Whats up with Panasonic 14mm and 20mm on Olympus

Hey all,

So I have noticed a lot of negative comments about the Panasonic 14mm a and 20mm lenses on Olympus bodies. So what is up with that, and do the mark 2 versions suffer the same issues?

Thanks all!

Dunno what issue you refer to, but I used P20mm on EM5 just fine.

Well even today a post on severe hunting in low light. Other days perpole color shifts. Etc.

Panasonic 14mm have been working well with EPL1, EPL5, EP5. Little CA. But LR helps to  remove them completely

Mark 1 or mark 2?

So I have noticed a lot of negative comments about the Panasonic 14mm a and 20mm lenses on Olympus bodies. So what is up with that, and do the mark 2 versions suffer the same issues?

Some people are bothered by chromatic aberration (with both) and banding (with the 20/1.7). Others are not.

In these respects, I don't think the Mark 1 and Mark 2 versions are different.

Regards,

Alan

NoTx wrote:

Well even today a post on severe hunting in low light. Other days perpole color shifts. Etc.

All lens will have difficulty focusing in low light,  it's not unique to P20mm. Colour shift? No such thing with my EM5. Banding? Don't find it in any of my shots with EM5.

The 14mm is a tiny, fast-focusing albeit optically average lens.

The 20mm is a good optical performer, but it has banding issues at high ISOs on some Olympus bodies and its noisy and slow to focus. C-AF is useless with it.

My copy of 14 mm is tack sharp across the frame on the Em10 , sometimes a bit soft in the bottom left corner, only when the cam is not horizontally level , good colours, good contrast , no low light hunting unless shooting black cat in a coal mine . I just find this little lens excellent for street shots at night . I keep it at f2.8  .

My copy of the 20 f1.7 is so sharp it hurts my eyes, ..no just kidding , gave me awesome results on the Epl2 , excellent on the Em5 , too sharp on the Em10 . AF is a bit slow, but since I shoot stills it doesn't bother me ( a tad faster on the G5 I must say ). AF , like the 14 mm, hunting in low light only if you focus on anything dark, no surprise . When used at 1600 iso on the Em5 , banding only occurs if I have underexposed and I want to ( badly )  lift the exposure in pp, say a full stop . So paying particular attention to get right exposure when shooting is important . i only wish this lens would be 17 mm instead of 20 .

bluevellet wrote:

The 14mm is a tiny, fast-focusing albeit optically average lens.

The 20mm is a good optical performer, but it has banding issues at high ISOs on some Olympus bodies and its noisy and slow to focus. C-AF is useless with it.

That's it!  If you an instinctive prefocusser with an EM1 and don't mind a bit of noise from the lens, a used P20mm is one hell of a lens for the money.

Andrew

NoTx wrote:

Mark 1 or mark 2?

I meant Panasonic 14mm ,  have no idea regarding its version. 4 years old.

One's mileage may vary. My 14mm/2.5 lens is quite sharp at open apertures and has given me great images indoors as well as outside. Some copies have centering/sharpness problems, though. My 20mm has also been excellent - but low light is a challenge because of the focusing mechanism and because of the possibility of banding on Olympus bodies. (Maybe no banding with the Pen-F, though, and definitely no banding with an Olympus which is using a fully electronic shutter.)

I've never had a significant problem with focusing using either lens on an E-M10 or E-M5 II, though I do think it's worth considering that these lenses will focus faster, if not better, on Panasonic bodies.

I bought the 20mm lens because I believed the comments that banding only occurs at ISOs above 1600. Not true, unfortunately. I found the banding to occur at all ISOs and at all apertures except f/1.7. But exposing well "to the right" on the histogram, blending exposures to preserve blown highlights, or using an electronic shutter avoids banding entirely with Olympus cameras.

Of course, no lens or camera is a jack-of-all-trades, so we must each decide what will meet our needs. I love that this forum can help a lot with that.

EDIT: It seems to me also that there is no non-cosmetic difference between the original and Mark 2 versions of these lenses. Any perceived or reported differences might simply be due to sample variation.

The 20mm is the slowest focusing of the M43 primes, just like the 78's were the slowest of the  Corvette C3's.  Doesn't mean it's an unwanted turtle. The 20mm will hunt in the dark unless you use touch focus to pick a high contrast point, where it will say "yes boss" and be there.

If you underexpose, getting a muddy murky mess, and try to save it in post process, by god you might get some banding along with the noise.

Still, it's the sharpest lens I own. And I will pick it over my Olympus 17mm at night,

My used copy of the Panasonic 14mm f2.5 (first edition) works quite well on my EPL6.  It's my least used focal length but that's not a reflection on the quality of the lens.

Hi

I Have used the 20mm Pana on the EM5, EM10, EM1 and EM10 mkII, and have found it great on all of them. I have seen banding, but only rarely, and even then only at high ISO 3200+. CA I have never noticed before.

It's been a great lens for me.

NoTx wrote:

Hey all,

So I have noticed a lot of negative comments about the Panasonic 14mm a and 20mm lenses on Olympus bodies. So what is up with that, and do the mark 2 versions suffer the same issues?

Thanks all!

Until a couple of years ago, the Oly jpg engines did not compensate for CA information passed from the Panasonic lenses.  The TruePic VII engines, EM-1 forward do this.  So for years, rightly so Panasonic lenses have been accused of more purple fringing on Olympus than Panny bodies.  This applies to the 14 and 20.

The 14 is sharp lens when you get a good copy, but I find mine just mediocre. But it focuses quickly and silently.

The 20 has a great reputation for sharpness, but is an older design, focuses slowly because the whole lens barrel moves in and out as opposed to internally focusing like newer lenses, and its motor is kind of slow.  It also had a reputation for hunting, and on the Sony sensor of the EM5 vintage, including the Pens, there is the potential for banding, some sort of interference.  That has since been fixed with newer sensors and newer bodies with low light capable CDAF abilities.

The 20 on my GX7, with its -4EV focus ability, is now quite acceptable in its speed, though it can still be noisy.  It rarely hunts anymore.  The newer Oly cams have similar fast focus ability, and so banding and hunting should no longer be an issue, but it is still physically slower.