Lumix G 14mm f/2.5 ASPH

firsts

The firsts series represents the first lenses I owned and have kept for each (interchangeable lens) camera body I’ve had. This is the fourth in the series.

I mentioned in my review of the Lumix 12-32mm lens how and why I got into micro four thirds; in a few words lighter camera+lens combinations. But while the 12-32mm is great fun and I think takes surprisingly great pictures, it wasn’t my first micro four thirds lens. That honour goes to the Lumix 14mm f/2.5.

Mount	Micro four thirds
Weight	55g
Purchased	13 February 2023
From	mpb
Price	£119

I’m doing this post a bit differently. As for the Carl Zeiss 50mm, these photos are all from Berlin, and they’re also all in black and white. One of the joys I’ve had with the micro four thirds format has been the portability, so in this case attached to an Olympus E-P7 for a total weight (body + lens) of 392g it was the perfect secondary camera to have alongside the Sony with the Carl Zeiss 50mm.

Let’s get this out the way early on (and by get out the way I mean state and then repeat ad nauseam): this lens is tiny. It’s 21mm long. It makes it incredibly easy to fit anywhere with the camera and easy to handle when in your hand; it’s not going to bash into something. It’s a great lens for quickly grabbing, snapping a photo and stuffing it back in a camera bag. It’s not very showy at all; the small profile and narrow glass element of the lens means it doesn’t stand out.

A slim profile would make some trade-offs in image quality worth it, but there aren’t many to make. The lens is sharp; perhaps a bit soft in the corners when wide open at f/2.5, but very sharp once stopped down. What you will see some of is chromatic aberration (in this case I’m talking about purple fringing on high-contrast edges). It’s not too bad, and it’s easily fixed in processing, but it’s there. This is reason one where black and white further flatters this lens.

This is an f/2.5 lens. Because of the wonderful world of equivalence, if you think of this as having the field of view of a 28mm full-frame lens the aperture is equivalent to an f/5.0 lens. At that wide an angle and this aperture you’re not going to see much subject/background separation. Again, if you’re going (and I was) for high-contrast black and white images then a large depth of field works to this lens’ advantage.

The lens has good contrast; sure these images are using a very high contrast black and white profile, but take it from me (or look below) the images here aren’t washed out or hazy to start with. The colour is also okay, if not spectacular.

Focusing is interesting; it’s not amazing when in continuous autofocus modes, but it definitely works, and seems way quicker to me than the Lumix G 20mm f/1.7 ASPH which is otherwise a fairly similar lens. Perhaps a bit of an unfair comparison; the depth of field (and therefore tolerance to focusing incorrectly) on a 20mm f/1.7 lens is going to be way smaller than a 14mm f/2.5 lens, so focus matters much more, but it’s definitely snappier on the 14mm even if it doesn’t matter as much.

The lovely thing about the size of this lens (told you we’d be back to this) is that it’s a no regrets extra lens to chuck in my bag. I’m never going to notice having 55g extra with me, so even if I don’t use it I don’t mind at all.

I really like the above picture, partly as I love a bit of brutalism, and partly because it shows that there’s a lot of detail in quite a subtle scene. If you think the high contrast is flattering here because it allows poor detail rendition to be glossed over then think again. It’s amazing how well this holds up all in all.

So what’s wrong with it? Not much, but let’s list everything. The largest aperture isn’t very wide. I’ve mentioned the chromatic aberration. The focus ring is tiny, but it actually feels alright to use (although I think I’ve perhaps used it twice). There is no hope of any weather sealing; at least being very small it’s easy to shield the lens from the rain if you suddenly need to, but I wouldn’t trust this to stand up to even a bit of moisture and I certainly wouldn’t expect it to protect the camera.

Pleasingly there’s a metal mount on this, and unlike the 20mm (which I should say I really like) the lens cap on this one doesn’t pop off too easily. The focus ring also turns nicely; neither too firm or loose.

But hold on! What kind of a review is this? I haven’t shown you one photo taken by the lens in colour. Here are some quick shots taken in colour (on the GX800 – how I love the colour on that camera):

This is no great piece of optics. But it’s cheap, light, reliable, fun and easy to bring with you pretty much anywhere (it’ll easily fit in a pocket in a pair of jeans). If you have a micro four thirds camera then definitely look at the second hand market as you can get a great lens for not much at all. If you don’t have a micro four thirds camera then I’ll confess that when I bought one, this is one of the lenses that made me think I hadn’t made a mistake.

See the album of this lens’ photos on Flickr with the above images.