Kowa Prominar 8.5mm and 12mm tested by ePhotozine

You don’t hear a lot of those Kowa MFT lenses you can find on Amazon US, Amazon DE, Amazon UK. But they seem to deliver a nice IQ. ePhotozine posted the full Kowa Prominar 8.5mm f/2.8 Micro Four Thirds Review:

The Kowa Prominar 8.5mm f/2.8 is a classy looking lens, it’s beautifully made and the results are excellent. AF would make focusing much easier, but it can be worked around and still leave the lens being very satisfying to use. At least with the large amount of depth of field available there is some leeway at longer distances. 
In summary, it’s a great lens that is delightful in use and delivers the goods.

They also tested the Kowa 12mm f/1.8:

The Kowa Prominar 12mm f/1.8 is a classy looking lens. It’s beautifully made and the results are excellent. AF could be a useful addition, but on the other hand we have an easy to focus lens here that presents none of the focusing difficulties of its 8.5mm sibling. It’s expensive perhaps compared to some, but looks excellent value against the Voigtlander 10.5mm f/0.95, unless that extra bit of speed is needed.
It’s a very compelling lens to use, very much the traditional 24mm (in full frame terms) with all its inherent versatility.

Leica 12mm f/1.4 review by Robin Wong: “enjoyed using tremendously”


Image courtesy Robin Wong

Robin Wong posted his full Leica 12mm f/1.4 lens review:

What started out as a lens I was reluctant to review, became one that I actually enjoyed using tremendously.

Besides being a sharp wide angle lens, there is a pleasing quality to the way this lens renders the images. There is good amount of contrast and pop, creating a 3-D look which I normally do not see from wide angle lenses. Bokeh quality is excellent and autofocus works flawlessly. Nonetheless, the Panasonic 12mm F1.4 is not without flaws – the corner softness and chromatic aberration can pose serious problems. The corner sharpness is so bad that you need to stop down to F4 for decent results. Purple fringing is noticeable in high contrast areas, and software correction cannot account for this very well.

Despite these flaws there is currently no other alternative to a wide angle F1.4 lens. There really is no benchmark to compare to. Perhaps, it is a huge challenge to create a 12mm lens with such a large aperture opening.

12mm f/1.4 at [shopcountry 61026].