Olympus M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 17mm 1:1.8 Lens - Black

I have had this lens for a while now (I pre-ordered it on amazon when it was first announced). It is a great bit of kit, when you open up the box for the first time, compared to other lenses I own for the system this one is superior in nearly ever way.CONSTRUCTIONThe lens body is all metal, it feels superb. Every movement is solid and precise. A joy to hold.IMAGEThe lens takes lovely photos, no doubt. The 17mm F1.8 (34mm equivalent) equates to one of the most popular F.O.V.'s on full frame cameras (35mm) and I really enjoy using this focal length. The large aperture allows for great creative opportunities and strong subject isolation, and the width of the images allows me to fit in any subject I might wish.IN USEOn my Olympus PEN E-P5 Micro Four Thirds Interchangeable Lens Camera - Black Body Only (16.1MP, Live MOS) 3.0 inch Tiltable Touchscreen LCD the size is perfect. The focusing speed is almost unbelievable, and talking of focusing- the snapshot focus mechanism is superb. Just pull the focus ring towards the camera body and the camera automatically switches to manual focus mode - which this lens is a joy to use in, thanks to its nicely dampened focus ring and film camera lens style distance scale...CONCLUSIONI bought one, and I would do it again in a heat beat. I also have the Panasonic 20mm Compact and Lightweight Digital Interchangeable Lens for Lumix G - Black, which I personally feel delivers minutely better images but at the price that it is not as slick in the focusing department, and because of that, I do not enjoy using it the way I do the Olympus 17mm F1.8

I really like my 45mm f1.8 but now this 17mm is always on my camera as it's so useful. It has a good weight, looks great on my EM 5 and I'm really happy with the sharpness. I can't fault this lens but I did have to buy a lens hood for it from Amazon. If you have an EM5, just watch how you have set up your manual focus as so far, I don't see any use for the manual focus on the lens as you can't see an enlarged view in the viewfinder. Will have to read the user manual again. Very happy with my purchase and a great price from Amazon.

I deliberated over this lens and the 25mm f1.8. I went for the 17 as a replacement for my excellent (but noisy and slow (to AF) on my EM1) Panasonic Lumix 20MM.It's made of metal, reassuringly heavy when compared to say the M.Zuiko 45mm, and has the manual focus ring as per the 14-40 Pro allowing you to quickly enter MF mode.I've been very impressed so far but the Bokeh of the Lumix 20mm is richer and better in my experience so far. This is a great lens for low light & astrophotography as well, and the Manual focus gearing is easy to control for pin sharp focus.It doesn't come with a lens hood or a bag which is a bit shortsighted of Olympus given the retail price, but I'd really recommend the JJC LH-J48B hood as an alternative hood to the Olympus aftermarket original. It's a fraction of the olympus's price.

A beautiful little prime lens for the Micro Four Thirds system, roughly equivalent to 35mm on Full Frame. Build quality is excellent, with a metal barrel and lens mount, and an encouragingly positive clunk to the mechanism that disengages the AF clutch to put you into MF territory. Low light performance is great, decent bokeh and sharp throughout. Olympus OM-D and PEN cameras have Image Stabilisation built into the camera bodies, so bear in mind there'll be no IS on for e.g. a Panasonic body. It's my goto lens for use with both my PEN F and EPL-7, and a more than worthy alternative to the kit zoom lenses.

Although this is a very good lens, I was none the less astonished to see that so many people had written reviews, 95 at the time of going to press.On closer inspection it turned out that the majority of correspondents were expressing their views about completely different lens's, 45mm, 75mm, various zooms etc. and only a few were actually about the 17mm 1:1.8. Not the end of the world, but confusing and obviously something of a balls up. This by way of an explanation for the title of my review.By now this lens doesn't really require another paean of praise from me, suffice to say that it is excellent. Beautifully made, producing very good results (photographer permitting). The black version is preferable to the silver one, simply because the latter has an awful champagne/beige tint, which doesn't look good on OM-D's or the latest Pen.My only reservation is that they produced this and other new MFT lens's without making them splash and dust proof. There seems to be a certain futility in "proofing" the camera, but not the lens. I know, the kit zooms supplied with the EM-5 and EM-1 are, like the camera splash and dust proofed; the one is unexceptional and the other exceedingly, possibly justifiably expensive.And yet, despite this deficiency, which almost caused me to remove a star, this lens is very much worth having and worth every penny.

What a great little lens! Beautifully made and pin sharp even wide open although stopping it down to f4 makes it even better! I'm so impressed with this little lens, it's a joy to use. I took some shots of my grandson in his back garden last Sunday from a fair distance and on heavy cropping I found that he was still pin sharp. This lens will probably be my walk about lens in future. As a plus point it is less intimidating when pointing the camera in the direction of complete strangers!

Got this to have a 35mm equivalent prime lens for my Lumix G7. The autofocus is super fast, which is great for me as i do guitar instructional videos and am often moving around a bunch. You get some nice boekah with this lens at the 1.8f, i think it really excells for video shooting at 2-2.2f depending on the lighting! great budget lense!

Un objetivo excelente.Soy una persona mayor y hago fotos desde hace 60 años. Con la edad, tengo que ir dejando peso y este objetivo me permite llevar uno solo para hacer varias cosas.No hace un bokeh tan bueno como el 45 mm o el 25, pero me arreglo bien con el. Es muy luminoso y no pesa mucho. Lo recomiendo.Saludos desde España.

Lens kwam in een officiële Olympus doos en leek mij splinternieuw.Nederlandse gebruiksaanwijzing en garantie zaten er bij.Goede prijs...356€...twee weken later...459€Kwaliteit, moet je zelf beoordelen.

Léger et idéal pour la photo de rue en 4/3, et de plus très lumineux avec son ouverture f1.8

Jak można ocenić piękne auto które nie jeździ? Albo jak ocenić ładnie opakowaną słodycz pozbawioną smaku? Taki problem mam wlasnie przy ocenie obiektywu Olympusa. Obiektyw kapitalnie zaprojektowany, do tego elegancko wykonany od strony wizualnej. Ładnie prezentuje sie na korpusie aparatu. I tyle zalet. Wady, a właściwie wada: zła optyka, obraz jest niewyraźny niezależnie od zastosowanej przysłony na ok. 30% powierzchni. Co dziwne nie dotyczy to samego skraju kadru ale okolic centrum. Próbowałem 3 egzemplarze- w każdym ten sam błąd ale za każdym razem w trochę onnym miejscu. Przypuszczam, że to wina złej kontroli jakości przy produkcji optyki. Duży zawód.