I recently purchased an M. Zuiko 17mm f1.2 lens after reading it’s the sharpest lens in the micro four thirds system. I have the 25mm f1.2, and it’s been wonderful – even wide open – but all the technical lens tests say it is a step below the 17mm f1.2 and the 45mm f1.2 in terms of sharpness.
Ive been testing this new 17mm lens and I immediately noticed it is almost unusably sharp wide open – not something I’m used to since I can use the 25mm wide open and achieve very good sharpness. The 17mm wide open leaves quite a bit more to be desired, which is not what I expected based on the reviews online.
Stopping down to 2.0 the 17mm does get very sharp and far more useable, but I’m a bit disappointed by its performance wide open so far.
Maybe someone can take a look at these test shots of a wall, tell me if theyre worth anything at all in terms of being able to tell why this is happening (ie, maybe it could be due to the focal length being wider, or the field curvature being more curved or something? I was thinking, maybe it’s that with closeups at 17mm the DOF is so shallow that there isn’t much there to be in focus l, but I don’t think that’s it)
((Also I’m not asking whether either of these shots are usable, really only using them to compare the sharpness wide open of these two lenses))
Feeling like maybe I should just return the 17mm and use the 12-40 f2.8 I have on the shelf if I ever need to go wider than 25mm.
[First pic is 17mm, second is 25mm, distance from wall is ~1m]
Awesome! Yeah personally I’ll always buy via services like MPB or something. Just to know that I can send it back when there’s and issue. I’ve had 2 times now that there were some issue with what I ordered. In one case I sent it back for free and got a different copy of the lens that was perfect. In the other case the sensor of my new body was dirty and I was allowed to use a cleaning kit on it first without losing warranty. That fixed it, which saved me quite some time and effort with the whole sending back and getting a new one adventure.
Good to know that this lens is great. I also have a micro 4/3 camera and I might invest in one of the primes at some point. Currently I only have the 2 basic Olympus zooms, the 30mm macro (which is awesome) and some vintage glass, but a small modern prime would probably do wonders.
Which body do you have? The 17mm 1.2 is comfortable on the larger-bodied om1, but people say it’s a bit big on the the smaller Olympus bodies. The 17mm 1.8 is tiny though and fits nice on the om-3 style bodies