Nice "pop" to this lens

secretworld wrote:

I sold mine years ago with my GF2. I think it had bad shuttershock. But when not affected it produced nice shots. But here also the 14-45 was better. And f2.5 vs 3.5 is not much difference. For a light pancake I use the 12-32 on a gm5 now. Like this much better.

My experience was similar to yours. I found that the lumix 14-45mm performed better than the 14mm f2.5 on the borders when stopped down. Central sharpness was high but the poorer border performance limited it's use. Also, I had mine at a time when Panasonic bodies didn't have IBIS whereas the 14-45mm had OIS making it more useful. I got rid of the 14mm f2.5.

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Vermont3133 wrote:

rashid7 wrote:

Dan_168 wrote:

skatr wrote:

I've used the version II on both a Panasonic GM5 and now on an Olympus Pen F. One handed shooting is a breeze on each camera due to the minuscule weight of the 14mm pancake. I've alway liked the 28mm focal length on film cameras and this one matches that FOV.

This lens falls off a bit in the extreme corners in low light but shooting at the native 4x3 aspect ratio I always crop like mad anyway so it is not a problem. This lens is super sharp stopped down to f4 and it has a real 3D pop to its rendering undoubtedly because of only having 6 elements. Great lens.

I have this lens too and like it pretty good, not because it's optically a good lens but just because it's a pancake style, actually, optically speaking, I really have nothing great to say about this lens, but it fit the main purpose of me getting an OMD 10 II, SMALL and LIGHT and still interchangeable lens, that's the only reason I got this system. so I mainly use Pancake lenses on this system, 12-32, 14-42, 14, 20.and recently added a Sigma 56 for occasionally when I use this for portrait when I am hiking and don't have those bigger camera with me. I like the 12-32 a lot better, at least it's more flexible. the 14 2.5 is a prime without the prime lens's quality, but again, it's so small, so I still keeping it.

I disagree. While maybe subtle, I find it better than the kit zooms! Especially vs. old Lumix14-42, and even current Oly 14-42's

I know this gets dragged up regularly but it has some interesting results re. the Pana 14...not so good for the PL25!

If we are to believe the guys at LensRentals [I would] the 14 [re.MTF results] eclipses a bagload of zooms and couple of WA primes and pretty well keeps up with the Pana 20 1.7.

This is wide open up to f/4...which is pretty much where it matters.

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

I'm a brand new owner of an older 14 [in very nice condition].

Does it pop?....Not sure about that but I'm pretty happy with what I'm seeing!

For several years, I had used the 14mm on a GX1 and found it Ok but not extraordinary.

Then, I got an E-PL7 and the 14mm was the first lens that I mounted on it and used for more than 6 months. And, what a surprise !

The usual subject was our cat, and, the 14mm delivered plenty of very fine details in the eyes and the fur. (My hypothesis in that the E-PL7 does not have a strong AA filter compared to the GX1. So, it can show more acuity).

I think the 14mm is near the 20mm for acuity/sharpness. (From my experience, with 16mpx sensors). ...maybe other copies are not as good. Mine came in a kit with a GF2. ...a long time ago.

rashid7 wrote:

Also I believe the GX1 was prone to shutter shock?

... we are getting away from the 14mm topic

I don't think my use of the GX1 has shown any shutter shock with the 14mm or 20mm.

Shutter shock does not happen at all shutter speeds and it does not affect so much shorter focal lenghts. (*)

Maybe I have some pictures taken with the GX and the 45-200, at 200mm, which are soft, but, I think the 45-200mm was always a bit too soft at 200mm.

The 100-300 on the GX1 was impressively sharp at 300mm. I took pictures under bright sun and I never saw any sign of shutter shock.

A friend (with 40+ years of experience in photo), has the 100-400, and the 100-300. He also had a GX8 and now as a G9. His G9 gives him much sharper pictures at 400mm than the GX8 did. His 100-300 is also sharper on the G9.  (He also finds the 100-400 to be sharper than the 100-300). -- The GX8 is reputed to be prone to shutter shock with some lenses at some speeds

(*) I had a Pentax K-7 for several years. It had rather obvious shutter shock at 1/100s -- which is very annoying because 1/100s is quite useful. Strangely this annoyance affected most shutter speeds between 1/80 to 1/160s (with much less at 1/60s and 1/200s). At slower speed, it was better than at 1/100s !  It showed up with my 40mm and 70mm lenses). There were several threads about this topic in the Pentax DSLR forum after the K-7 came out. In my experience, my K-7 had more pronounced shutter shock than the E-PL2, E-PL1, and, E-PM2... which, have been know to have this weakness in some circumstances (focal length, shutter speeds, ...). I have not notice any shock-caused fuzziness in my pictures made with the E-PL2, E-PL1, and, E-PM2. But, I have had the feeling that the E-PL2 pictures were sharper than those of the E-PM2... maybe because the E-PM2 was so small.

