f3.5-5.6 only misfocused once or twice during good light, it only misfocused when it was really dark and the camera metering can't get more than -3EV.

On a side note, people seemed to talk about the rendering, contrast, and color of this lens. I do kinda understand about the contrast, but I don't find anything special in particular of this lens when we talk about the rendering or color, it's all the same to me with any other good Micro Four Thirds lens. I can assure you, this lens is sharp, contrasty and worth the money!

Bonus point for this lens, it has a quite close minimum focusing distance at all focal length, making it useful to get an emergency macro shots if you need to. Also this lens handles flare like no others! Very little flare although not completely flare-less like the 75mm f1.8.

What are the things that I don't like from this lens?

As I mentioned before, there were a couple of instances where the autofocus missed the object completely. Also you should know that this lens is a bit soft at 35mm at f2.8 on the closest focusing distance although it is very sharp at longer distances.

I also need to mention that this lens is a tiny bit heavier than the 14-140mm f3.5-5.6 although not by much. You can feel it when you handle the lens for an extended period of time.

I do wish this lens max out at 40mm instead of 35mm but now Olympus has that 12-40mm f2.8 as an alternative to this lens. If you need longer distance, you can get that Olympus version which is as sharp as this lens but minus the stabilizer.

Other thing that I don't like from this lens is the fact that the lens hood is very easy to get knocked when shooting, resulting in a strong vignette in your photos when you don't realize it. 

Be mindful when shooting at 12mm, the perspective distortion starts to kick in at that focal length, better switch to 14mm if possible to avoid significant perspective distortion and keep your verticals as straight as you can.

Conclusion

After using this lens for a few months now, I can safely say that this lens is very good. The focal length range do makes me feel a bit limited sometimes, but that's how all the full frame 24-70mm lens are behaving anyway. I do love the sharpness of this lens, the fast aperture, the build quality, as well as the stabilizer and the weather sealing of this lens. The macro capability of this lens is also surprisingly helping me a lot of times.

I do, however, question about how much sharper this lens is when compared to Panasonic 14-140mm f3.5-5.6. It turns out that the 14-140mm f3.5-5.6 is also very sharp and the 12-35mm isn't that far from it. So I do have to say that if you don't need fast aperture and you need flexible focal length range, go get the 14-140mm f3.5-5.6 instead and save your money; you won't be able to tell if the 12-35mm is sharper anyway unless you pixel peep at 100% on your computer screen. If you, however, need the big aperture, the weather sealing, and the constant aperture, go get this lens and let me assure you it's worth the money. Or if you already have a dedicated lens to cover anything above 45mm focal length, then this lens will make sense to back it up.

Let me share some sample photos:

Landscape at 12mm? Check!

Street photography? Check!

Flare control when shooting at the sun?
Very good, but not totally perfect. See that purple spot?

More street photography.

Close up semi macro photo.

The big aperture makes it very flexible to shoot
in conjunction with off camera flash techniques.

More flower with off camera flash techniques
to reveal ultimate sharpness.

It is very punchy and contrasty!

More close up work.

More street photo stuff.

This lens is heavenly when used in street photography.

Again, street photography.

This is how wide the 12mm is. (24mm full frame)

This is as close as it can get.

See that detail in the wood pieces?

I hope this review helps, until next time and God bless you :)

Big Result in Small Package: Olympus M. Zuiko 45mm f/1.8

Hello everyone, I want to share a little bit of my experience on Olympus 45mm f1.8 lens that I love so much. I primarily want a light and portable lens that can cover a mild telephoto focal length with large aperture for shallow depth of field and low light performance. This lens is the answer.

I mainly use this lens for portrait that requires a bit of reach. But this lens doesn't only do portraits; it excels on other things such as tight landscape, street photography, architectural photography, close ups, and many other genres of photography. At this focal length, the depth of field produced by the lens is already quite thin for my taste and you can get some serious creamy bokeh from this lens without putting too much effort.

Let's dive in, what's good from this lens?

Technically speaking, the 45mm covers an equivalent of 90mm in full frame term, which is in the range of the sweet spot of many portrait lens such as 85mm, 90mm, and 105mm. On full frame terms, those lenses that I mentioned will definitely be big, heavy, and expensive. The opposite is true in the Micro Four Thirds world; the Olympus 45mm f1.8 is one of the lenses that embodied the "Spirit of MFT" in which the lens is small, very compact, lightweight, and not terribly expensive, but it delivers sharp image quality, punchy contrast, good autofocus performance, and adequate build quality.

This is one of the smaller lenses available for Micro Four Thirds. You can carry this lens inside your jeans pocket or jacket pocket and take it out only when you need it! It's not a pancake or anything like that, but still it is very small and surprisingly can always be carried in your camera bag without taking any space significantly. Combined with a small body like an E-PL6, you will pack a big picture in a small overall package.

Talking about image quality, it is just as sharp as you can get for a lens at this category. At f1.8 it is already sharp, stop it down to f2.0 it is a bit better, stop it down further to f2.8 and it is at its maximum performance. Take it down further to f4.0 and the sharpness improves only slightly from f2.8. I use this lens without hesitation at f2.0 most of the time and I know that I can extract a beautiful picture out of the lens.

