Gorgeous rendering that rivals other classic rangefinder glass like the Contax G Carl Zeiss T* Planar 45. The Olympus 45mm f1.8 is a surprisingly compact lens even for the Micro Four Thirds standard. Measuring 56mm in diameter, 46mm in length and weighing just 116g, it’s beaten only by pancake lenses on size and weight. Indeed it’s only 56mm at the rear end to support the standard Micro Four Thirds lens mount. Beyond the mount, the barrel tapers down to a narrower diameter for the rest of the lens. This thing really is tiny. Corner shading (vignetting) is minimal at the fastest apertures, and distortion is very well-controlled thanks to the auto-correction performed on the RAW files by Micro Four Thirds cameras. Colours There is a light amount of chromatic aberration present in images shot at wide apertures - it's noticeable at ƒ/4 and below, mostly in the corners and only in areas of high contrast. The effect is magenta-blue fringing, and it's probably only visible by viewing 100% crops. By ƒ/5.6, the effect is almost negligible. For video I noticed a decrease in speed with the G7 when set to continuous autofocus. After the first attempts I found it easier to switch to manual focus and use the excellent peaking of the camera.

If you’re looking for the softest and most incredible bokeh, I’d say the big brother to this lens, the Olympus 45mm f/1.2 Pro is the better choice. I find it particularly strong in twilight and night scenes, as well as shady or dark places that I encounter quite often when shooting in the city. Obviously, as with all Leicas, the bokeh is beautiful, harmonious and allows for a great exposure of objects. It’s quite amazing for portraits as well. MPB puts photo and video kit into more hands, more sustainably. Every month, visual storytellers sell more than 20,000 cameras and lenses to MPB. Choose used and get affordable access to kit that doesn’t cost the earth.

Also related to the f/1.2 aperture is the fact that you can work in very low light conditions without worrying about excessively high ISO values or low shutter speeds. This isn’t to say that f/1.8 is unacceptable for low light work but f/1.2 certainly does provide some added latitude in these situations.

In the two tables below you’ll see how the Lumix 42.5mm f1.7 compares against the Olympus 45mm f1.8, first in the middle of the frame, then in the corner. Note due to its slightly longer focal length, the Olympus is delivering a slightly tighter field of view and therefore resolving slightly finer details. The thing to look for in the comparisons below are the overall sharpness and contrast. The EM1 was set to its base sensitivity of 200 ISO and the lens focused on the center of the composition using magnified Live View assistance. The corner and center crops shown below were taken from the areas marked with the red squares, right, and presented at 100%. Is the Lumix 42.5mm f/1.7 the new affordable reference for MFT portrait photographers? Let’s find out! The autofocus is really fast with this lens at short and long distances. On Panasonic bodies like the new G7, I didn’t come across any flaws in either AF-S or AF-C. I briefly tested it on the Olympus OM-D E-M1 as well and I didn’t notice a decrease in performance. The AF motor is silent as well.The lens does provides poor macro ability at best - at its close focusing distance of 50cm (around 20 inches) it provides only 0.11x magnification. As seen in the photo above, the Olympus 45mm f/1.8 balances nicely on the E-PL2 camera body used for this test.