Lens kindly provided by Hendrik Baumgarten. Review by Sebastian Milczanowski, published Jan 2014 The Panasonic Lumix G 20mm f/1.7 ASPH II is a standard prime lens designed lens for micro four-thirds format cameras. It is a so-called pancake lens because … well … it is just as flat – just 2.5cm in this case. Pancake lenses tend to be rather “slow,” but Panasonic managed to squeeze out an ultra-large max. aperture of f/1.7. In terms of its depth-of-field capabilities this is about f/3.4 in full format terms, the focal length is equivalent to 40mm. As such, it is a very…
Author: Klaus
Micro-Four-Thirds (MFT) may offer the most extensive mirrorless lens system but even so it has one significant shortcoming – professional-grade MFT tele-zoom lenses are rare. Very rare. Essentially, ambitious users have the choice between … well … one lens – the Panasonic Lumix G X 35-100mm f/2.8 Power OIS (Note: Olympus is going to release a 40-150mm f/2.8 in 2014). Now while this simplifies your purchasing options quite a bit, it is still interesting to have a deeper look, of course. :-)In full format terms, it offers a “70-200mm” range with a f/2.8 speed but depth-of-field capabilities equivalent to “f/5.6”.…
The Olympus M.Zuiko 17mm f/1.8 is – as of the time of this review – the 4th high-speed prime lens for the micro-four-thirds (MFT) system by Olympus. It is a moderate wide-angle lens thus targeting applications such as street-, landscape- and still-life photography. While Olympus is shy of marketing this M.Zuiko as ‘pancake lens’, we’d say that given its short length (3.5cm) and marginal weight (120g), it still falls into this category. The price tag feels somewhat steep upon first glance. This seems to be a bit of an unfortunate trend in the MFT system lately – but let’s see…
The micro-four-thirds (MFT) system may be the most complete of the mirrorless systems. However, it mostly tackles entry to medium level users but slowly but steadily we are seeing more ambitious offerings. The Olympus M.Zuiko 75mm f/1.8 ED is certainly among them. It has a fairly “unusual” focal length equivalent to a 150mm lens on classic full format cameras. As such it is a moderately long tele lens suitable for applications such as portrait and still-life photography. At f/1.8 it is very fast by MFT standards but keep in mind that in terms of depth-of-field is behaves like a “150mm…
Special thanks to Sylvain Goffin for providing this lens! As of the time of this review, there’re 2 native macro lenses in the Micro-Thirds-Thirds system. A while ago, the Panasonic / Leica DG Macro-Elamrit 45mm f/2.8 ASPH OIS delivered very impressive results in our review here in the zone. However, since late 2012 it faces competition from the Olympus M.Zuiko 60mm f/2.8 ED macro. Obviously Olympus preferred to make this one a little longer in order to allow a bigger working distance – a key aspect for those photographers interested in critters. That said the front lens-to-object distance is still…
Micro-Four-Thirds (MFT) is undoubtedly the mirrorless system with the biggest footprint in the market today. However, so far the system focused primarily on consumer- and prosumer-grade products and ignored the professional arena but during the recent months we are seeing indications that this is going to change. Olympus released the popular OM-D camera and a high grade 75mm f/1.8 lens and Panasonic is also placing some bets into the higher end of the market.In this review we’ll have a look at the Panasonic Lumix X 12-35mm f/2.8 ASPH Power OIS – the first fast standard zoom lens of the MFT…