Dpreview 17mm samples and X10 hands-on.
Dpreview (Click here) just posted the 17mm f/1.8 image samples. Better late than never
There is no review yet but they do write: “We haven’t had to opportunity to test the image quality in detail but, while not as sensationally sharp as the 45mm F1.8 and 75mm F1.8 lenses, the 17mm appears to do pretty well and with neither corner sharpness nor distortion showing much to be concerned about.”And also Amazon lens buyers seem to like the lens. The first six user reviews are quite positive (Click here to read them).
17mm 1.8 price checks at Amazon, Adorama, B&H, J&R, eBay.
More news:
Dpreview also shared the first imrpession about the XZ-10 (Click here to read the article).
As I told you yesterday, there is no day without a new GF or GX deal. Today you can buy the White GF5 with kit zoom for $349 at Amazon (Click here).
Eric
4 months ago |It seems like most everyone that has used it, other than LensTip, has liked the lens. It’s a shame LensTip had the first review. That review created a public perception that it is a bad lens, and almost everything I’ve read and seen out of it since has been positive. After using the painfully slow 20mm on my OM-D it would be worth the upgrade prices just for the AF speed improvements.
MJr
4 months ago |The lens is fine, just not at the level you’d expect for a Zuiko at this price point.
WSG123
4 months ago |I think the Adorama review by Bing did a great job on summing it up. It’s a trade-off. If your only concern is wide open sharpness, better stick with the 20. If you already own the 20 and are happy with it, there’s probably no compelling reason to switch. If you don’t own either, it’s probably a tough decision, they’re both good at different things and bad at different things.
If we could take the best parts of the 20 and the best parts of the 17, we’d have one amazing lens.
MJr
4 months ago |lol, distortion nothing to worry about
http://www.lenstip.com/357.6-Lens_review-Olympus_M.Zuiko_Digital_17_mm_f_1.8_Distortion.html
Gino
4 months ago |I hope we will have it in 20mm MkII
Me
4 months ago |distortion is nothing to worry about because m4/3 lenses are corrected by standard as usual.
I would be more interested in the loss of resolution generated by the correction, if any.
W. C.
4 months ago |Distortion correction most often does result in a loss of resolution, particularly in the corners. There is no free lunch. But the average user won’t notice or won’t care anyway, so it is the end results that count for them.
What is annoying is the proponents of software corrected lenses, especially in m4/3, defend it as some great advancement in lens design and digital imaging. As long as the lenses are “small and light and sharp!” they will accept any number of compromises to get there. Anyone who questions or doesn’t accept the over reliance on software correction is a luddite, stuck in the last century, or just not a true believer of m4/3.
Olympus has shown that they can make m4/3 lenses that do not require much correction. The 45 f/1.8, 60 f/2.8 macro and 75 f/1.8 are good examples. Most of their other efforts are horrendously software corrected, the 14-150 f/4-5.6 being the worst, with 5.71% barrel distortion at 14mm. Panasonic takes the cake though with its 14-42 PZ, with 6.81% barrel distortion at 14mm. Congratulations.
JimD
4 months ago |WC.
OK Mr wise guy is this image corrected or original. Also how do you know, if yes or no? And is it important? If so why?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/54912595@N02/8458383612/in/photostream
Anonymous
4 months ago |Um … If there’s a loss of resolution then it won’t be as sharp.
However, if it IS sharp, then it’s true I don’t really care how it got that way.
JimD
4 months ago |Then don’t use it on a canon or nikon.
Vicente
4 months ago |Is there any rumor about a new wide lens from Panasonic or Olympus to replace the 7-14mm or 9-18mm?
Andrew
4 months ago |Just curious what improvements you’d like in those lenses? I ask because the 9-18 would seem to be the video lens of choice since it can take filters.
Vicente
4 months ago |I would like a wide lens with f/2.8… even a prime one 7mm f/2.8 (no fisheye)
lmqø-M
4 months ago |M.Zukio 17mm F1.8 is an very good lens, sharp to corner so 12mm F2 not is, but not so sharp so 75mm, but anyway the have a DOF like a 30mm Lens, so is very useful by street photography, and this lens is my favourite lens in MFT now.
woof woof
4 months ago |It has distance markings?????