I tested the hell out of this lens by shooting all kinds of tree leaves and branches from all sorts of distances and I can't seem to find any chromatic aberration in this lens at all aperture setting. I was not expecting it to be this good! Even the mighty 75mm f1.8 has chromatic aberration and this lens easily put that monster down to shame in the chromatic aberration department.

Autofocus is fast and instantaneous, just like the 75mm f1.8, the 17mm f1.8, 25mm f1.8, Panasonic 12-35mm f2.8, Panasonic 14-140mm, and many others. In fact, there are only 1 lens that has slow autofocus in the Micro Four Thirds department and that is the Panasonic 100-300mm.

Price wise, it's definitely less than US$400.00 which is crazy cheap for a lens that is 90mm in full frame term. You can definitely go to a more pricey option in this category by choosing the 42.5mm f1.2 by Leica Panasonic if you really need f1.2.

A couple of note that you should know...

Though this lens is already classified as a mild telephoto lens, the lens proved to be more flexible compared to a more serious telephoto prime such as the 75mm f1.8. However, please note that this lens doesn't focus as close as the 17mm or the 25mm. In fact, it won't do any good for any kind of macro photography unless you have a specific lens attachment for macro or similar device.

Also please note that this isn't the best lens for headshot although you can do it with this lens and get a good compression(heck, I sometimes even do headshot using the 25mm). I would suggest at least 60mm focal length in MFT for headshot as the compression starts to really help to flatter the image significantly.

Final thoughts

This is one of those "must have" lenses in the MFT world. I personally love this lens and I use it a lot for different purposes and this lens never fails to deliver the best result for a mild telephoto work. If you need a mild telephoto lens for your kit, then look no further.

Here are some of my sample shots

Bokeh is excellent!

Again, the bokeh doesn't show any lemon shapes or hexagons, it's just rounded circular bokeh that we all adore.

See how sharp the lens is!

Again, you can see how the lens managed to produce sharp results

This lens can do wonders in low light situation

This is not the most perfect composition but you get the idea of what the lens can do.

Taken during an indoor low light action show

Street photography? No problem!

Candid photo? No problem!

This is the ideal lens for this kind of portrait

I hope this post will help you to decide whether the 45mm f1.8 is the right lens for you or not. Thanks for reading and God bless you! :)

Micro Four Thirds Lens Buying Guide

Hello everyone, today I want to talk about which Micro Four Thirds lenses that you should buy if you are going to build a complete all-around Micro Four Thirds kit. This is just based on my opinion and also based on my experience since I don't have every single MFT lenses available.

The Beginner MFT Kit

Maybe you just started photography and you chose MFT as your preferred system. You want some good lenses to start with but you don't have a preferred genre of photography yet. I will recommend my lenses of choice for beginning photography with MFT:

1. Budget kit 
(US$399.00 to US$699.00 approximately)
(a) Any kit lens and 
(b) Olympus 45mm f1.8
Start photography with the kit lens. MFT kit lenses are sharp enough and they will cover flexible focal lengths. Learn to master the kit lens before you jump into any other lens and keep the kit lens because you will still need it even after you progress far enough with your photography. Add the 45mm f1.8 and learn to shoot portrait with it, it will give you the best result for portrait.

2. Beginner Prime Lens kit 
(US$500.00 approximately)
Olympus 17mm f1.8
I recommend this one prime lens and learn to use it exclusively for a few months and get acquainted with the feel and the field of view of this lens really well. This might even be the only lens you need because it is very flexible for both landscape and street photography. Everybody needs 35mm full frame eq. lens!

3. Super Zoom
(US$800.00 approximately)
Panasonic 14-140mm f3.5-5.6
Maybe you just need one lens to cover everything, you don't do serious photography but you want everything at your fingertips. Then the Panasonic 14-140mm will cover everything you need in terms of focal length.

The General/Traveler MFT Kit

My choice for general photography or for travel photography is usually one or two zoom lens maybe with some prime lenses for night photography or for portrait. The key when traveling with MFT is to keep everything lightweight and versatile. So I will limit the choices for two lenses only

1. Budget kit 
(US$399.00 to US$699.00 approximately) 
(a) Any kit lens and 
(b) Olympus 45mm f1.8
If you by any chance own either the Panasonic 14-42mm f3.5-5.6 II or Panasonic 20mm f1.7 as a kit lens, keep it! Either one of them will be the perfect lightweight travel lens because they are sharp, small and versatile enough for almost any kind of shot. You will not be able to get extremely wide or extremely telephoto with them however. Add the Olympus 45mm f1.8 for portrait and mild telephoto and you will have a very versatile kit with just two little lenses.

2. Super Wildlife kit
(US$600.00 to US$1000,00 approximately)
(a) Panasonic 14-42mm f3.5-5.6 II or 20mm f1.7 and 
(b) Panasonic 100-300mm f4-5.6 or Olympus 75-300mm f4.8-6.7
This kit is the preferred kit for travelling to a location where you will have some wildlife photography photo shoots. Either Panasonic or Olympus telephoto zoom will give you that extreme 600mm equivalent zoom and the 14-42 or 20mm to cover the short focal length needs.

