- This wide-angle pancake lens has a convenient focal length for shooting everything from landscapes and portraits to close ups.
Product Description
The M.Zuiko Digital 17mm 1:2.8 pancake (35mm equivalent focal length: 34mm) lens is even smaller than the already compact pancake lens for four thirds bodies. This micro four thirds lens boasts the compactness to the limit. The circular aperture diaphragm with 5 blades enables natural and smooth defocusing. This wide-angle pancake lens with its ultra compact design is ideal for daily snapshots and as travel companion.
Michael A. Duvernois @ 6:03 pm
This is small lens. That’s its main claim to fame, not the speed at f2.8, nor the focal length, the equivalent of about 35mm in 35mm photography. But on the small Olympus PEN body, this lens gives you a small package that takes quite good pictures without messing around with a zoom. In particular, it works well as a walking-around street camera, much like an old Leica or a Canon rangefinder of the 1950s/1960s. (See also the optical viewfinder which has image lines specifically for this 17mm lens.)
I tried this package out, camera, lens, and viewfinder, and got a good number of excellent images walking through crowds of people downtown. It’s wide enough to catch people in their immediate environment. The camera is unobtrusive and really helped with the casual picture taking. I’d strongly recommend the setup to folks looking for a forgiving digital imaging setup with modern features but much of the ease of handling and casual ability of old rangefinders (without having to focus of course).
K. Tanaka @ 7:22 pm
The Oly 17mm f/2.8 pancake for micro four-thirds is just about as small and light a lens as you’ll find. It’s basically a 35mm focal length on its native cameras. Its sole advantage is its size. It is far from optically perfect, with fairly strong chromatic aberrations and some corner softness (surprising, given its crop factor of 2). Still, the Oly E-P1 does recognize the lens and post-processes its images specifically to improve as much distortion as possible.
All things considered, I can’t really claim that this lens is an excellent optical value for anyone who doesn’t really need the compactness it offers the E-P1. The 14-42mm kit lens is a better performer at this focal length, also very light, and far more versatile. But if you’re willing to make compromises for smallness this is THE lens for you.
Harry M. Shin @ 8:56 pm
1. I should technically give this lens a 4 star, just because 5 stars should be reserved those extraordinary lens (ex: Zeiss Distagon 21mm 2.8).
2. With that being said, I just like this lens: it’s light, it’s obviously small, and it’s a no brainer for all EP-1 /2 users to have this lens (or the panasonic pancake). Even though I have the 14-42mm kit lens, it’s just… fun to slap this lens on the EP-1 and take shots. One of the unexpected joys and surprises of using this lens, that it made me think of the “good old days” of using prime lens 100% of the time and at the same time, has made me rethink my overall strategy of whether or not to utilize more primes etc…
3. For me and for the photography I utilize the EP-1 for, the 17mm is “good enough” in re: focusing speed, sharpness, color / contrast etc… With “pixel-peeping”, I’m very happy with the output image quality.
4. All in all, a great lens for all EP-1 / 2 users to have simply because it brings back the joy of photography. I really hope that Olympus / Panasonic continue to develop more compact prime lens.
Anders Utgaard @ 10:59 pm
The 17mm f/2.8 lens for Micro FourThirds system is a classical focal length, approx 34mm. As a primary lens for the EP-1 it does excactly what it is supposed to do, provide a quick, easy to use lens, with good quality images. Updated to software 1.1 the autofocus speed and precision is improved, but even so the lens is a little slow to focus. Manual focus is easy, precise and gives very good results.
Pros: lightweight, solid, good colours.
Cons: not as sharp as te 14-42 mm zoom.
Good primary lens for the EP-1.
Robert E. Keay @ 12:37 am
This a Lens that provides ease of use , and is really quite good in terms of results ! I recently used it solely at Gettysburg , Pa , and I was rewarded with superior pictures ! Technical differences aside from other Reviewers , until Olympus produces a wider version , it is My Primary Lens ! With an adapter the Pen Body is another world of photographic opportunities !