The Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 has horrific flare characteristics

GeorgianBay1939 wrote:

krugman wrote:

Evaluating this lens may depend on whom you trust.

I trust Roger Cicala of Lens Rentals. His review of a number of wide angle m4/3 lenses shows the Panasonic 20mm to be absolutely outstanding in sharpness, measured quantitatively with great expertise and great equipment..

I also trust SLRGear. Their review of the Pana 20mm by 17 people produced the following: (We don't know who the 17 were but I have found the SLRGears reviews to be very thorugh and knowledgeable):

94% recommended this lens.

Quality of construction: 8.94 out of 10

Image Quality: 9.47 out of 10.

Reviewers' overall rating: 9.41 out of 10.

Mu-4/3 is a highly respected forum, no trolls and lots og good photographers. Amin Sabet, well respected, chaired a review of the Pana 20mm. There were some complaints about speed of focusing, or noise, but the general tenor of the review was highly enthusiastic. People said it was the lens that attracted them to m4/3. Others said they have trouble taking it off the camera, it is that good.

Here are the urls:

http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2012/05/wide-angle-micro-43-imatest-results

http://slrgear.com/reviews/showproduct.php/product/1295/cat/68

http://www.mu-43.com/reviews/showproduct.php?product=11&title=panasonic-lumix-g-20mm-f17-asph&cat=6

I have trouble seeing why we can always find something to be unhappy about in our lenses and in our cameras, and talk about it in long long treads like this one. I don't hear much of the joy and delight one might expect from these fine cameras and lenses, I hear what sounds like perfectionism, and obsessional doubting, and maybe buyer's remorse.

Krugman

Thank for posting that good information.

For a while here, I thought that my standards were dismally low as I've always been very pleased with my 20/1.7 pancakes. I got my first one with a GF1, when I decided to "get serious" with photography.

I loved that lens, and the camera. One of my granddaughters now has that combo which she uses a lot. I got another 20/1.7 when I got a GH2 which I still have. Yeah, it is a bit slow to AF until good technique is developed and it is a bit noisy (audible noise). Now I put it on the GX7 and take it to indoor events ... where a lot of good "record" shots are made, shared and appreciated.

While I read some anecdotal "evaluations" of gear here I wouldn't make serious decisions informed by them since most are very subjective and not particularly reproducible. But there are several contributors to this forum who are not only very knowledgeable but carry the authority of rigor in their tests and experiments. I admire them for their knowledge and patience in coping with some folks who have made judgements based on a paucity of data, and who have fragile egos (or something) which prevents them from learning from good data. Fortunately, most of the time, the provision of authoritative data sorts out and clarifies the issue for the rest of us.

So thank you for your very helpful contributions.

Tom

Tom,

I am glad you found my post helpful.

I can add another authoritative source of lens evaluatons, LensTip. Here is a quote from their summary for the Pana 20mm:

"This summary will be very short. Of all the lenses designed for mirrorless cameras (not including rangefinder optics) I like the Panasonic 1.7/20 the best. It is small, handy, fast and very sharp at all apertures. You can hardly ask for more."

The url is:

http://www.lenstip.com/269.11-Lens_review-Panasonic_G_20_mm_f_1.7_ASPH._Summary.html

Best regards,

Krugman