3. Versatile kit 
(US$1,200.00 approximately)
(a) Panasonic Lumix 14-140mm f3.5-5.6 and 
(b) Olympus 17 or 25mm f1.8
The Lumix will provide coverage for all focal length, be it wide or telephoto and the Olympus will do emergency portrait and night photography. With just the 14-140mm, you will be able to photograph almost everything at any focal length, and with either one of the Olympus you will be able to get that shallow depth of field pictures and low light capability.

4. Ultimate Focal Length kit 
(US $1,800.00 approximately)
(a) Panasonic Lumix 14-140mm f3.5-5.6 and 
(b) Panasonic 7-14mm f4
With these two lenses you will be able to cover everything from extreme wide angle 14mm full frame eq. to a whooping 280mm full frame eq. focal length. This is the best way to cover all sorts of picture from all focal lengths if you don't need low light capability and shallow depth of field. This is also my personal traveling kit choice.

5. Ultra Serious kit 
(US$ 2,000.00 to US$3,000.00 approximately) 
(a) Panasonic Lumix 12-35mm f2.8 and 
(b) Panasonic Lumix 35-100mm f2.8  
(c) Panasonic 7-14mm f4 (optional). 
These two lens will provide fast apertures at all critical focal lengths and will guarantee good sharp pictures throughout your holiday. The main drawback is the fact that they are expensive and the telephoto end only reaches 100mm (200mm full frame eq.). Keep in mind that these lenses are the top of the line kit for Micro Four Thirds! I said only two lenses for each kit but you can add the 7-14mm to cover ultra wide angle if needed, and those three lenses will be your Holy Trinity lens in the MFT world, perfect for travel or even professional works as well!

The Landscaper MFT Kit

For the landscape kit you want to have a wide angle of some sort and a general lens to cover the blind spot of the wide angle lens. Here's my recommendation:

1. The Mandatory Landscape kit 
(US$ 1,000.00 approximately)
(a) Panasonic 7-14mm f4 and
(b) Any kit lens
The Panasonic 7-14mm is a serious landscape photographer's lens, and the ultra wide coverage that it covers is enough for all kinds of landscape that you will need to do. Add any kit lens to complement the longer focal length for your landscape shoots and you will be good to go. This is my preferred kit for landscape photography.

2. The Low Light Landscape kit 
(US$1,500.00 to US$1,800.00 approximately)
(a) Olympus 12mm f2.0 and 
(b) Any other f1.8 prime lens of your choice(Olympus 25mm or Olympus 17mm or Olympus 45mm)
The Olympus 12mm f2.0 is the best landscape lens for those times when you need to have low light capability such as during wide field astrophotography shots or during nightscape shots. Add one more prime fast lens of your choice to cover longer focal length and you will have the ultimate low light landscape kit.

The Street Photographer MFT Kit

There are plenty of MFT lenses that will suit your street photography needs. For street photography, all you want are primes; there is nothing wrong with zoom lens for street photography, but with the prime you can isolate the subject with the shallow depth of field capabilities. Here are some of my recommendations with two lenses for each kit that I recommend:

1. The Versatile Street kit 
(US$800.00 approximately)
(a) Olympus 17mm f1.8 and 
(b) Olympus 45mm f1.8
This is a very versatile kit since you have a normal wide and a short telephoto focal lengths both covered with these two lenses. The 17mm will provide 35mm full frame eq. field of view which is versatile enough for most environmental street photo with a possibility to do close up. The 45mm will be handy for street portraits as well as for some detailed architecture shots. This is my preferred kit for street photography.

2. The Classic Street kit 
(US$1,000.00 approximately)
(a) Olympus 17mm f1.8 and 
(b) Olympus 25mm f1.8
Both 35mm and 50mm on full frame field of view is the classic focal length preferred by many street photographers. Both of the Olympuses will provide you with two of the most common focal lengths used in Street Photography. The gap between 17mm and 25mm isn't much, however there are many photographers who find that they always need both of them.

3. Wide Shot Street kit 
(US$1,500.00 approximately)
(a) Olympus 12mm f2.0 and 
(b) Olympus 25mm f1.8.
There are times when you want to include as much environment as you can to the subject of your photography and that's when the 12mm f2.0 will shine for your street photography. Add the 25mm to cover a bit longer focal length and you are good to go.

4. Mild Telephoto Street kit 
(US$1,500.00 approximately)
(a) Olympus 75mm f1.8 and 
(b) Olympus 17mm f1.8.
I know that telephoto lens isn't common in street photography but the fact that sometimes you need to get to a subject that is far away or to compress the background into the foreground will require you to get a telephoto lens of some sort. My choice for that will be the Olympus 75mm f1.8. Add the 17mm for a normal wide shots and you will be able to cover everything.

That's all for my MFT lenses guide. I hope you enjoy this post. Cheers and God bless :)

Update: Wondering about my own main personal kit that I currently use for semi serious work everyday? It's the Panasonic 12-35mm f2.8 and the Olympus 75mm f1.8. Both these lenses cover everything that I currently need with the best possible output for the Micro Four Thirds.