Heather Broster
Heather Broster co-founded Mirrorless Comparison and has produced several reviews and comparisons for the website as well as our YouTube channel. A passionate photographer since her 14th birthday, she loves macro, butterflies, instant cameras and taking pictures of people at events.
Update: our complete GX85 vs GX850 comparison is now online!
In 2016, Panasonic decided to update the naming scheme of its Lumix range to better reflect the target audience and styling of their cameras. For example, all flat-topped cameras are now called “GX” and are followed by a series of digits that distinguish the level of the intended user. One digit is for professional use, two is for experts, three is for amateurs and four is for complete beginners.
Despite rumours earlier this year that Panasonic had axed the GF series, today’s announcement of the GX850 (otherwise know as the GX800 or GF9 depending on where you live) at CES in Las Vegas would suggest that the brand hasn’t given up on their entry level cameras just yet.
Lenses with the equivalent field of view of a 50mm (35mm format reference) are amongst the most popular because they provide a perspective close to natural human vision, or the angle of view of the human eye excluding the shift to the left or right. In addition to daily snapshots and street photography, they also work well for environmental portraits if the aperture is fast enough.
As of late 2016, there are four autofocus lenses for the Micro Four Thirds system that fall into this category. The two we’ll be comparing today have the fastest apertures of the four: the brand new Olympus M.Zuiko 25mm f/1.2 PRO and the Panasonic Leica 25mm f/1.4.
Earlier this year, Voigtlander announced its very first set of native E-mount primes with electronic contacts: the 10mm f/5.6 Hyper Wide Heliar, 12mm f/5.6 Ultra Wide Heliar, and 15mm f/4.5 Super Wide Heliar.
While the 10mm is a brand new lens and claims the title of the widest rectilinear lens in existence, the 12mm and 15mm are remakes of the popular M-mount versions.
The Olympus M.Zuiko 60mm f/2.8 was one of the very first lenses we bought after purchasing the OM-D E-M5 back in 2013. Before then, I’d been using the 14-42mm kit lens for all my macro photography, which was sufficient for casual use but not enough to capture minute details. Even to this day, the 60mm remains one of my favourite lenses thanks to its small and lightweight construction, excellent sharpness, external controls and focal length.
At Photokina 2016, nearly four years after the release of the 60mm, Olympus announced its second macro lens, the M.Zuiko 30mm f/3.5. Although both are specifically designed for macro work, they fulfil a different set of needs as we will discover in the following comparison. Let’s get started!