Old Gear Returns: OG Panasonic LUMIX G 14mm f/2.5 ASPH; B&WEdit.
I have had this lens twice before. Back when Olympus was my first digital interchangeable lens system…
…and again when distracting myself during the dark days a few years ago.
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.
Unlike my prior post with color pics for pics taken alongside the film camera I used the in camera B&W JPEG Profile. And I am sure glad I did. I am most often a RAW file shooter even when using a B&W profile. The thinking is that it will give me greater latitude for adjustments later… and I might want a color edit. But here with the GF1 I decided to commit. Here are the images with some brief thoughts afterward.
These first pics are at a local garage that I like to stop by after closing because they always have an interesting assortment of vehicles in various states of repair and general condition. Even though they were closed on this day a young man popped up out of nowhere and quickly set off my NYC meter before we settled into a brief pleasant exchange. I would have walked off if he had asked but he had no issues with my taking some pics so I proceeded.
Moving on.
These next few were conversions from color RAW files.
Back to JPEG B&W.
Thoughts.
…respectfully what the heck.
These files are wonderful. These are B&W files that compare favorably to near any camera and lens combination I have ever used regardless of cost and/or provenance. To this I add that it compares favorably to my favorite B&W films. I do not state such lightly.
Will it displace any of those?
Pfft, no. Shush with such ridiculous questions I imagine being asked. But as I stated in the earlier post…
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.
Well done Panasonic.
-ELW
Eric L. Woods 