Le jeudi 05 mai 2011 12:01:05, SwissPace a écrit :
> I am beginning to wonder about my sanity, I have just ordered a
> panasonic 20mm for 600 swiss francs when I see I could get a secoond
> hand E-p2 with the oly pancake lens for less! The panasonic seems to be
> in general short supply it also seems to be rather expensive, I hope
> its worth it.
600 CHF is certainly expensive (paid mine 340 € a year ago), but there is
absolutely no comparison between Panasonic 20mm and Olympus 17mm. They don't
belong in the same league - at all. In fact the 20 stands in such a class of
its own that a what should be a fair price is really difficult to decide. IMHO,
this lens is the corner stone of the µ4:3 system, the justification of its very
relevance to the market.
something I wrote not long ago on www.mu-43.com :
The 20 tops most everything else I tried for now. It's not the absolutely
proverbial 'perfect' lens if such a thing do exist, but it's got right what's
important, and what is flawed is flawed in such a nice way its defects blend
seamlessly into your pictures.
Foremost, Panasonic made the wise move to go for the low hanging fruit for
their first lens under their own brand. I won't be the one to blame them for
the choice of a focal length matching exactly the sensor diagonal. This focal
length is the easiest to work on, and the most natural. The mythology of 50mm
being the 'normal' lens for 24x36 film is simply the result of Barnack picking
up something that was already available in Leitz catalog when he designed the
Ur Leica. Like the 3:2 ratio, this was an engineering decision, not a
photographer's request.
Then, Panasonic either proved they were exceptionally quick learners, or
somehow Leica partnered on this lens too even if they didn't badged it, unlike
many other Panasonic lenses for compacts or regular 4:3.
- The center sharpness is simply put, unbelievable. It degrades full open in
the corners, but it's still quite respectable. At f/2.8, the corner sharpness
of the 20 is better than the center sharpness of the Olympus 17 at identical
aperture... incredible, and, yes, it's quite noticeable.
- The micro-contrast is great. Many really optically sharp lenses feel soft
because they lack in contrast. Nothing like that to see here, to the contrary,
every plane of the image is markedly distinct and result in an almost '3D'
feeling.
- There's almost no chromatic aberration to speak off.
- The trade-offs are quite a strong vignette effect (but the camera can manage
to remove it, this is a digital lens after all !), and a very pronounced
barrel distortion (again, the camera can do it, or any RAW program worth its
salt).
I'm not too much a chart admirer, but one should try the lens comparator at
dpreview, it's quite telling :
http://www.dpreview.com/lensreviews/widget/Fullscreen.ashx?reviews=62,59&fullscreen=true&av=5.333,5.333&fl=20,17&vis=VisualiserSharpnessMTF,VisualiserSharpnessMTF&stack=horizontal&lock=&config=/lensreviews/widget/LensReviewConfiguration.xml%3F4
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Manuel Viet
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