Panasonic LUMIX G II Lens, 20MM, F1.7 ASPH, MIRRORLESS Micro Four Thirds, H-H020AS (USA Silver)

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According to DxOMark, this lens isn’t as sharp as its predecessor, and we sort of feel the same way. However, when stopped down to f4, you’ll reach the lens’s sweet spot that you’ll really appreciate. In full frame terms, you’ll hit the equivalent of around f8 and that means that you’ll have perfectly sharp images. There is really no need to stop down beyond this. Bokeh

There are certainly some who think the format’s day in the sun is coming to an end. Earlier this year, Sigma announced it would no longer be developing Micro Four Thirds lenses, stating that its future priority would be full-frame lenses. I do a lot of portraits when hanging out with friends. With the 20mm, I was pretty much obligated to switch to my 45mm for decent traditional portraits, which ended up with the 45mm being my most used lens. With the 25mm, thanks to the narrower angle of view and greater aperture contributing to less perspective distortion and more subject isolation, there are few occasions where I actually have to switch lenses. In fact, it's making me consider selling the 45mm to fund the 75mm, where there would be a larger FL and subject isolation difference against the 25mm. But of course, on the other hand, I have less of an ability to shoot landscapes and architecture in the crowded streets of NYC. For that I now use the wide end of my new 12-50 kit lens. Read our original Panasonic Lumix 20mm f/1.7 ASPH. lens review to see how the lens performs under our usual testing procedure. Value For Money I now own a G1 & GF1 with the 20mm F1.7 which is real easy to get hold of in the UK, also the 14-45mm & the 45-200mm & soon to add the 7-14mm. Lens flare can cause some loss of contrast especially when shooting directly into bright light sources, while multiple ghosts of bright sources can manifest themselves as colored 'blobs' that get more defined the more you stop the lens down.

With an adapter, the Olympus 25mm ƒ/2.8 should mount on micro-four thirds bodies. While a slower and longer lens (ƒ/2.8 vs ƒ/1.7, and 25mm vs 20mm) the lens is slightly less expensive. At ƒ/2.8, the Panasonic is easily sharper, but stopped down to ƒ/4 and beyond the two lenses are comparably sharp. The Panasonic is also more resistant to chromatic aberration and produces less distortion, though the Olympus shows less corner shading. It would take an adapter, but in theory you should be able to mount the 4/3ds version of the 30mm ƒ/1.4 on a micro-four thirds body. The result would be an effective 60mm ƒ/1.4, though the combination might look a little ungainly (the 30mm ƒ/1.4 is a large lens when compared to the small size of the m4/3 bodies). That said, the 20mm offers a wider field of view, and looks to be sharper than the 30mm. Ultimately, though it's not optically perfect, for most folks, the Panasonic Lumix G 25mm F1.7 ASPH is going to be more than good enough.

The smaller sensor size of the Micro Four Thirds camera sensors incurs what’s called a crop factor. This refers to the ratio of the sensor size to a full-size full-frame sensor – a sensor with a smaller imaging area incurs a smaller field of view where the edges of the image appear to be chopped off, or cropped. In turn, this causes lenses to provide a narrower field of view than they otherwise would. So as I wrap up this review let me say that Panasonic is leading the race in quality lenses for the m4/3 system. Their top class 7-14, 45 Macro, 14-150 and even the “budget” 55-200 are great lenses. The Olympus lenses like the kit zoom and 17 2.8 are very good lenses but not “great lenses”. I can see myself buying the Panny lenses for “my wife’s” E-P2 in the future unless Olympus raises the stakes and puts out some higher quality lenses. I would like to see small & solid high performing primes in the future. If this happens, and the M4/3 sensors get better with their noise and overall quality then there may be a new revolution in the camera world. Its tough to beat the size and fun factor with these m4/3 kits. The Panasonic Lumix G 20mm f/1.7 II with a redesigned styling and metal parts, and this gives a very slight improvement in resistance to flare, as well as a slight improvement in contrast. The redesign has very slightly improved the position of the surrounding plastic closest to the lens, which results in a very slight improvement in shielding light from hitting the lens at oblique angles. BOTTOM LINE. With this little Panasonic 20 1.7 lens you have a high quality lens THAT WILL NOT BREAK THE BANK. You can do low light, shallow depth of field, and get great results. I say this as a hobbyist, not a pro. For 90% of what I shoot if I had to choose between the E-P2 and 20 1.7, D300s or Canon 7D then it would be the E-P2. Throw in the Leica X1 and I would have to take the X1 as I feel the IQ of the X1 beats all of the mentioned DSLR’s and the E-P2/20 combo, and its even smaller and sleeker. But I think I am done with all of those big DSLR’s for good. I really have no need for 8FPS shooting or 999 focus points. When combing all the programs together you get much of the functionality of the substantially more expensive Final Cut Pro.

