The 50mm Lumix S arrived today.
Full frame with speed. I will do a realistic look at the true benefits and pitfalls of full frame vs M43 using this lens and my 45 Oly, but the reality of a wider perspective and shallow depth adds a tool.
Nice Bokeh and sharp at 1.8.
Really sharp. I can get this kind of performance out of M43, but the potential for creative blurring has shifted and the high ISO performance is genuinely better. This is ISO 8000 wide open. Black cat in a Cole mine anyone?
This lens has turned my luke warm thinking on the S5 totally around. The zoom it came with is good, I will admit that, but it is slow (small maximum apertures), so it shows me little that M43 cannot do (f5.6 full frame is roughly f2.8 in M43, which I have plenty of) and highlights the M43 advantages like better stabilising.
The Pentax prime is potentially another winning lens, but until a decent adapter comes, I can only speculate. The TTArtisan as a cropped 50 is a nice novelty, a “look” lens and the MD 45 may also be a sleeper. The Panasonic just has that all around pleasant feel.
Decently fast, very sharp, lovely in the hand (light but smooth and solid feeling), with very serviceable Bokeh. A no fault lens. A very safe bet and I can assume from the many reviews, that the whole set are the same.
Video with it is a very nice experience. The lens seems quite forgiving in manual focus. Clear snap is obvious, but not in that clinical in-or-out way. This means I have a state of the art modern bit of glass with some old school character and genuine utility. It feels like a soft caress and friendly, not brittle and torturous.
Within a few days, the S5 has gone from a base kit to a fully caged, mat boxed, dual handled, fast glass and filter mounted, animal.