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Outside of maybe Olympus's 75mm f/1.8, very few Micro 4/3 lenses have had this kind of praise heaped upon them as the Panasonic Leica 25mm f/1.4. At 25mm, the Pany represents a "fast 50" for the M43 system. Is it possible for such a lens to live up to immense praise? Over the next 5 - 10 minutes, we'll run the 25mm through a series of tests to find out! By the way, a brief disclaimer, I was shooting this one on my own in New York for a big chunk of the video and you'll note, in parts, it's slightly out of focus... Apologies in advance, but this sure does make the case for Canon's new 70D... Now with that out of the way, on to the review.
CONCLUSION:Time to wrap this thing up and draw some conclusions for the Panasonic Leica 25mm f/1.4
in a nutshell;
THE BUILD QUALITY: Its a nice tightly assembled package, the focus ring is smooth and well dampened, the lens feels perfectly balanced with the Olympus OM-D, and it comes with a lens hood - yippee! The only real downside is the lens is not weather sealed. For build, its a great effort - we gave it a 9/10
AF SPEED AND ACCURACY: One word - FAST! and very, very accurate. It locks focus quickly and efficiently with amazing precision - it's Canon ultrasonic quick - it may be even a bit faster, it's really impressive. We gave it a 9.5/10.
OPTICAL QUALITY AND THE QUALITY OF THE RESULTS: With my copy anyway, the amount of Chromatic aberration is a bit disappointing, but with some software adjustments and I can eliminate a lot of it, but straight out of camera I'd be lying if I said the CA's didn't bother me. That nit aside, the photos themselves are sharp, even all the way down to f/1.4. Chromatic aberration aside, it's a really great performance. We gave it an 8/10 for optical quality and a 9/10 for the quality of the results as the results look really good with the chromatic aberration remover in Lightroom 5.
VALUE: When you consider there are other primes in similar focal ranges available for the M43 system for considerably less money and with less Chromatic aberration - namely the Olympus 45 f/1.8 and Panasonic 20 f/1.7 - then the 25 begins to look a little suspect as a great value. It's certainly not a bad value, but it is out there as a premium lens option, and it also carries the "leica" badge in it's name. If you're going to put that name on the lens, there's a bit of reputation to live up to - so for value, the 25 falls a little short. It's an 8/10
Oberall, its a 44/50 and comes in just one point shy of our highly recommended rating and receives the recommended badge.
THE FINAL WORD: If you're going to carry the leica name badge in a lens, then watch out as expectations - fairly or unfairly - are going to be automatically high. The Panasonic 25mm f/1.4 is no doubt a great lens and in my opinion mostly lives up to the hype that has been heaped upon it. I just wish it didn't have so much Chromatic aberrations - not that they can't be fixed mind you, but its another step in the process to get your images to the promised land. By the way, if you like these reviews and would like to see more, please Subscribe!This is Darren Miles with Darren Miles Photography here in beautiful sunny naples, FL, and until the next time... Happy Shooting!