OM System 20mm F1.4 Pro: Build and Handling

BTW, the first digit or 'X' is the dust resistance measure, and the second digit or 'X' is the water resistance measure. It is only with the OM-1 did OM start mentioning the dust resistance on micro 4/3rds cameras (the TG-6 is rated IP68). When shooting bright light sources at stopped-down apertures – like in the F16 shot above – the 'spikes' of the sunstar are soft-edged and not all that well pronounced. Lateral and longitudinal chromatic aberration (fringing) And no doudt as the Sensors, AF ect improve as they will over time, there will be little point for most owning a DSLR, all expect the pro’s.

Panasonic’s 20mm f1.7 II is an autofocusing beast on the GH4 when using the fully automatic focusing modes and not choosing a point beforehand. In fact, we think that it is the fastest focusing lens that we’ve seen for street photography. But when you mount it on the OMD EM5, it starts to lag a bit behind. Once you start selecting specific focusing areas, the focusing speed goes from sloth-like to peregrine falcon. Image QualityAnyway, the Olympus Pen cameras are entirely magic and I’m quite certain, when handled properly, with the best glass, are capable of broadcast quality filmmaking. Because these lenses are so light, you’ll be able to handhold them at slower shutter speeds. Give it a shot! Unfortunately, your options are fairly limited if wanted to save money, but still wanted a splash resistant lens. There is the Sigma 16mm f/1.4 that claims to have seals. I have this lens because like you I was looking for something in my sweet spot (15-17mm) that was cheaper than a pro lens. I use this lens in my steampunk camera box, where part of the time I want a fast lens, and the other part of the time, I need splash resistance. Sigma claims it is splash proof, but is it? I haven't taken it out in wet conditions, so I don't know. Also, unlike the Olympus 20mm f/1.4 or PL 25mm, the Sigma 16mm is a big lens, weighing 405g and 92mm long compared to 205g and 63mm for the PL lens.

Just like Sigma’s other f/1.4 mirrorless primes, this lens delivers great quality for an impressively reasonable price. In our testing, we found that it produced sharp-enough images at f/1.4, and sharpness just got better and better as we stopped down. In fact, we recommended that Micro Four Thirds users especially should strongly consider adding it to their kit bags, as the smaller sensor means you’ll see much less vignetting than the APS-C crowd. ProsAnother explanation is that I think the 20mm may show more lateral CA at the corners of the frame than the 25mm at relative apertures in contrasty settings. The Panasonic Lumix G 20mm f1.7 II lens on the Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark III. Photo credit: Joshua Waller The 'cats-eye' bokeh is mostly gone by F4. However, bokeh discs becomes less rounded. Specifically, the polygonal shape of the lens's 7-blade aperture becomes more pronounced in the out-of-focus highlights, when you stop down past F2.8, and this can have a slightly negative impact on bokeh in general. The overall image quality from the 20mm f1.7 II lens from Panasonic is truthfully pretty damned good. There is a healthy amount of sharpness, contrast, and overall solid color rendition built into this lens. When you couple this with its great build quality and focusing abilities you’ve got yourself quite the winner. For me, I like the 25mm overall better because it's more contrasty, faster AF, a faster aperture for more shallow DoF, and I like the 50mm equivalent focal length perhaps a little more than 40mm equivalent. Lastly, for me personally, I *prefer* the larger lens size that so many people complain about. I find the 20mm pancake to be convenient only on a rangefinder body like the GX1 or GF series when I am trying to go as low profile as possible. Otherwise I find the 25mm balances very nicely on larger bodies like the G3, G5, and GH3 where the 20mm pancake feels awkward as there's nothing to really hold onto with my left hand.