GH3 Leica 42.5mm F1.2 OIS AF Lens Looks Like a Winner

But I want it now.

Remind me to sell my Oly 45mm while it still has it's value. It's one of my favorite lenses, but it'll have to go when this comes out.
 
I would like to think the price will not be all that insane. Typically lenses in that FOV are much easier and cheaper to make. Take a look at Canon and Nikon lenses in that range and they are typically a reasonable price point. Honestly the Olympus 45mm is way over priced when you factor in the prices of 50mm f1.8 lenses.

I love my 25mm f1.4 Leica m4/3 however and am really excited about this lens. I am wishing and hoping it will fall in the same price range. Yah it is slightly faster but it is also much longer which makes it easier to make. Price point may balance itself out yet.
 
Thomas Smet said:
Typically lenses in that FOV are much easier and cheaper to make.
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In the Micro 4/3 world this is the equivalent to a Full Frame camera's 85mm f/1.2 lens, so I fully expect it will be priced like the Voightlander f/0.95 lenses are.

You cannot compare this 42.5mm lens with a typical Full Frame camera's 50mm standard lens because this is much higher performance than any of those lenses.

- This lens should be tack sharp right across the image at f/1.2, just like the Olympus 45mm f/1.8 lens is. ( Canon, Nikon, Zeiss 50mm lenses are mush by comparison )

- This lens will be optically stabilized, something which does not exist in the Full Frame lens equivalent. ( i.e. No Canon 85mm f/1.2, no Nikon G 85mm f/1.4, and no Zeiss 85mm f/1.4 has OIS )

- It might be weather sealed too, which would be nice. I haven't heard anything so far about this, but at the premium price range I would expect it.


BTW, I owned a Zeiss 50mm f/1.4 lens for about a year, and ended up selling it because at f/1.4 it was not sharp across the full image area. ( it suffered from coma and chromatic aberration at wider apertures )
 
TheDingo said:
In the Micro 4/3 world this is the equivalent to a Full Frame camera's 85mm f/1.2 lens, so I fully expect it will be priced like the Voightlander f/0.95 lenses are.

You cannot compare this 42.5mm lens with a typical Full Frame camera's 50mm standard lens because this is much higher performance than any of those lenses.

- This lens should be tack sharp right across the image at f/1.2, just like the Olympus 45mm f/1.8 lens is. ( Canon, Nikon, Zeiss 50mm lenses are mush by comparison )

- This lens will be optically stabilized, something which does not exist in the Full Frame lens equivalent. ( i.e. No Canon 85mm f/1.2, no Nikon G 85mm f/1.4, and no Zeiss 85mm f/1.4 has OIS )

- It might be weather sealed too, which would be nice. I haven't heard anything so far about this, but at the premium price range I would expect it.


BTW, I owned a Zeiss 50mm f/1.4 lens for about a year, and ended up selling it because at f/1.4 it was not sharp across the full image area. ( it suffered from coma and chromatic aberration at wider apertures )
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My point wasn't to compare the quality with a FF lens or even to compare the prices with those lenses. It was to the fact that a lens in the 40mm-50mm range is typically not as expensive as a 25mm lens. This is why the Olympus 45mm is the cheapest of their lenses. If the 25mm f1.4 is at a decent price point then the 42mm f1.2 might not be that much more expensive. Yeah the stabilization might jack up the price but typically a 42.5mm lens even slightly faster will be easier to make than the 25mm f1.4. Remember there is not a huge difference between f1.4 and f1.2 and the 25mm is half the price of many of the f0.95 lenses. Honestly I would be comparing the price of the 42.5mm more to the 25mm then I would the manual lenses.

Adapted lenses will always have a different look on m4/3 due to the lack of image enhancement done in camera. Even the f0.95 lenses at 25mm are typically softer than the Leica 25mm yet the Leica is half the price and only one stop slower.
 
A quality "normal" focal length lens is the simplest to manufacture & typically the least expensive. Despite being a newer design my Canon 50mm f/1.2 is $500 less expensive than my 85 f/1.2. The same is true for Nikon, Leica, Hasselblad, etc.

