Review: Panasonic/Leica Summilux 15mm f1.7
On Olympus Pen E-P5
I just recently acquired the P/L 15mm f1.7 in hopes of making this my go-to moderate wide-angle and walkaround lens. This is my third attempt at finding a lens that fits this bill after trying the painfully slow autofocus of the Panasonic 20mm f1.7 and the very flat, boring rendering of the Olympus 17mm f1.8. Hopefully the third time is a charm.
Image Quality: 9/10
The first thing I noticed while shooting this lens is that it has absolutely superb contrast. Textures, edges and out-of-focus transition have a real "3D look" and seem to "pop" (for lack of non-clichéd phrases). Wide open it is very sharp, and once stopped down to around f2.8 or f4 becomes excellent. Bokeh is super creamy and doesnt really exhibit any strange rendering; suprising for a 15mm f1.7 lens. The only real complaint I can find in the image quality department is the heavy green and purple fringing at larger apertures.
Build/Feel: 10/10
The entire lens body feels like its made out of a high quality metal and has a good solid weight to it given its size. The aperture and focus rings, although entirely electronic, feel like you're using a premium manual lens. Lastly, the included lens hood continues with the premium metal build and reminds of a Zeiss of Voigtlander rangefinder hood. The hoods bayonet mount feels very solid and reassuring.
Usability: 9.5/10
Autofocus on this lens feels about as fast of most Olympus primes, which is excellent. In addition to being quick it rarely hunts or misses focus, even in low light. On the side there is a switch to go to manual focus. As mentioned above, the focus ring has a superb feel to it and more importantly is accurate enough to make achieving manual focus a breeze. The aperture ring, also as mentioned above, feels great but it unfortunately is not designed to function on Olympus bodies and thus I cannot test out its functionality. Lastly, this lens is compact and lightweight enough to leave on the camera and carry around in a coat pocket or small bag.
I've been shooting everyday stuff with this lens for a little over a week and have fallen in love with it. Its an absolute joy to shoot; it feels great in the hand, is super easy to shoot with and puts out some of the best images I've seen on Micro Four Thirds. Even though its not a pancake, this will be replacing my Panasonic 20mm f1.7 as my everyday walkaround lens and will also fill in my needs for a top quality medium wide angle lens.
