Opinions on the Olympus 17mm 1.8 - need a good still + video lens to start out

J

JoeThePro

Well-known member
Im going to be purchasing a GH3 very soon, and I plan on buying only 1 lens for the time being. The best looking options so far seem like the Olympus 17mm 1.8 or the Panny 20mm 1.7 II.

I think Im going to go with the Olympus because I dont want to deal with the banding issues and noisy/slow video autofocus of the Panny. Im just a little concerned about the reported softness and barrel distortion of the Olympus 17mm.

If I will be using the 17mm for video quite a bit, will the barrel distortion be obvious, and distract from the feel and quality of the video? I will be using it with both manual and autofocus while filming. Thats actually the main reason Im choosing this over a manual prime because I want at least one fairly wide lens with autofocus for video purposes.
 
The Pan/Leica DG Summilux 25mm f1.4 would be a much better choice. Sharper overall than the Oly 17mm f1.8, costs a bit more but worth it. Slightly "tighter" FOV, pretty much what used to come as a "normal" perspective prime with most 35mm film cameras some decades back.

If you have to have the 17mm FOV (equiv to the 35mm the photojournalists used to love) I would suggest watching the forums for the Oly 17mm f2.8, it's sharper than the 17mm f1.8 and some folks have been selling them for around $130. I've got one coming I found on mu-43.com a few days ago.

I was planning on the 17mm f1.8 but after "pixel peeping" on some full size images posted for that purpose, I saw for myself that lens is basically not sharp. I've been a "sharpness nut" since I got into serious photography in the 1960's.

You might not notice the lack of sharpness in video but I use the same lenses for still work.
 
Bruce Foreman said:
The Pan/Leica DG Summilux 25mm f1.4 would be a much better choice. Sharper overall than the Oly 17mm f1.8, costs a bit more but worth it. Slightly "tighter" FOV, pretty much what used to come as a "normal" perspective prime with most 35mm film cameras some decades back.

If you have to have the 17mm FOV (equiv to the 35mm the photojournalists used to love) I would suggest watching the forums for the Oly 17mm f2.8, it's sharper than the 17mm f1.8 and some folks have been selling them for around $130. I've got one coming I found on mu-43.com a few days ago.

I was planning on the 17mm f1.8 but after "pixel peeping" on some full size images posted for that purpose, I saw for myself that lens is basically not sharp. I've been a "sharpness nut" since I got into serious photography in the 1960's.

You might not notice the lack of sharpness in video but I use the same lenses for still work.
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I decided do go for the 17mm 1.8 after all. The 25mm would be too tight for me as my only lens (for the time being) for both photo and video. Its a nice FOV, but not as interesting to me as a wider lens, especially on the 4:3 ratio. Ive read that the general consensus was that the 17mm 2.8 was even less sharp, and pretty much inferior in almost every way to the 1.8. Its interesting that you say the opposite.

I also purchased a Pentax to mft adapter as I have a Pentax M 50mm 1.7. This will make a nice portrait lens, and a nice video option as well @ 100mm equivalent.
 
JoeThePro said:
Ive read that the general consensus was that the 17mm 2.8 was even less sharp, and pretty much inferior in almost every way to the 1.8. Its interesting that you say the opposite.
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These "general consensus" are only part of the picture and are often only people repeating each other. I do look at "user experiences" but also make a judgement on the accuracy of those based on what I perceive the experience level of the reviewer seems to be. I tend to base my decision on buy or not depending on what I see in the pictures.

What most probably don't like about the 17mm f2.8 is the max aperture is f2.8. Night before last when I was working with the 25mm f1.4 on Christmas lighting displays I wound up using f2.8 at ISO 1600 for most of it (shooting a short video for the program for our photo club Christmas banquet).

You may be quite OK on the 17mm f1.8 as long as you avoid Lightroom for RAW, according to something I read last night (accompanied by full frame images and magnified segments of the corners) it seems Lightroom does some distortion correcting you cannot disable, and in doing so a significant amount of detail is sacrificed. You can check it out here: http://www.mu-43.com/


JoeThePro said:
I also purchased a Pentax to mft adapter as I have a Pentax M 50mm 1.7. This will make a nice portrait lens, and a nice video option as well @ 100mm equivalent.
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Many folks are using "legacy" lenses like this to good effect and the Pentax ought to be a good performer for you. I have a couple of Nikon F mount lenses with adapters but I prefer the sharpness I get with "native" m4/3 optics. For primes I use the Lumix 14mm f2.5, the Lumix 20mm f1.7, Pan/Leica 25mm f1.4, Oly 45mm f1.8 and the Oly 75mm f1.8. I have a few zooms that I use when convenience matters.

I'm a retired pro photographer, ran my own studio for 20 years, worked another 13 as a staff photographer at an air force training base, so I've got a lot of experience "evaluating" lenses
 
Bruce Foreman said:
You may be quite OK on the 17mm f1.8 as long as you avoid Lightroom for RAW, according to something I read last night (accompanied by full frame images and magnified segments of the corners) it seems Lightroom does some distortion correcting you cannot disable, and in doing so a significant amount of detail is sacrificed. You can check it out here: http://www.mu-43.com/
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Very interesting, I was not aware of this. I dont have LR, so I may look into Capture One which seems to fare much better with the m4/3s. Thanks!
 
http://youtu.be/pMLlJZnOogo

I just purchased a used 17 f/1.8 to use on my G6. All I can say is that it has a spectacular image on my stabilizer setup. I don't see any barrel distortion and can't see how it could be called soft in any way.

Here's a few random samples from the first couple days testing.

Cheers,
Pete
 
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Pete,

That looks very good in that video. It looks like I may have done some judging based on images that have had something like Lightroom applying barrel distortion corrections. Phase One also does that if you don't turn that correction off so other software packages may be doing the same.

Amin Sabet's tests show that uncorrected the 17mm f1.8 can be more than reasonably sharp in the corners. So Joe may be just fine with that as his first lens.

The used 17mm f2.8 I bought (on mu-43.com) came in the mail today and the first 3 stills I shot with my "runaround" GX1 look sharp.
 
c3hammer said:
http://youtu.be/pMLlJZnOogo

I just purchased a used 17 f/1.8 to use on my G6. All I can say is that it has a spectacular image on my stabilizer setup. I don't see any barrel distortion and can't see how it could be called soft in any way.

Here's a few random samples from the first couple days testing.

Cheers,
Pete
Click to expand...

Sharp video, thanks for sharing! Makes me feel better about my purchase.
 
I am thinking about getting the SLR Magic 12mm t 1.6 available now at Adorama. Probably too wide for just having one lens, though.
 
Well Ive had the 17mm 1.8 for a few days now, and it is very nice. Not blindingly sharp, but not soft either. Autofocus is great, ring feels very smooth for manual focus. When not in the pulled back position, it has a very long travel from near to infinity, about 180 degrees, which is great. In the pulled back mode it is pretty short, 90 degrees or so. Im happy with it!
 
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