Amazon.com: Customer reviews: Panasonic LUMIX G LENS, 42.5MM, F1.7 ASPH., MIRRORLESS MICRO FOUR THIRDS, POWER OPTICAL I.S., H-HS043K (USA BLACK)

Top positive review

Fantastic mid-range lens

Reviewed in the United States on October 17, 2016

Took this lens out for the first time to shoot a college cheer team at a football game and I am in love with it. The game was in the evening and it did fantastic in low light. Crystal clear and at 1.7 the bokeh is stunning. I am not a professional and did the shoot as a favor, the team and coach loved the results. The only thing I found lacking was that at 85mm M4/3 equivalent you won't be getting great close-ups unless you can move in close to your subject, luckily I had free reign to move around as they cheered. Getting whole-team pictures also meant going way up into the stands or switching lenses. This is not the lens' fault, just a friendly FYI to help you pick the right lens for your application. This is a great mid range lens that takes beautiful run and gun portraits when you have to be fast and everyone is constantly moving. Very glad I bought this lens and the price is a bargain for what you get.

10 people found this helpful

Top critical review

Critical reviews›

Love the lens ... but

Reviewed in the United States on October 27, 2017

The lens is wonderful and it came on time as expected ... but ... the hood on the lens didn’t fit the lens - and I didn’t realize that the vendor I purchased this from is in Japan so I’m guessing getting a replacement or returning it has about as much chance me winning the lottery. Great lens though.

Word of advice: verify the seller’s location before ordering. International vendors will be a headache to request returns from.

2 people found this helpful

270 total ratings, 100 with reviews

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From the United States

Jay

Fantastic mid-range lens

Reviewed in the United States on October 17, 2016

Size: 42.5MMVerified Purchase

10 people found this helpful

Helpful

theblackknight

Good little lens

Reviewed in the United States on June 2, 2016

Size: 42.5MMVerified Purchase

This is a great lens - it's small, is good in low light, and is well built. It's one of my favorite lens for my GH3 and produces fantastic images. I tend to shoot with the aperture more open due to m4/3 larger depth of field. In anecdotal use, I haven't noticed any corner softness or vignetting. I'm not sure how well it will hold up in a lab but that's for a professional reviewer to determine. It's a good lens for video as well. Autofocus is fast enough for slower moving items (again, GH3 so no DFD tech). Its reach is long enough to get a tight shot without being too close to the subject.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

Matthew Zilic

Good lens for the price

Reviewed in the United States on June 4, 2023

Size: 42.5MMVerified Purchase

Good lens. Arrived late as is typical these days. Annoyingly didn't come on time. Ordered specifically for the fact Amazon sh9wed it would arrive on a certain day. So, yeah... annoyed by that.
But good lens for portrait photography.

Helpful

DaManIAm

Great Value

Reviewed in the United States on August 14, 2023

Size: 42.5MMVerified Purchase

Great value. It was a needed lens and I caught it on sale. Everything else about the product should be known. Great picture quality.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

KarKrash81

Sharp, fast, and tiny.

Reviewed in the United States on November 11, 2016

Size: 42.5MMVerified Purchase

Hard to complain about this lens. I used to own the Olympus 45mm f1.8 and this seems a bit sharper but that's not a scientific observation.

Focuses fast, provides nice subject separation with good bokeh, and is very compact. I use it on an Olympus Pen-F and Olympus OMD E-M5.

I also own the Panasonic Leica 42.5mm f1.2 and while that lens has better image quality, the size difference makes this smaller lens much more fun to use.

A great lens for a great price.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

N. Williams

Phenomenal results everytime!

Reviewed in the United States on November 16, 2020

Size: 42.5MMVerified Purchase

This lens is really bringing in new life to my GH5.

The lens is thin and lightweight, I just love it!

I was coming from a 14-140mm f/3.5-5.6 lens which was bigger, heavier and didn't focus nearly as snappy.

Every shot has tons of bokeh and it definitely gets more light in darker shoots.

Please mark my review if you found it useful.

The price is excellent for the results you get!

18 people found this helpful

Helpful

User IS

Packs a punch at f1.7

Reviewed in the United States on March 15, 2017

Size: 42.5MMVerified Purchase

I've meandered around buying this f1.7 version and the f1.2, but settled on 1.7 as I thought that I could also use it on another m4/3 camera in the arsenal if I really wanted the f1.2 later.

