I own both the Panasonic 14mm and 20mm, and the Olympus 17mm f/2.8. I love to use each of them, especially on my Olympus E-M5 Mark II.
I seem to be one of the few people that loves the 14mm angle of view, so the 14mm has been used a lot. I love this lens, and my copy is very sharp (and yes, I can compare to the Pro lenses). I also love its contrast and colors.
Nah, I love it too. But I also love 12 mm - it therefore gets hard occasionally
.
But... The Olympus is really the one I love most for its rendering. One of the other commenters mentioned this already, and I have to back this up. There is something about the Olympus that I really love. The colors, the bokeh, the type of contrast it renders. All very beautiful. So when walking around in a city, I quite often use one of these, plus the 20mm.
I think I was the one who mentioned this. When I went dslr in 2005, I chose for Canon, due to its UI and lenses, and I shot Pentax analog before that, for 30+ years. Basically I find that I like the rendering, colours, and bokeh/rolloff of Canon lenses better than that of the Pentax lenses in the past.
I always found that Olympus lenses in the digital era are very similar to Canon lenses in this regard, maybe slightly warmer, and Panasonic lenses very much like Pentax lenses. Since I mostly shot in b&w with my Pentaxes, that didn't really make a difference, but in the last 10 years with film I ended up shooting mostly with colour, out of necessity, and I found the result just a little too cold looking for my preferences. I find that too with Panasonic, although it is not as pronounced as with Pentax lenses in the past. The renderign s probably more neutral, but I prefer warmer tints.
The 20mm is a no-brainer. Sharp, contrasty, good bokeh, and of course nice to be used in low light or to render some more bluriness when you want it.
(the 12-32mm has nothing to do with these lenses IMO, as collapsible lenses extend when being used, and I also thoroughly dislike its handling).
In my opinion Olympus and Panasonic should have aimed much more heavily for pancakes, because these emphasize what it is about in the m/43 world. The range is now quite limited.
Yes, I agree, and preferably F/1.7 and F/2, nothing slower than that, ideally.
But think about this: Both Canon and Pentax make a 40mm f/2.8 pancake... Why do we not have that lens? Make it a little smaller (the Canon is a full frame lens) and you are done... Olympus even made their own version in the past, the 40mm f/2 Zuiko (and also the 40mm f/1.7 RD!). I cannot understand why they did not extend the range... Or think about the Olympus 25mm f/2.8 pancake... That would also be a nice lens in the range... Or an improved version of the 9mm f/8 with normal handling (I used it and disliked the too-easy-to-move focus range switch) and, say, an f/4 aperture.
I wouldn't want a 40 mm in pancake format for MFT, basically because that is a telelens on MFT, an therefore not really doable. We already have those, the Panny 42.5 F/1.7 and the Oly 45 F/1.8. They're small enough, and very hard to make any smaller.
I would not mind a few 12, 14, 20 and 25 F/1.7-F/2 pancakes if at all possible, but then, we already have the Panny 20 F/1.7. I like the Panny 14 F/2.5, but I would have loved an F/2 otr F/1.7 of that lns in pancake format. 25 is porbably hard to do as well, as it requires a double Gauss type of lens, with 5 or more elements, and that gets fairly big as well. The 12 maybe rather difficult, because the flange distance is 12 mm already, which means it would have to be made like a proper (U)WA, which requires quite a few more lements and large lements at the front. In that way the current Oly12 F/2 is actually probably as smaal as it gets, with good IQ and a reasonable speed.
In the meantime they have filled up the range with other lenses, so the economic proposition is not really there anymore... But what if they had created a new 40mm f/2 instead of the 45mm f/1.8 that they created instead? A missed opportunity, I would think.
As mentioned, I do not see the advantage of a 40 mm pancake over the 45 mm, basically because it cannot be made as a pancake. As it stands the 45 is already very small, it is a well corrected short tele, and therefore requires a minimum length.
Let's consider the Canon EF 40 F/2.8, as I own one
. If you add an MFT adapter to that lens (which I also own), it actually is slightly longer (2 or 3 mm) than the Oly 45 F/1.8, and the latter is 1 1/3 stop faster. It also has a much narrower diameter, which means it is much more easily pocketable. That is actually the conundrum. Even if you'd make it a 40 mm, it would only be, at best, only 5 mm shorter than the current Oly 45. The laws of physics essentially don't allow you to make it any shorter.
Even if you'd use a Speedbooster XL with the EF 40, you'd end up with a lens only 4 mm shorter than the 45 F/1.8, and it would be a 29 mm F/1.8. That again doesn't compare favourably to the Oly 25 F/1.8, which is about the same height, but much smaller in diameter as well. And the Oly 12 F/2 is approximately the same size as the Oly 45 F/1.8, due to is UWA construction and design.
So, if you do want smaller, you'd end up with very simple constructions for lenses, apertures of F/2.8 or smaller, and still limited in size (length or height) by the actual FL. Essentially, the smallest lenses would then be in the 14 to 20 mm range, at apertures of F/2 if you are lucky, or smaller. Therefore, the ones that do exist, are effectively the only ones possible as it stands, the Panny 14 F/2.5, Panny 20 F/1.7, Oly 17 F/2.8, and maybe the Oly 25 F/2.8, although even that is debatable. I wouldn't count the 8 F/9 lenscap, actually, as that really is only a gimmick. Anything else is going to be bigger by definition.
The only way to have smaller, for transport only, not for actually using it for photography, are the collapsible standard zooms, like the Panny 12-32 and the Oly EZ 14-42. They are good enough, but not as good as the small primes.
BTW, as I do own the Oly lenscap, Oly 12 F/2, Panny 14 F/2.5, PL 15 F/1.7, Panny 20 F/1.7, Oly 25 F/1.8, Panny 42.5 F/1.7, Oly 45 F/1.8, and the Oly EZ 14-42, apart from a bunch of other, less compact lenses, plus Canon gear, metabones Speebvoosters Ultra, XL, and Metabones adapter, for me it is very easy to compare these. The lenscap I never really use, as I also happen to have the Panny fisheye.
HTH, kind regards, Wim
