Lumix Nifty Fifty

Nifty Fifty is the usual name for a lens with 50mm focal length which gives the most natural look

Introduction

We’re talking about the classical 50mm focal length lens, which is offered by every manufacturer. Most of the time theses lenses are prime lenses which are very fast, so they are usable in low-light conditions.

With my Canon equipment i woned the 50mm/1.8 lens but i used very rarely. But for my Lumix equipment i wanted to have a prime lens with this focal length to complete my set of prime lenses for the Lumix G9.

By the way i bought all my prime lenses used with out any problems, but there was no 25mm/1.4 available. 2 weeks ago a well knwon eletronic market made a special offer to rebate the VAT on the price so i decided to get myself the 25mm/1.7 APSH . This lens is bargain because the regular price is under 160,– €.

Built quality

The 25mm/1.7 is mainly made of plastic, but its light weight and doesn’t feel cheap. The lens mount is made of metal. Like the 42,5mm/1.7 there is a decoration ring on top which has to be removed before you can use the lens shade.

Besides this there are no other control elements to the lens and of course the lens is not stabilized.

Optical quality

As usual i did a couple of test shots from the tripod to see the optical performance of this lens.

Even at apartures like f 1.7 and f 2.0 the quality is pretty but i was surprised to seee image qualkity getting worse when closing down the aparture to f 2.8 or even 4.0. Normally you would expect an increase in quality in particualr in the edges. This might be problem called “focus shift” On youtube and other resources you find only one lens with this issue and that is the 25mm/1.7. Too see if my lens is affected i shot a test row in manual mode.

There is little bit of improvement but the effect still is visible in the images. And the so called “focus shift” issue is only kwon for the 25mm/1.7 but not for other lenses.

I did a couple of shots and the optical performance is quite good even at the fastest aparture. Stepping down to f 2.8 the detail sharpness improves and the edges are better too.

Usage for video

For capturing video clips the sharpness in the edges ins not relevant and so i did the video on the Lightroom collections with this lens. And in contrast to the 20mm/1.7 this was no problem with the Lumix G81.

The AF speed is lot better than with  20mm/1.7 II and even walking thru the complete focusing distance this lens was a lot faster.

Conclusion

The Lumix 25mm/1.7 APSH is a mavelous lens in particular considering the price tag. But there is bad feeling about the focusing issue so i will return my lens.

ciao tuxoche