Old Gear Returns: OG Panasonic LUMIX G 14mm f/2.5 ASPH; Color Edit.

I have had this lens twice before. Back when Olympus was my first digital interchangeable lens system…

RNF: Reminiscing About My First Interchangeable Lens Digital Camera.

…and again when distracting myself during the dark days a few years ago.

Revisiting Old Gear: Panasonic LUMIX G 14mm f/2.5 ASPH II

Both times previously I had something loosely resembling a plan for purchasing gear. This time I just winged it. Look for good deals and pick them up when I find them.

The path back to the 14mm was a simple one. As much as I enjoy the Lumix 20mm f/1.7 I wanted a lens that was a bit wider. I considered more fancy pants options like the <deeply inhales> Panasonic Leica DG Summilux 15mm f/1.7 ASPH… Are Panasonic and Olympus in some manner of competition to create the smallest lenses with the longest names?… Anyhoo. My argument was simple. Fast aperture and a relatively inexpensive lens with Leica in the name. But I remembered something. A super tiny humble little Lumix 14mm f/2.5 allowed me to capture this moment.

Captured over a decade ago with a little Olympus E-PL5. So this paused my finger over the buy button. Then I visited my local camera shop yesterday and dove into their MFT case and found a 14mm for peanuts. Bought it immediately.

Then I slapped it on the DMC GF1…

…and used it as my companion digital rig when I went out to kill a roll of film today.

Analog Therapy: Rollei 35AF – CatLABS X FILM 320 Pro B&W.

Here are the images.

First the usual suspect pics.

Thoughts.

This little lens is wonderful. Far better than I remembered actually. For the first and second rounds, my appreciation for this lens was largely based on size and price. But today I really appreciated how good the image quality is.

In a lens that makes for quite a portable solution.