Panasonic LUMIX G LENS, 42.5MM, F1.7 ASPH., MIRRORLESS MICRO FOUR THIRDS, POWER OPTICAL I.S., H-HS043K (USA BLACK)

Took this lens out for the first time to shoot a college cheer team at a football game and I am in love with it. The game was in the evening and it did fantastic in low light. Crystal clear and at 1.7 the bokeh is stunning. I am not a professional and did the shoot as a favor, the team and coach loved the results. The only thing I found lacking was that at 85mm M4/3 equivalent you won't be getting great close-ups unless you can move in close to your subject, luckily I had free reign to move around as they cheered. Getting whole-team pictures also meant going way up into the stands or switching lenses. This is not the lens' fault, just a friendly FYI to help you pick the right lens for your application. This is a great mid range lens that takes beautiful run and gun portraits when you have to be fast and everyone is constantly moving. Very glad I bought this lens and the price is a bargain for what you get.

It's no surprise that dpreview chose this the "Best prime / single focal length lens (for portraits)" among its few "Best lenses for Micro Four Thirds." It's certainly one of my all-time favorite lenses, and is always with me, usually as the lens mounted on my small M43 camera body in a jacket pocket. Astonishingly, it's significantly smaller than Panasonic's 25mm f1.7, which itself is quite compact. The accompanying images show results from this lens, as well as my beloved old 200mm f4 Micro-Nikkor mounted on a glassless M43 adapter, and my two killer workhorse zooms, the Panasonic 45-175mm f4-5.6 and the Panasonic Leica 12-60mm f2.8-4. I made the images of different blooms at different times and days, under widely varying lighting combining light from a table lamp sometimes with daylight through a window, with no post-processing except for the minimum needed to put them in reviews of these outstanding lenses. I prefer Panasonic Lenses and bodies because of (1) the Power OIS integrated between camera and lens, often providing 6.5 stops of IS, and (2) the great short focusing distances. These get me frame-filling shots of flowers and butterflies without macro gizmos and tripods. often making the difference between getting a great shot and no photo at all.

This is a great lens - it's small, is good in low light, and is well built. It's one of my favorite lens for my GH3 and produces fantastic images. I tend to shoot with the aperture more open due to m4/3 larger depth of field. In anecdotal use, I haven't noticed any corner softness or vignetting. I'm not sure how well it will hold up in a lab but that's for a professional reviewer to determine. It's a good lens for video as well. Autofocus is fast enough for slower moving items (again, GH3 so no DFD tech). Its reach is long enough to get a tight shot without being too close to the subject.

Nice sharp lens at a great effective focal length (85mm equivalent) for portrait photos. My lens is quite sharp even wide open but I usually stop down a bit, maybe to 2.2, to still get the blurred background effect but with a little bit more depth of field to make sure entire faces are in focus. The other great thing about this lens is that it can be used as a pseudo-macro, with a minimum focus distance of a foot, I've gotten some nice close up pictures of quite a few things (of course I said pseudo-macro, an actual macro lens can magnify things much more). The Olympus 45mm lens has a much further away minimum focus distance so you cannot use that one as a pseudo-macro lens.The Image Stablization helps me a lot as well, though if you have an Olympus camera or one of the few Panasonics that have that, it isn't as much of a concern.

Absolutely amazing lens!! I bought this for my Panasonic G7 and I just love the professional results of this lens. The only negative I can think is the video autofocus is a bit slow with this lens. I'm sure most people are using this for photography anyway and in that right, it excels! Low-light with the f1.7 capability and 85mm equivalent focal length are superb. This is the PERFECT portrait lens for the Micro 4/3 mount cameras. You can completely separate subject and background with the large aperture. I love this lens and the G7 combo. The setup is much lighter than my big Canon 7D and 50mm f1.8 combo I've used for years.Highly recommended!

Hard to complain about this lens. I used to own the Olympus 45mm f1.8 and this seems a bit sharper but that's not a scientific observation.Focuses fast, provides nice subject separation with good bokeh, and is very compact. I use it on an Olympus Pen-F and Olympus OMD E-M5.I also own the Panasonic Leica 42.5mm f1.2 and while that lens has better image quality, the size difference makes this smaller lens much more fun to use.A great lens for a great price.

This lens is perfect for getting that cinematic blurry background. Beat all my expectations.

The lens is wonderful and it came on time as expected ... but ... the hood on the lens didn’t fit the lens - and I didn’t realize that the vendor I purchased this from is in Japan so I’m guessing getting a replacement or returning it has about as much chance me winning the lottery. Great lens though.Word of advice: verify the seller’s location before ordering. International vendors will be a headache to request returns from.