I thought FBW lenses couldn’t have them?
koteas
4 months ago |Sure they can. Check EXIFs (in detail) and you’ll see that there’s also the focus distance saved with any FBW camera-lens combination.
The 12/2.0 already had a focus scale and the Fujis also have one, but the latter not on the lens but shown on the screen/EVF.
So, with good implementation, distance markings and showing focus distance is no problem at all with FBW lenses. It’s actually pretty accurate.
woof woof
4 months ago |Ok. I know about exif but I’ve never seen lens like this with distance markings on the lens. My Panny lenses don’t have them and frankly I hate them for it and therefore use legacy primes pretty much all the time.
Neonart
4 months ago |Then you need the Oly 12 f2 and this 17 f1.8. Problem solved!
W. C.
4 months ago |The Fujinon XF 14mm f/2.8 R is fly-by-wire and has distance and DOF markings.
http://www.fujirumors.com/using-the-xf14mmf2-8-r/
woof woof
4 months ago |Lovely, but I’ll have a bit of a problem fitting it to my Panasonic so I may as well just use my current manual lenses.
ProShooter
4 months ago |I really hope it turns out to be great. After losing so many shots to the super slow focus of the pana 20mm 1.7 I am really hoping this will be a worthy successor.
Bob B.
4 months ago |ya know..I put my 20mm up on eBay (will sell Sunday night…for a good price no doubt…still VERY popular lens and great at holding its value!), and I took delivery of the 17mm f/1.8 and shade two days ago. I own the 12mm and the 75mm…so the bar was set high and this set my expectations high (I think it did this for everyone). In my opinion, from a “sharpness-only” standpoint the lens does not measure up to those two lenses…but only slightly….but it also costs considerably less than both of those lenses.
The main reason I replaced the 20mm was its incredibly slow focus (relative to my other MFT lenses (on my GX1 and OMD). The new 17mm focuses incredibly fast!
The other reason I bought the 17mm was to fill in the prime perspective range from my 25mm to my 14mm. The Pany 20mm was just to close to my Pany 25mm f/1.4..and focused slow so I was not using it.
So I have tested the 20mm against the 17mm and the sharpness difference is minuscule in real world use and not an issue for this photographer. Plus it has that great little snap-focus ring that is really cool.
What I do not understand about the review from Lenstip (which HAS given this lens a lot of bad press), is that the reviewer goes on and on about how Olympus should not have made this lens because it is redundant with other lenses that were produced for MFT…blah..blah..blah…but he does us a disservice because all of that yammering has nothing to do with THIS lens as it is. Also, think his and everybody else’s (including mine) were set so high because of the 12mm and the 75mm.
I find the lens to be very good it sharpens up very nicely in LR with a little tweaking (many lenses do not) and some contrast pop if the image is that important to me. I could not tell the difference in any major tangible way in IQ to the 20mm except for the obvious slight perspective difference.
MarcoSartoriPhoto
4 months ago |Some people will always call “fanboys” those who enjoy a lens. Anyway, the only thing I look when reading reviews is pictures. Robin Wong showed pretty well how this lens performs. I know: silver bla bla, no hood bla bla, no pouch bla bla, too expensive bla bla… I know it would have been better if I had it for free, but it happens only in dreams. So I don’t whine and go out taking pictures. And now I’m enjoyng it, even if it has a different feeling than my beloved Voigtlander.
Es
4 months ago |If Olympus took a gigantic dump, Robin Wong would write in his review about how “warm” and “cozy” it is.
MarcoSartoriPhoto
4 months ago |Sorry, but that has nothing to do with my statement: I wrote that Roin Wong posted nice pictures taken with this lens. Ming Thein did the same. I don’t care if they use only lenses or camera bodies from Olympus (Ming Thein uses almost everything btw), what I want to say is that some nice pictures speak to me much more than numbers or cold chart tests. Show me a good picture taken with a lens and I know what can be done with that lens. That’s simple.
Anonymous
4 months ago |So you’re saying you can’t get good pictures from the 20mm? I think you can get better pictures that are sharper with the 20mm.
