On a day trip today, I paired an odd couple. My recently ignored street camera (EPM-2) and the ancient 25mm Pen lens (original 1960’s half frame model).
The coupling turned out to be almost unworkable. The EPM can have an eye piece added which was needed as I found out the manual focus assist does not work with mechanical only lens connections. Combined with a poor screen for bright light viewing and you have an almost unusable camera.
Shame, because it is a capable performer optically, if a little twitchy.
First up, sharpness.
Not only pleasantly sharp, but interestingly micro contrasty. The 25 is not one of the legendary lenses of that range, but if this is the low bar, then there must be some gems in the range.
Next up, flare (no hood, filter nor care taken).
The top set show the wide open (f2.8) haze the lens always exhibits, which cleans up well in post. Originally I guess this would have been seen as a real issue, but ironically, digital offers an easy fix, a bit like CA I guess (which this lens seems to avoid). I seem to remember Lightroom doing an even better job.
The lower images show the difference between 2.8 (unusable) and 5.6 (unusual).
Bokeh.
I knew it would be interesting from previous try-outs, but this is very cool. The background is playground rubber mat with small white specks about 2ft away. Notice that the glass shard is razor sharp at f4. My 40-150 f2.8 shows similar characteristics sometimes!
Slightly out of focus (like many), this image shows pleasantly coherent transition, until highlights are encountered (see above). The colour is gorgeously old school, with the perspective of variety being a good thing.