Leica #3
The little 15mm arrived today.
I have bounced off this lens many times. It was a little superior to my 17mm f1.8 in a few ways (contrast, edge sharpness wide open, contrast in poor light), but missed out for a few reasons;
It came second. I already had the 17mm and had grown to like (later love) it.
It was a Pana lens in an otherwise entirely Olympus kit, which at the time (EM5 mk1 based kit) meant possible shortcomings in AF performance.
It had a really cool manual aperture ring, that unfortunately does not work on Oly cameras. These sorts of things lead to camera purchases, which at the time I was not interested in.
It was dear for a small lens, especially compared to excellent lenses like the 12-40, Sigma 16 etc.
What does it offer now?
The Leica look, which I hope will pay dividends for video.
A wide angle MFT lens at medium distance, even wide open, struggles to separate focus plains……..
…….or does it? At 8ft away, there is still a defined separation from the background and it has gorgeous contrast.
Wide open Bokeh is silky. This is a big point of difference to the 17mm, which has a more “old school”, deep transition Bokeh look (useful for street image making), but harder to apply for bringing out a near subject.
At f2.8 it is sharper, but also holds onto that clean, almost 3D separation. This is almost stronger in effect than the 25mm. Nice skin tones also.
It is an ideal dual focal length in video (30mm amd 80mm FF equiv used with the G9s’ 1080 loss-less 2.7x Tele Ex or 30 and 42 in 4k).
It covers an area I use a lot, allowing me to free up the 17mm for personnal use.
It matches the G9’s and other Leica lenses with a fast option, although I have already noticed it “ripple focusses” in face detect video AF.
Directly compared to the 17mm, it offers a very different Bokeh rendering (tbc?) and therefore applications and brighter, cooler and lighter colours (making 4 options between the two with different cameras). It is different, which is relevant.
This lens will go into the general or core kit as a second standard lens option for the G9. This closes the loop, giving me a Standard zoom and fast semi-wide for the video capable Panasonic and a tele zoom and short portrait lens for the EM1.
I missed out on the Sigma 30mm due to impatience with long term stock shortages, but it this lens has scratched an itch and gives me a better option overall. I may get the 30mm later, or even the 56mm, but to be honest, they do not really add anything to an already deep kit.
In zooms I have true wide covered (8-18), standard (12-40/12-60/12-60k), tele (40-150/40-150k/75-300), and in primes; standard wides (15/17), standard Bokeh (25), portrait and strong Bokeh (45x2/75) and long tele (300). If I get a Pana tele at some time and another wide, I can run the two kit idea, but I am fine, just fine as of now and can most importanrly, do the jobs I have.
Wish list lens is possibly the 10-25 f1.7, which could fix a few issues, including giving me a second wide angle.