Does anyone still use Panasonic 20mm f/1.7?

Anders W wrote:

DKG wrote:

I have both versions of it and they are real workhorses for a compact setup. In my view sharper (or, at least, crisper) than the 17mm/1.8 but yes, painfully slow to focus, especially on Olympus bodies. Probably because of the latter, it doesn’t co-operate well with some Olympus bodies (those, I think, which don’t have the ability to switch on ‘focus-priority shooting’ - mainly the PEN Lite and the E-M10 lines) as the shutter seems to fire before focus is fully achieved. The workaround is to wait for focus confirmation with a half-press of the shutter release button… not ideal for fast-action where there may not be time to wait that extra fraction of a second.

Well, the 20/1.7 was not designed for AF-C and Panasonic bodies won’t even let it enter that mode. I think Oly bodies do but it’s not a good idea to try (e.g., for the reason you mention).

In AF-S mode, it is slow if you allow it to hunt (I don’t) or if you refocus from close-up to infinity or the reverse. But for my standard use case, where refocusing would be limited to the 0.75 meters to infinity range, it refocuses about as quickly as lenses with internal focus. And yes, I’ve tested that systematically (on an Oly body), using the Oly 12/2 and 45/1.8 as “competitors”.

It focusses well on an EM1.2 in CAF, walking steadily towards the target.  The first shot of the burst tends to be blurred.

Andrew