For my needs I'll choose the Lumix 42.5mm over the Voightlander simply because of the benifit OIS can bring to handheld documentary work.
 
Thomas Smet said:
It was to the fact that a lens in the 40mm-50mm range is typically not as expensive as a 25mm lens.
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The only reason why 40-50mm lenses have been cheap is that traditionally they have been the standard lens on a FF camera, so it's largely a numbers game as to why it's cheaper.

If Canon and Nikon stopped making FF cameras and ONLY made APS-C cameras, then very quickly the 35mm f/1.8 would become the cheapest lens on the market. Nikon already makes a very good 35mm G f/1.8 DX lens that's selling for less than $200, though I don't think Canon has an equivalent lens right now.

Thomas Smet said:
This is why the Olympus 45mm is the cheapest of their lenses
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Olympus could easily make a 25mm f/1.8 "standard" kit lens that would ship with every m4/3 body, that would likely end up being one of the cheapest lenses in their arsenal. Their is no reason why the 40-50mm range is some "magical" focal length that equates to cheap lenses, a "standard" 25mm kit lens could just as easily be made on the cheap.

The Panasonic 25mm f/1.4 lens is more expensive partly because it's a high performance Leica design ( so I'm sure Leica gets well paid for this work ), partly because it's a fast lens, and partly because this focal length is considered to be a "standard" lens by many people, so demand for this focal length is high, and Panasonic can make a good buck selling it as a premium lens.

I personally am not a fan of the 50mm lens on FF cameras, or the 25mm lens on m4/3 cameras, and prefer 35mm for FF cameras or 17mm for m4/3 because I like a wider "standard" perspective. ( I owned a Voightlander 25mm f/0.95 for a year, and sold it last year because I almost never used it. I expect I will buy an Olympus 17mm f/1.8 or Voightlander 17.5mm f/0.95 later this year. )

Thomas Smet said:
Honestly I would be comparing the price of the 42.5mm more to the 25mm then I would the manual lenses
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These are completely different lenses to me, and serve completely different purposes. A 42.5mm lens is a perfect fit for head-shot photos and interview videos. ( this is my standard for corporate interviews, as it allows me to isolate my subject from the background with virtually no distortion at all ) A 25mm lens would be horrible for both of these purposes.

Thomas Smet said:
Adapted lenses will always have a different look on m4/3 due to the lack of image enhancement done in camera.
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If you shoot RAW you can bypass the in-camera enhancements, and see that premium m4/3 lenses are MUCH sharper than adapted FF premium lens, because they are designed to reach close to full performance wide open. Huge difference between these two lens types on m4/3 cameras.

Thomas Smet said:
Even the f0.95 lenses at 25mm are typically softer than the Leica 25mm yet the Leica is half the price and only one stop slower.
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This has everything to do with the f/0.95 aperture. If you set the Voightlander 25mm f/0.95 lens to the same aperture as the Pansonica 25mm f/1.4, the performance is not that different. In some cases the Voightlander lens will perform better.

f/0.95 is the bleeding edge of fast glass, so you will always pay a huge premium for this speed.

This new Pansonic 42.5mm lens is slightly more than 1 stop faster than the Olympus 45mm f/1.8, so again you will pay a huge premium for this extra speed, and even more because of the OIS. As far as I know, this is one of the few fast telephoto lenses to feature OIS in any camera format, and something that is not found in the range of FF equivalent FOV lenses.
 
TheDingo said:
You cannot compare this 42.5mm lens with a typical Full Frame camera's 50mm standard lens because this is much higher performance than any of those lenses.
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Neither Canon nor Nikon offer anything close to a prime lens at f1.2 with OIS. The fastest Nikkor fixed lens with optical stabilization is an 85mm f3.5 macro lens. This Leica 42mm f1.2, along with the Lumix f2.8 zooms, makes the Panasonic GH line the fastest low-light OIS lens system available.
 
Lpowell said:
Neither Canon nor Nikon offer anything close to a prime lens at f1.2 with OIS
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I hope this lens sells well, and that Panasonic expands this to a line of high performance fast OIS primes. I would love to see a 17mm f/1.2 OIS lens and maybe a 25mm f/1.2 OIS lens to go with this new 42.5mm lens.
 
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