Can you SHOW the pop to us?

rashid7 wrote:

JF, if SS was off topic, i gave it 10 words and you? 200+?

Before you so summarily dismiss my comment, you might like to look at all the (old) conversations posted here at DPR on SS in the GX1. Your anecdotal experience to the contrary does not negate the experience of dozens who voiced this concern

Rashid,

My apologies !

I'm sorry if my written comment appeared dismissive. If we were speaking in person, I'm sure we would have had more fun and we would have agreed (mostly, at least).

First, I wanted to point (not clearly enough, I guess), that SS is not often observed at short focal length.

Second, I gave examples of SS at longer FL, with the GX1 and other bodies (GX8).

Finally, it is not wrong the start talking about something else than the thread title, but, others might find it off topic, even if the topic (SS) is interesting.

rashid7 wrote:

DtBB wrote:

Can you SHOW the pop to us?

how's this?

This photo is great and it does "POP"! I don't think I could get this with the 12-32...

Now I have to go fish out my 14...

rashid7 wrote:

rashid7 wrote:

JF, if SS was off topic, i gave it 10 words and you? 200+?

Before you so summarily dismiss my comment, you might like to look at all the (old) conversations posted here at DPR on SS in the GX1. Your anecdotal experience to the contrary does not negate the experience of dozens who voiced this concern

BtW, I agree that with some care... one can work around SS, especially if you have E-shutter (although sometimes with limitations) or EFCS

Indeed, I use EFCS on the E-PL7. The very small delay does not matter for my use of that camera.

I've used E-shutter on the E-M1 mk.1, it was creating too much "rolling shutter" (skewing) distortion.

Eventually, I will get a more modern body that has faster sensor readout and E-shutter will be more pratical.

Henry Richardson wrote:

Henry Richardson wrote:

skatr wrote:

I've alway liked the 28mm focal length on film cameras and this one matches that FOV.

I like this little lens too. I just checked in Lightroom and 28% (coincidence!) of my m4/3 photos were taken at 14mm (28mm-efl) -- many not with this lens though. By far, it is my most used focal length.

I then checked all of my various APS-C Sony, Canon, Pentax, and Konica Minolta DSLRs and 28mm-efl was my most used focal length with them too.

I then checked my various non-ILC digicams and, again, 28mm-efl was my most used focal length.

Just 2 examples of popular non-ILC cameras that have a fixed 28mm-efl lens:

• Leica Q2
• Ricoh GRIII

28mm-efl is a nice, useful focal length. Good for street photography and other things, IMO.

There must be a reason why most smartphones' angle of view is close to 28mm FF or slightly wider.

This is one of the reasons why I got the 14mm f2.5 : when paired with my GM5, the form factor, field of view and IQ make it poor man's Leica Q2 or Ricoh GR3.

I agree with other posters that the kit 12-32 when folded is almost as tiny as the 14. And, thanks to OIS, it can shoot static targets in very dim light.

But the 12/32 needs to be unfolded to use it, and then it is not so tiny.

OIS is useless for street photography,  whereas the extra full stop from f3.8 when zoomed to 14mm to f2,5 is nice.

And the 14 is always ready to shoot.

IMO the 14 is underrated because it is an old design, it is much cheaper than the PL 15  and f2.5 doesn't sound as a large aperture for a M43 prime.

And the not much bigger 20 f1.7 IQ is so good, with a very pleasing field of view....Moreover, moaners can complain about the lack of AFC, though the much more useful AFS performance is quite good on all my not so new Panasonic bodies: GM5, G7 and GX8.

IMO, the Lumix 14 and 20 are the true spirit of M43: excellent IQ in a so tiny form factor!

Vermont3133 wrote:

If we are to believe the guys at LensRentals [I would] the 14 [re.MTF results] eclipses a bagload of zooms and couple of WA primes and pretty well keeps up with the Pana 20 1.7.

This is wide open up to f/4...which is pretty much where it matters.

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

I've seen this test and one other that showed the Pana 14mm 2.5 is one of the sharpest lenses in the whole system. It was also obvious to me the first time I looked at the results how sharp this lens is.

Yet it remains a sleeper lens. Why? Well it started as a kit lens so it was probably disregarded. Many good lenses already cover 14mm, and 2.5 isn't that fast anyway.

But just considering the size, and the fact that I love 28mm FOV means this lens is a keeper for me.

Greg

DtBB wrote:

Can you SHOW the pop to us?

These are my examples. I always liked its 3D pop, too.

Hello

This is soooo weird . None of the images posted in the last 4 replies seem very sharp. As a matter of fact , I noticed something which is very bad

Unless the images were postprocessed , several images including the one with the mushrooms are only somewhat sharp in the center and everything else is unsharp .

There are many lenses out there which are less sharp in the corners at full aperture , especially the ones which rely a lot on autocorrection for vignetting

but here we are not talking about corners , just off center

Hopefully someone can post better examples because here the pics shown would indicate really poor results for that lens 

Harold