Choosing the Right Lens – Panasonic’s Leica 42.5mm f/1.2

Today’s Post by Mark Toal

In my job with Panasonic I get a lot of questions from mirrorless shooters about which lens to buy and why. Lots of people, including myself, fall in love with a lens just because it works great in low light or is a long zoom lens. It can be hard to step back and see if this is the right lens for the kind of photographs you make.

This will be the first in a series of posts about different Lumix lenses for Micro Four Thirds cameras. These lenses will also work on Olympus cameras and vice versa.* If you use an APS or full frame sensor camera the same ideas will apply but you will need to do the math to get the correct focal length for your sensor size. Keep in mind that these are my opinions and are not meant as an in-depth lens review.

The first lens I want to talk about is the Lumix G Leica DG Nocticron 42.5mm f/1.2 ASPH Power OIS. I start with this lens because I’ve only recently had a chance to use one for a period of time. I actually never thought this would be a lens that I would use much because of its 85mm equivalent focal length. Combined with the fast f/1.2 aperture I thought my use would be limited to portraits.

After using this lens for a few weeks I still think it’s best, if not simply amazing for portraits. The f/1.2 aperture makes a beautiful, soft out of focus background. The Leica quality produces portraits with tack sharp eyes. I have also used this lens for street photography but its target market is portrait and wedding photographers. If you’ve recently moved from a full frame camera to Micro Four-thirds, this lens will make you never look back.

*See Joe’s post about the reason he selected Micro Four-thirds as his mirrorless format of choice.