Leica shows just how small a lens can be, if you have a camera with a half-sized sensor and no big mirror-flipping gap between it and the lens itself. This is the new LUMIX G 20mm ƒ1.7 ASPH, and it aptly belongs to the class of lenses called “pancake”.
That 20mm focal length translates to a 40mm equivalent, a little longer than the standard rangefinder length of 35mm. But its the speed that we’re interested in, that this lens is fast. ƒ1.7 means enough light will be gathered for low-light hand-held shooting, and that, when opened right up, it will throw pretty much everything out of focus except, say, your subject’s eyes. The ASPH part means that the lens uses aspherical elements, which are, as the name suggests, not a section of a sphere. This keeps lenses simpler and sharper.
That it was announced today is no coincidence. The lens is designed as a companion for Panasonic’s new Pen rival, the GF1 (it’s the one you see in the picture on that post) and looks like the perfect fit for this kind of camera.
It’s odd that the hot camera category right now is for low megapixel cameras with fixed focal length lenses, rather than multi-pixel mega-zooms. It’s almost as if some somebody had been listening to our whining. $400, which sounds fairly reasonable for Leica glass, and available October.
Press release [DP Review]
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