Olympus made the lens because they know the have blind fans. Reviewers are calling it out, “why make this lens when the 20mm is still a great lens?”
MarcoSartoriPhoto
4 months ago |Anonymous, I never mentioned Panasonic 20mm in any of my comments. I don’t have that lens, but I know it’s quite sharp. I know from friends who have it, that its AF is not that fast. I have 17mm f2.8 (and I don’t like it, maybe it’s my version, but its AF is slow and it often struggles too much before focusing where I want) and never had the occasion to buy Panasonic 20mm. I own a great Voigtlander 17.5mm and its quality is awesome (maybe I got a lucky version, this time). Since it’s a focal lenght I like, and since I wanted a fast AF I went for this last Zuiko17mm. I kept an eye on it since it’s release, reading the first bad reviews and people comments (most of times from people who never held it in their hand). What convinced me were the pictures taken by Ming Thein and Robin Wong. Mostly those of Ming Thein. I don’t remember his words, but I remember the pictures he took, and that’s more than enough. I already wrote on this forum that I speak/write only if I tried/used a lens. As far as Panasonic 20mm, I can only report that friends who have it are satisfiet and happy about it, except for its “slow” AF, but they can live with that. And I wrote that when it was first released, it really rocked. In my opinion, if it had to be released now, as it is, there wouldn’t be so many words of appraise.
Bob B.
4 months ago |LOL!
Anonymous
4 months ago |but I’d still prefer it to unreliable Nikon shit.
bart
4 months ago |But would he show pictures of it?
He does in this case, to be judged by your own eyes.
All the ‘fanboy’ calling is just a stupid fallacy, start looking at what is being said and shown instead of who is saying it, at least, when interested in the content instead of bashing people.
Es
4 months ago |And what do the pictures tell us? Absolutely nothing. Because we don’t know anything about the conditions they were taken at.
Look at pictures taken for “reviews” of P&S cameras, superzooms, or even phone cameras like the Nokia 808, or reviews of old photo equipment. Not a single “bad” picture in those reviews.
I can show you pictures I have taken with the Olympus E-410 + kit lens that hang on gallery walls. It tells you nothing about the lens quality and whether its worth the money.
bart
4 months ago |@es
‘Shooting the messenger’ is a fallacy and not an argument. If you don’t get enough information from Robin’s review and pictures, fine, but in that case there are simple arguments based on what he does and doesn’t provide, and there is totally no need to attack the person. Rather, attacking the person is almost always a sign of trying to discredit something while lacking any good arguments.
And indeed, a good photographer can take good pictures with almost any halfway decent camera, and it is very difficult to buy a bad camera and lenses when paying some attention.
It also shows that the photography of most people would be helped much more by learning to take good pictures instead of buying better equipment.
Last but not least, from pictures you can still get quite an idea how a lens behaves with regards to things like distortion, ca etc.
MarcoSartoriPhoto
4 months ago |I’m completely agree with you.
Ollie
4 months ago |I really dont get all of this measurabating, speculating and whining! The 17mm f1.8 is a great lens, I’ve been using it since late December (I got an early pre-order) and I really have nothing to whine about, as i said its a great lens. In fact I’m now selling my Pany 12-35mm f2.8 and 14mm f2.5 and keeping the 17mm f1.8 as my only lens, because it’s a good lens and the focal length suits me well.
However if this lens doesnt suit your needs, don’t whine about it, just don’t buy it! And if your speculating about it, stop trying to measurabate and just bloody well try it out for yourself!
Atle
4 months ago |So no negative criticism should occur on any product? “Don’t buy it if you don’t like it” is a bad argument and always has been, valid criticism always has its place. And the criticism against this lens seems to be valid. It’s not a bad performer, its just that it’s about the same PQ-wise as the cheaper, smaller, older and almost same focal length pany.
lmqø-M
4 months ago |Point is rong!, IQ is very good for street photography anyway, have nice bokeh and angel on 65 gegree and also DOF like an 30mm lens.
This lens can not be better to my Pen camera so i use for street photography.
quiquelbola
4 months ago |Hi all after a month of use the 17 1.8 is my main lens I could live only wiht this one. In my opinion is a very good lens.