{"id":6032,"date":"2016-01-08T22:30:16","date_gmt":"2016-01-09T03:30:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/?p=6032"},"modified":"2024-09-05T17:03:33","modified_gmt":"2024-09-05T22:03:33","slug":"review-panasonic-lumix-g-25mm-f1-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/review-panasonic-lumix-g-25mm-f1-7\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Panasonic Lumix G 25mm f\/1.7"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Late in the fall, Panasonic released what was a bit of a surprise to many: a slower 50mm equivalent lens in the 25mm f\/1.7. This space is occupied already with the faster Panasonic Leica 25mm f\/1.4, and competes directly with the Olympus 25mm f\/1.8.  The Panasonic 25mm f\/1.7 has a suggested retail price of $249…half the cost of its faster sibling and $150 less than the Olympus 25mm. To kickstart the introduction, however, Panasonic sold the lens for $99 for a short time, leading to a huge number of sales and a backorder log stretching to March! I was lucky enough to snag one of these for the $99 special and I’ve been putting it through its paces for the past few weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Panasonic<\/a>
Panasonic Lumix G 25mm f\/1.7 on the Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark II<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re not familiar with my reviews, I review from a real world shooting perspective.  You won\u2019t find lens charts or resolution numbers here.  There are plenty of other sites that cover those.  I review products on how they act for me as a photographic tool in real-world shooting. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Construction and Handling<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The Panasonic 25mm f\/1.7 is an inexpensive lens, and as such, it doesn’t rival the top end lenses in the Micro 4\/3 lineup, but it has a solid construction considering the price.  The lens body is a matte black plastic that is well assembled and shows no flimsiness or creaking.  The plastic exterior ends in a metal lens mount. Focus is internal, so the length of the lens won’t change during focusing. The 25mm f\/1.7 comes with a nice plastic lens hood that snaps solidly in place once the decorative ring is removed from the hood bayonet mount. It doesn’t have the heft that many users associate with ‘solid build quality’, but otherwise there’s nothing to complain about here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/a>
The 25mm f\/1.7 is slightly smaller than the Panasonic 25mm f\/1.4<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The lens handles well on any camera body due to the lightweight nature of the lens and the relatively slim profile.  It’s not quite as compact as the Olympus 25mm, but I doubt many will complain about the size unless they are looking for a combination to slip into a jacket pocket. The only external control is the broad ribbed focus ring that moves fairly smoothly and has a decent resistance but lacks the heavy feel of true damping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Autofocus<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The Panasonic 25mm f\/1.7 features a fast and fairly quiet lens motor, and can focus as close as 0.25m. Focus is acquired nearly instantly using the Panasonic GX8 and though it’s slightly slower on my OM-D E-M10 II, it’s still a very fast focuser, even in lower light. The lens is rather quiet when focusing, but it isn’t completely silent.  Soft clicking sounds can be heard from the lens, which may be audible on video if shooting in quiet rooms, but otherwise will not be a distraction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/a>
The Panasonic 25mm f\/1.7 with the included lens hood<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

However, this is one of the only lenses for a mirrorless system where I had issues with focus accuracy.  At closer focus distances, the lens typically focused just fine; hitting critical focus for portraits and closer objects. However, for further subjects, the lens would often miss focus, always to the front, causing some shots near infinity to appear soft, even when stopped down.  This was the case much more often in dim light, but still would happen occasionally even in good light, so I found that care had to be taken when shooting with this lens for landscape use when using autofocus. Strangely, I found the lens to miss focus more often using the Panasonic GX8 than I did on the Olympus E-M10 II.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continue: Image Quality<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Image Quality<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Sharpness<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The Panasonic 25mm f\/1.7 produces images with good sharpness at most working apertures, including at f\/1.7.  For shooting shots of people or closer subjects, you’ll find the lens can render high levels of resolution, though it falls a bit short of the very best optics here.  For the majority of shooting situations, however, I think you’ll be pleased with wide open performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s a good thing that sharpness is pretty good at f\/1.7 because it doesn’t seem to improve too much upon stopping down.  A slight increase in sharpness can be seen at f\/2.8 and f\/4 and this yields predominantly even sharpness across the frame, with some minor softening in the corners.  While there are certainly sharper lenses around, the 25mm f\/1.7 is going to give you plenty of resolution in most any situation. For the modest price, the 25mm f\/1.7 puts in a good performance here…just don’t expect to be blown away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Ice<\/a>
Ice Cream – Olympus OM-D E-M10 II with Panasonic 25mm f\/1.7 @ f\/1.7<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Bokeh<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

A lot of cheap optics tend to cut corners when it comes to bokeh, but Panasonic appears to have put an emphasis on pleasing bokeh with the design of this lens.  It’s not a cream machine, but specular highlights are generally evenly illuminated and backgrounds have a nice fall off that adds depth to images.  You’ll notice in the shot below that highlight lose their round shape towards the edge of the frame, but thankfully there is only very minor edge outlining. Many less expensive optics show rather harsh bright ring outlines, and thankfully the 25mm f\/1.7 avoids those pitfalls. The background retains fairly high contrast and you may notice that the high contrast background can contribute to some busier bokeh in some outdoor situations in some of the sample images at the end of the review, but on the whole I’m quite pleased with the 25\/1.7 in terms of bokeh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Christmas<\/a>
Christmas Bokeh – Olympus OM-D E-M10 II with Panasonic 25mm f\/1.7 @ f\/1.7<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Color, Contrast and Chromatic Aberration<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The Panasonic 25mm f\/1.7 produces images with nice contrast that will neither blow you away nor disappoint.  Colors are evenly saturated without being too bold.  The drawing style lends itself well to wide aperture work, though some may actually prefer slightly less contrast for an even softer profile, but I think the lens strikes a nice balance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 25mm f\/1.7 surprisingly shows very little lateral chromatic aberration in real world use. In fact, going through my images, it’s hard for me to find any that is visible, even at 100% enlargement.  Pretty impressive.  While not completely invisible, it also controls longitudinal CA fairly well.  A bit of mild magenta and green fringe can be seen on out of focus bright edges, but it’s not strong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Distortion, Flare and Vignetting<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Panasonic and Olympus have relied on digital distortion correction for many Micro 4\/3 lenses, and that tradition continues with the Panasonic 25mm f\/1.7.  RAW files and JPEG files have built-in distortion correction profiles, so you won’t see any distortion unless you specifically turn it off.  If you use a program such as Capture One Pro, which can disable the built-in corrections, you’ll see that the lens natively exhibits pronounced barrel distortion, though it’s not as bad as some other Micro 4\/3 lenses I’ve reviewed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vignetting seems very well controlled to me, even when digital correction is turned off. Some slight darkening is visible at f\/1.7, but is negligible stopped down a bit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Waiting<\/a>
Waiting for Santa – Panasonic GX8 with Panasonic 25mm f\/1.7 @ f\/1.7<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

One are where the lens does falter is in flare control.  Panasonic has never had amazing lens coatings, and they didn’t bring out their best for this inexpensive lens.  Shooting into the sun produces multicolored ghosting, while any other bright lights in the frame often display what can best be described as flare orbs surrounding them.  In some instances, purple flare can radiate from bright light sources, as can be seen around the candles in the image above.  When shooting into bright light, keep the hood on and watch the viewfinder to help mitigate ghosting by altering camera position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continue: Conclusion and Image Samples<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Conclusion<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Pros<\/h4>\n\n\n\n