Panasonic Lumix G 20mm/F1.7 Pancake Lens

Product Information

Update - Due to popular demand, we've just added a second samples gallery featuring images taken on the Panasonic GF1 This lens is reasonably resistant to flare, even with very bright light sources in the frame. Contrast levels do tend to drop off fairly dramatically when shooting into the light though, so care may need to be taken under those conditions.

As falloff and distortion are corrected by the camera's image processing engine when shooting JPEGs, falloff and distortion will only be easily visible when shooting in RAW format. So as I wrap up this review let me say that Panasonic is leading the race in quality lenses for the m4/3 system. Their top class 7-14, 45 Macro, 14-150 and even the “budget” 55-200 are great lenses. The Olympus lenses like the kit zoom and 17 2.8 are very good lenses but not “great lenses”. I can see myself buying the Panny lenses for “my wife’s” E-P2 in the future unless Olympus raises the stakes and puts out some higher quality lenses. I would like to see small & solid high performing primes in the future. If this happens, and the M4/3 sensors get better with their noise and overall quality then there may be a new revolution in the camera world. Its tough to beat the size and fun factor with these m4/3 kits. Autofocus is driven by a micro motor in the lens body, which works very well. It's not as fast as the Panasonic 14-45mm or 14-140mm zooms, but it's not terribly slow either (obviously this depends to some extent on the specific body used, with the E-P1 feeling just a little bit slower than the G1 or GF1). The focus motor is very quiet, and unlikely to intrude on any occasion. The 20mm F1.7 is also capable of continuous autofocus in movie mode. Lens body elements The only control on the lens itself is a
manual-focus ring, use of which automatically enlarges the viewfinder image. Despite using a fly-by-wire system that drives the focusing mechanism electronically, there is a good feel to the focusing ring. As this is a ‘pancake’ lens that protrudes only 26mm from the front of the camera, it would be reasonable to expect the lens to feel cramped – but it doesn’t. There is no aperture ring, no distance read-out and no depth-of-field scale, but the lens has not been marked-down for any of these omissions because the people who are going to use the Micro Four Thirds system will include relative newcomers to photography who have no need for such old-fashioned things. The 40mm-equivalent angle of view may initially appear unusual, but this is in fact a 'perfect normal' lens, with a focal length equal to the sensor diagonal. This means that it renders images in a very neutral fashion, free of the 'perspective distortion' associated with wideangle or telephoto lenses. While this focal length was historically less common than the ubiquitous 50mm prime on 35mm cameras, it still occupied an honorable niche as the standard lens for a number of high-quality compacts, including the Leica / Minolta CL. Indeed with that 45mm F2.8 macro and an upcoming 14mm F2.8, Panasonic appears to be positioning the GF1 as the spiritual successor to the likes of the CL and the Contax G series - as a high quality portable camera system for serious photographers. Let's see if the pancake's image quality can live up to such lofty ambitions.The lens barrel is constructed from high quality plastics with a gun metal finish, and much of this space is filed with the rubberised focus ring, which has just the right amount of resistance for making fine manual focus adjustment easily. The only external control is the manual focus ring, which is a comparatively generous 10mm wide, and extremely smooth and well-damped. There's no space for a distance scale, so you can't use hyperfocal focusing methods. The bokeh – or quality of the out-of-focus regions produced by this 25mm – is fairly pleasing. Panasonic takes pride in the smoothness/polishing of its aspherical surfaces/molds, and it shows here. The discs rendered by out-of-focus highlights are relatively Gaussian and free of distracting patterns like 'onion rings'. Only occasionally do they show the slightest hint of a hard edge (more noticeable as you stop down), but not enough to cause any concern. When compared with against rivals with similar focal lengths, the new lens ranks third, surprisingly, behind the original model and the Olympus M. Zuiko 17mm f1.8 although it outperforms the latter lens in overall image sharpness.

Even when shooting with the included lens hood attached, artifacts from lens flare can be pretty distracting with this lens. You may notice ghosting when shooting directly into the sun, usually manifesting as a multiple-color haze or purple blobs. The full frame pixels in that example will be bigger so the image will appear darker but it just needs a the values to be rescaled and you will have the same image with the same noise performance. BOTTOM LINE. With this little Panasonic 20 1.7 lens you have a high quality lens THAT WILL NOT BREAK THE BANK. You can do low light, shallow depth of field, and get great results. I say this as a hobbyist, not a pro. For 90% of what I shoot if I had to choose between the E-P2 and 20 1.7, D300s or Canon 7D then it would be the E-P2. Throw in the Leica X1 and I would have to take the X1 as I feel the IQ of the X1 beats all of the mentioned DSLR’s and the E-P2/20 combo, and its even smaller and sleeker. But I think I am done with all of those big DSLR’s for good. I really have no need for 8FPS shooting or 999 focus points. For a wide aperture lens, falloff of illumination towards the corners of the frame is reasonably well controlled. At maximum aperture the corners are 1.71 stops darker than the image centre and visually uniform illumination is achieved at f/2.8.I am reading this review long after its was originally written. Possibly the best review (fit for human consumption :)) I have read while trying to understand the m4t camera and lens combination. I recently bought EP 3 after a long research but was almost questioning my decision after using it with kit lens 14-42. Somehow I was expecting bit more. I have been using Canon G9 all these years and quality from EP3 wasn’t too great. After reading your review I have made my decision to go with 20 (there is still some hope). Certainly with the firmware upgrade (1.1) which lets you magnify more easily the screen viewer it is easy to focus with Nikon and other non-autofocus glass. Find more great lenses in our guide to the best Micro Four Thirds lenses, or have a look at the best Panasonic cameras, and the best Olympus cameras.