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the 20 or the 17

swandy

New member
Might as well chime in here with my opinion - that's all it is afterall.
I sold the 17mm to get the 20mm (really could not personally see keeping both) and while I do wish the 20mm was a bit wider, it generally accomplishes what I need and I LOVE the f1.7. If I did not have the kit zoom (which obviously goes to 14mm on the wide end) I would probably miss the 17mm more.
Would LOVE the 7-14, but it just seems a bit too expensive for the amount that I will use it. (But the Oly 9-18 has my interest peaked quite a bit.)
Steve
 

Diane B

New member
I totally agree with you Jonas. Its so personal that someone asking which to buy won't get much helpful information because we each have our own biases.
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
Re: Lens Hood Question

Hello Godfrey,

I've been enjoying your photos and posts for a while. I've ordered a GF1/20 mm and it is supposed to arrive in a couple of weeks. I was wondering what lens hood you are using and any information I should know about how best to attatch it. I vaguely remember a post about this in the past, but I couldn't find it when I tried to search for it. Thanks!

Tsutomu
Thank you for the compliments!

The lens hood I recommended to a friend of mine is this one, sold by "heavystar" on Ebay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=360206595279#ht_500wt_1179

He bought it, and it indeed fits and works perfectly. I didn't find this hood myself, btw. Another friend got one and I got the link from him/her...

I don't own the 20/1.7 yet, I keep borrowing my friend's and liking it so I really should plunk down the cash and get one!
 

slau

New member
There is no such lens that is wide enough (as in the case of wide angle) or long enough (as in the case of tele photo), unfortunately. When one uses the 17 mm, there is certainly occasions that one wishes for a lens wider than 17 mm (or longer than 17). It is so personal, in terms of lens selection based on focal length, beside the functionality/characteristic of each lens.

Today I may prefer the 17 but tomorrow I may pack the 20, even for the same type of shooting :).
 

Jonas

Active member
Things I don't like a lot with the G20/1.7:

The build quality; too plastic
Lack of features; no weather sealing, no focusing scale, no DOF scale, no aperture scale
Optically; not critically sharp from corner to corner, the flare!
Handling; too slow to focus manually, very much focus by wire feeling
The AF: on the slow side, distinct noise

OTOH, it isn't shabby at all, there is something pleasing with the rendering, the bokeh (when not everything is within the DOF that is) is decent to good, it is (relatively) fast, it is small, I use it with confidence wide open

Much of the above is probably true about the Olympus 17mm lens as well. The thing I wonder about is the flare. If the images in general are quite nice that is lost when there are strong light sources against dark backgrounds in the image.

I don't often check my lenses in any controlled way for flare but here I did so:
It is not the worst result I have seen, but it is certainly not among the best either.
 

PeterB666

Member
It is funny that a lot of reviews of the 20mm f/1.7 claim the lens is not badly affect by flare. Frankly, I think is fairly poor for a modern lens and certainly for the price asked, I would expect better.

Overall I do like the lens and it is a good combination with the E-P1 despite the rather slow focus speed. Manual focus is easy on the E-P1, the focus ring is nicely damped. Yes, a focus scale and infinity stop in particular would be great, but we live in a time where production costs are kept to a mininum and it is fly by wire electric focusing.

The thing that gets me is how come manual electric focusing is silent but AF is noisy. How did they manage that trick?

A lens with flare (at least artistically controlled in this shot)...

 

Jonas

Active member
That's a nice image Peter. It probably also is the best possible use of the G20/1.7 in the situation. Looking at the image I guess you are around f/2. Stopping down further makes the blobs uglier and the flare to increase.

Here is one at f/4:

You can see the blobs around the left street light looking worse here, and the flare from the street light in the center can be seen very clearly between the moon and the traffic light. The image is from my first day with the 20mm and what made me check it as in my previous post.

So, we have betetr stay at around f/2 for optimal result, if possible. Of course, with the Zuiko M17/2.8 it is never possible to stay around f/2.
 
M

matmcdermott

Guest
Wow, I wonder if there's significant sample variation?

