My 17mm Oly, the pedestrian f1.8, not the very special f1.2, was once my “one lens” answer. It along did probably half my Japan images over 7 trips, was my video/daylight flash lens mated with an ND filter for the paper and if I was travelling very lite*, it and one of my 45 f1.8’s would be the kit.
Lately, the Panasonic 15mm has been doing more duty in that role for two fairly lame reasons. The Oly has very occasionally failed to AF, which may be down to the click-back option getting loose and the Pana all-too-light aperture ring being fixed (literally-with a bit of tape), making it the more useable option (a real role reversal).
The two are similar but different.
The Pana/Leica has a modern Bokeh rendering, quick to transition to softer, making the sharp look sharper, while the Oly has a longer and more natural transition, ideal for handling street shooting in iffy light with either AF or zone focus.
Shot wide open at f1.8 (not sure why), it is hard to pin point the exact point of focus and the transition to the fully out of focus areas. You get the sharpness of the sharp subject (near bike), but only when your eye lands there. The whole seems harmonious and natural, then “wham” the sharp bit hits you. Notice the end of the street is still slightly coherent, you can almost read the writing on the awning or the number plate. In the Pana image two samples below, the background quickly becomes busier and messier and that was shot at f2.8.
Another image showing the duality of natural transition and snappy subject grabs. Try to pick the point where razor sharp becomes incoherently soft. It’s hard with this lens, even the top of the building in the far distance is recognisable.
The 15mm has a more defined sharp/soft feel making it seem like a longer lens, but also making the image look flatter. Being wider, it often feels longer than the 17, a handy feature when you shoot groups and do not want that unflattering semi-wide look.
A favourite image and one I can identify immediately as made with the 15mm (at f2.8) over the 17. The 17 would have rendered a less bright image, slightly muted colours and more natural-longer transition to the background, but a little less “pop” on the subjects. The Oly has a more “glassy” film look, the Pana is more digital-perfect.
A similar aperture, showing deeper transition and more natural colour. I feel often, more so now that I know what to call it, that it renders very “cinematic” images.
The 15 has that Panasonic image lightness and brightness, the colours leaning toward lime greens and orange reds. This is nice on Oly cams, adding some brilliance, while the more “organic” looking Oly handles strong light very well and adds some body to Panasonic files.
The lens “shines” so to speak in brilliant light, adding film-like highlight roll off.
Finally, the Oly is empathically sharp in focus (for stills, there are some issues with video), while the 15 is occasionally unreliable on Oly and sometimes even Pana cams. It to is poor for video AF.
Something I regularly underestimated with this lens is its ability to shoot landscape images, even wide open, at night, hand held. The above shot was taken at f1.8 where all it’s “flaws” should be evident.
Razor sharp, even though many early reviewers gave it mediocre technical reviews. This and the Canon 28 f1.8 USM, another lens with mixed reviews, but users including me loved it, first opened my eyes to the reality that reviews are no replacement for actual field use.
It loves shiny surfaces, metals, brightly lit city scenes, wet leaves etc.
Hard to find technical fault.
It is not perfect, no lens is. The corners wide open are apparently poor, but that may be field curvature as the Bokeh tends to make that very hard to see.
Stopped down to f2.8 and there is little to complain about corner to corner and with its forgiving transition, you rarely need to stop down further, meaning it is an ideal low light scenery or street lens.
The Bokeh is far from perfect as the modern measure suggests, yet it is so very creatively conducive (f2.2), allowing you to think-shoot and see what you got later. There is a feeling “stage setting” in its rendering.
Flare is ok, nothing to write home about especially wide open, but it also natural looking. It seems to like daylight flare well enough, but if it gets too messy, the lens produces an image with neutral shortcomings, more overall veiling flare.
The modern habit of shaping flare and artefacts is missing, it just does or does not get it done, but it rarely adds anything odd. Very rarely I see a little purple or green artefact, very rarely.
My 8-18 Leica for example can be relied upon to add a little something and my 9mm offers some very magical flare cones when you push it, but this lens will rarely.
Blown highlights are gently lost to pure white, again transitioning from light, to very light to lost white, but gradually. I actually think the gentle veiling flare helps with that.
The 15 and the 9 Pan/Leica lenses have more interesting, even beautiful flares, but they are introduced and sometimes distracting.
You can throw it into almost any lighting situation and it will come out with an image, but it may have some added character.
Contrast is strong in the mid range, micro contrast I guess, highlights are muted and shadows open, so a soft S-curve, a little like Tri-X film stock developed in Rodinal, an old favourite.
Under the hoop is a regular use, although I have shifted to a 25 for more safety room, but it did well. The blobby little lights are fine, natural looking and nothing else is added. Again the long transition Bokeh allows for zone focus with plenty of safety. The Dehaze slider in Capture 1 is a good friend of the lens.
Mine is worn, grubby and forgiven for its random and mild indiscretions, but to replace it now means a new version, which I am not sure about. The other lens in the mix is the 20mm f1.4, a lens that theoretically betters it, or even the 17 f1.2. Maybe, maybe not.
Even if it becomes AF un-viable, I will still use it in MF and be happy I have it at all.
If pushed to describe an “invisible” lens, I would start here. The lens sees like an eye, it renders similarly. It never feels like the opinion of the lens influences your view of the world, it just looks like it looks.
Colour is neutral to warm, but I have noticed this lens handles mixed light better than some lenses. Not sure why?
All of the above lend themselves to great mono performance, no wonder it and the Pen F with it’s mono pre-sets were packaged together.
This post was sparked by using my video dedicated laptop, cleaning out some old files in Capture 1, something I might need to do more often.
*My usual travel kit is the 12-60 Pana and 40-150 Oly kit lenses for versatility, the Oly 45 and 17 for speed and size. The whole lot with a pair of smaller cams come in at about 1.5kg. Pretty powerful and versatile. If I know I am going into confined spaces, the 9mm may be added, only adding 120gms.