Two lenses I have the greatest of respect for, respect that has been earned, not assumed due to reputation or price, are my 17mm F1.8 and 40-150 kit lenses.
They both went on one of our last trips to Japan (insert sad face) doing the lions share of the work.
The kit lens was a real find. Purchased in a 3 lens starter pack, sold for the price of the included 45mm, but bought for the kit EZ 14-42 (replacement of an ailing 14-42 on my wife’s camera), the 40-150 was the last consideration of the three. Really just a bonus trash lens.
It has proven to be a real sleeper.
40mm on the zoom. Sharp, with good transition. What more could you want.
Its strengths are strong micro contrast, decent, but very malleable colour and good Bokeh. It’s weaknesses are known, basically coming down to crummy build quality.
I never get tired of being blown away by this lens. For all realistic uses, it matches the Pro lens, as long as the sun is out. To be fair, I recently used it at an indoor school event and it came through showing very mature contrast and detail, ideal for higher ISO work.
It can be gentle and delicate or punchy as needed (all of the files in the “Things I Love About C1'“ post were taken with it).
For me, any lens longer than the 17mm is a details lens. The 40-150 performs as needed up to fine art levels.
Bokeh is a nice surprise. Often sharing the load with the 17mm, its nice to have a dinky little kit tele on when things get tight. Both lenses share a “Fred Herzog” colour palette.
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The 17mm f1.8 had a strange beginning.
Grudging chosen as the best mechanical option over the Pana 20mm (poor AF & MF) and the slightly dearer, but slightly sharper and more brilliant 15mm Leica, the 17mm has gone on to great things and I would not swap it for either of the above. It even holds it’s own against the ground breaking 17mm f1.2, although the two seem to be designed to do different things (he 1.8 for deep transition street, the 1.2 for wide portrait).
There is something very efficient and pleasing about its rendering and its ability to just get the shot.
Even with a fairly old fashioned rendering, it still packs plenty of brilliance, taming tough highlights well.
I believe strongly that this lens was made for street shooters. It has excellent contrast and highlight control, practical, long transition Bokeh and is sharp even at wider apertures. AF is instantaneous and MF is a pull-back ring away. I regularly shoot it wide open at night in AF and everything just works.
I truly love the way it handles contrasty light. I have many images that seem to work fine with this lens, that may run a little too hot for others such as my more “lush” rendering 25mm.
The focal length and other attributes promote “in your face” imaging. The lens in combination with a small camera like the EPM-2 is too small to be taken seriously. I shoot quickly, from the hip and with focus set at either 2m at f2.8-5.6 or I use AF wide open at night and just expect to get my shot.
The very long transition Bokeh allows misses to be tolerable, sometimes even better than hitting the intended target.
Wide open the transition from sharp to out of focus is quite invisible. The doorway is out of focus, the busses fully, but are still coherent and harmonious. The modern trend of fast transition sharp to soft Bokeh has been bucked here in favour of a less aggressive, more forgiving approach.
These two, a backup 45mm f1.8 for night/portrait and two small cameras (EM10 or EPM) and you have a very capable and responsive travel kit that comes in at a little over 1kg.
Ed. The Panasonic 9mm now adds a super wide element, for a little over 100g.