My 20/1.7 is plenty sharp corner to corner (and I'm used to 28 Summicron sharpness), I find the manual focus plenty fast (albeit not going from infinity focus to the minimum, but how often do you have to do that quickly?), and the build quality not that much different than any other consumer lens made out of plastic. Can't comment on AF as I always used it in manual mode on my GF1. I've found the flare to be adequately enough controlled to not want a hood.

While the lack of distance scale and depth of field scale bothered me at first I now wonder where they'd go and how useful it would actually be to cram them into that 7mm between the focus ring and the lens mount.

Now what I want is a pancake 14 or 12 to compliment it. F1.7 would be amazing, but 2.8 would be perfectly acceptable.

That combo might actually lead me to retire my M8 and kick the Leica addiction. (gasp)
 

Jonas

Active member
matmcdermott: I don't know what "plenty sharp" really means. What I see is that whatever aperture you use the lens can't match/outresolve/fully utilize the sensor corner to corner, or even border to border.

I guess they could have made the lens 10mm longer or so to get plenty of space for the distance scale, a better focusing mechanism and an aperture ring. Why this pancake mania?

Anyone: Re-reading my own posts I can understand some may think I don't like the 20/1.7. Well, I do, and it is the lens I have mounted to the camera when leaving home and most often also when getting back.

If one gets bothered by the flare or not is very much depending on the situation, and probably just as much on personal taste and expectations. The images posted above don't show any nice flare in my opinion. Here is another image showing what the G20/1.7 is capable of also under less than ideal circumstances. It was taken one of the first days, handheld so critical focusing can't be expected, wide open:


Above; uncropped


Above: center crop


Above: Obviously the upper right corner looking at the spotlight

and

Above: Right border

As i said, it is not shabby at all and I clearly prefer this 20mm to the Olympus 17mm version.

/Jonas
 

PeterB666

Member
That's a nice image Peter. It probably also is the best possible use of the G20/1.7 in the situation. Looking at the image I guess you are around f/2. Stopping down further makes the blobs uglier and the flare to increase.
Yes, it was f/2.2 for 1 second and I bumped up the ISO to 800 as well.

Normally I would be shooting that sort of scene at f/4 to f/5.6 (or even more to get really good star diffraction from the lights) and ISO200 for up to 20s but there were 2 issues there. I wanted to capture the kids on the bikes (they should have been home at that time of night) and the wind was absoultely terrible. I was surprised it came out as sharp as it did.

Cheers

Peter
 

arashm

Member
My choice was the 20, I have shot lots with it at F2.0 or F2.5 and really like the result.
I think it's a personal thing but I find the focal lengths of the 17 and 20 too close for them to be that different.
Now where is that 12mm prime :)
This image is with the 20 at F2.2 in LR3
 

Streetshooter

Subscriber Member
Well, that might be a stretch in thinking there's little difference between the 2.
From 40 to 34 is a big difference and then going further to a 28, those 6mm really show how much.
You may not be attuned to the change in fov but it's a marked difference.
That being said, both lenses are very good and each has it's place.
I can't see, for myself, being without either one.
 

Tullio

New member
I don't have either but I do prefer the 20 (which I'll be buying as soon as price drops) over the 17 for a couple of reasons. One, from the samples I've seen from both lenses, the 20 performs slightly better in terms of color rendition and resolution but most importantly, my preference is driven by speed. I can get the wide angle with the kit 14-45mm (granted, it's a slower and bigger lens but not by much and it performs well), but not the speed for low light situations nor the DoF, which I get with the 20mm.
 

slau

New member
Personally, even the 20f1.7 is too wide for me on my G1/GH1. I have played with the 7-14 and I definitely have no use for it for my shooting style. I had to educate myself to shoot with the 20 and it took me awhile to feel comfortable with the FOV of the lens. Among all the lenses I have, I find out that the Minolta M-Rokkor 40f2 is just about perfect for ME as a 'standard' lens on my G1/GH1, with my 20 as the wide angle backup. So, lens choice is highly subjective and personal. I still have to try some of my favorite Canon EOS lenses (i.e. 35f1.4, 85f1.2 & 135f2) with my G1/GH1 yet. I did use my GH1 with my Canon 70-200f2.8 at wide open and liked it a lot, as long as I could use a tripod for support.
 
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