However, I was pleasantly surprised by this lens, though by now I probably should not be. I've worked with the Panasonic 15mm f1.7, 25 f1.4, and the 20mm f1.7, all of which deliver a great deal of quality in their images. It has a very minimalist style to it with almost nothing except the focal range and lens hood alignment dots written on the lens body. The front of the lens body flange can be removed and in its place the lens hood can be attached. This is similar to the Panasonic 15mm 1.7 lens does, but without the 15mm's aperture ring in the way (if you have large fingers)

I'm surprised that this tiny lens delivers optical OIS in the lens body, but the images from the lens are very good. A wee bit soft at f1.7, but still quite nice. It has a minimal focal distance at around 12 inches which makes it decent for "macro" inspired shots.

The part that I'm really concerned about is the attachment of the lens to the camera. While it is indeed a micro four thirds attachment, the issue that I have is that the lens's mount seems to "grate" against the camera mount, seemingly rubbing the metal points of both -- giving me the feeling I get when my own nails are scratching a blackboard. I find myself wondering if this is an issue of quality in the lens build itself-- which does not have the Leica logo on it and is mostly a durable plastic. I also wonder whether or not the eventuality will be that metal bits from the lens mount might fall into the sensor. This compares unfavorably then to the attachment of the 20mm f1.7, which does not have this grating/attachment issue (and is also not Leica logo-ed).

Unlike the 20mm 1.7 though, the lens is virtually noise less. The 42.5mm does not have the AF focusing noise of the 20mm and is much faster at focusing on the subject than the 20mm.

All-in-all the experience is good and the lens is a fine addition to the m4/3arsenal. The small stature I feel lends it very well to the smaller bodies of the m4/3 lineup, though still works very well on larger bodies like the GX-8. I don't have the 42.5 f1.2, but I could imagine that the body of the f1.2 would be much hardier and probably metallic. This smaller f1.7 is quite lite, void of menacing doodads on the actual lens body and stylish enough to just throw onto your camera and head out the door.

34 people found this helpful

Helpful

Skat

Nice sharp lens at a great effective focal length (85mm ...

Reviewed in the United States on December 9, 2016

Size: 42.5MMVerified Purchase

Nice sharp lens at a great effective focal length (85mm equivalent) for portrait photos. My lens is quite sharp even wide open but I usually stop down a bit, maybe to 2.2, to still get the blurred background effect but with a little bit more depth of field to make sure entire faces are in focus. The other great thing about this lens is that it can be used as a pseudo-macro, with a minimum focus distance of a foot, I've gotten some nice close up pictures of quite a few things (of course I said pseudo-macro, an actual macro lens can magnify things much more). The Olympus 45mm lens has a much further away minimum focus distance so you cannot use that one as a pseudo-macro lens.

The Image Stablization helps me a lot as well, though if you have an Olympus camera or one of the few Panasonics that have that, it isn't as much of a concern.

18 people found this helpful

Helpful

Ned Rissky

Great image quality!

Reviewed in the United States on October 22, 2023

Size: 42.5MMVerified Purchase

Love the 85mm look.

Helpful

Larry D Bechdol

Works well but not an indoor lens

Reviewed in the United States on August 21, 2020

Size: 42.5MMVerified Purchase

I've only had this for a day so I'll update later. My impressions so far:

I like the power zoom, except it should be able to identify onscreen what focus point is without having to actually move the lens. A menu item maybe to show or not the status of the lens onscreen. It is a medium tele lens, definitely to be used outdoors in good light. Pictures are quite good and yes, it does do fine bokeh--just have to understand how that works.

I also like that the zoom is internal. That is helpful on the GX85 as it is a light camera; with lens that lengthen physically as I zoom, it can be more difficult to avoid shakes at high zoom levels, even with the power OIS.

I'll have to return later to add to this review after I've used it in the field more. It may be awhile as I don't often use tele lens. Also I'd like to test it with the adapter for macro shots. Could make it even more useful.

2 people found this helpful

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Panasonic LUMIX G LENS, 42.5MM, F1.7 ASPH., MIRRORLESS MICRO FOUR THIRDS, POWER OPTICAL I.S., H-HS043K (USA BLACK)

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Panasonic LUMIX G LENS, 42.5MM, F1.7 ASPH., MIRRORLESS MICRO FOUR THIRDS, POWER OPTICAL I.S., H-HS043K (USA BLACK)

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