The focus isn't all that brisk, and it's not exactly silent. The focus-by-wire system (common to all mFT lenses) makes manual focus less pleasant than it might be. The lens is also impressively quiet when using AF in video mode thanks to its stepper motor. We tested it with a Panasonic G9 and found the touchscreen makes it painless to move focus smoothly and silently, with just the tap of a finger. The Pansonic Lumix G 25mm F1.7 ASPH is an affordable and capable option for Four-Thirds shooters seeking something more versatile than the kit lens, especially for low-light photography. It's well-built, compact, and fast/quiet to focus, making it a good choice for stills and video shooters alike. You don’t always have to shoot RAW. Combine this with your camera’s creative JPEG imaging profiles to get the most from the experience. This wide-angle prime, a recent effort from Panasonic, is a solid addition to the kit bag of any landscape photographer using Micro Four Thirds. It impressed across the board in our testing, delivering sharp results in most shooting scenarios that we subjected it to. It’s also worth noting that this is an autofocus lens, which somewhat sets it apart in the MFT system – generally, for something this wide (18mm equivalent), your options are manual focus only.

The Laowa 7.5mm f/2 MFT looks the part with retro-styled Olympus cameras. Photo credit: Andy Westlake I can't imagine demanding anything sharper than that at 100% on the G3, especially after noise reduction. It would take an adapter, but in theory you should be able to mount the 4/3ds version of the 30mm ƒ/1.4 on a micro-four thirds body. The result would be an effective 60mm ƒ/1.4, though the combination might look a little ungainly (the 30mm ƒ/1.4 is a large lens when compared to the small size of the m4/3 bodies). That said, the 20mm offers a wider field of view, and looks to be sharper than the 30mm. The Panasonic Lumix G 20mm f1.7 II lens on the Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark III. Photo credit: Joshua Waller Just like Sigma’s other f/1.4 mirrorless primes, this lens delivers great quality for an impressively reasonable price. In our testing, we found that it produced sharp-enough images at f/1.4, and sharpness just got better and better as we stopped down. In fact, we recommended that Micro Four Thirds users especially should strongly consider adding it to their kit bags, as the smaller sensor means you’ll see much less vignetting than the APS-C crowd. Pros

OM System 20mm F1.4 Pro: Autofocus

Announced alongside the flagship OM-1 camera, the M.Zuiko Digital ED 40-150mm F4.0 PRO is its second all-new optic under the OM System brand, after the M.Zuiko Digital ED 20mm F1.4 PRO. It’s a compact, weather-sealed telephoto zoom than employs a space-saving retractable design and promises premium optics. With a zoom range equivalent to 80-300mm on full-frame, it’s designed for use with Olympus and OM System cameras but can also be used on Panasonic Lumix G-series MFT bodies. One part is if you dig into the manuals, the Olympus/OM lens and camera will eventually mention IEC 60529, which is the world wide standard for dust and splash resistance. Diffraction limiting technically starts in at ƒ/8, but isn't statistically noteworthy until ƒ/11. In practical usage, you won't see a difference unless you use the lens fully stopped-down at ƒ/16, where we note about 2 blur units of sharpness across the frame.

The Phoblographer’s various product round-up featuresare done in-house. Our philosophy is simple: you wouldn’t get a Wagyu beef steak review from a lifelong vegetarian. And you wouldn’t get photography advice from someone who doesn’t touch the product. We only recommend gear we’ve fully reviewed in these roundups.You work out a lens’ full-frame equivalent focal length by multiplying the crop factor by the actual focal length. With Micro Four Thirds, the crop factor is 2, so working it out is quite easy – simply double the stated focal length. A 35mm lens mounted to a Micro Four Thirds camera will provide an effective field of view of 35×2, which is 70mm.