Strange.

The newly introduced 25mm f/1.4 Leica Summilux.

When you wanted a really fast lens for the Panasonic G range of cameras the usual resort was to the 20mm f/1.7. That lens mightily underwhelmed when I used it, showing very slow focus, awful flare control and lots of other issues, which you can read about here. I returned mine.

Now along comes the Leica-branded 25mm f/1.4 MFT lens at a rumored price of $1,000, making it the costliest MFT lens yet. The design and pricing raise several questions.

First, a 25mm f/1.4 has the same depth of field as a 50mm f/2.8. If you have used the latter on a full frame camera you will know that f/2.8 is too slow to really isolate a subject from its background. The 50mm FFE new Leica lens for MFT will be no different. So if you are buying this lens to isolate subjects you will be disappointed. Now a 50mm f/1.4 really does isolate – but that would mean the 25mm would have to be f/0.7. That is not going to happen. (Depth of field is solely a function of focal length and aperture; the size of the frame exposed is irrelevant. A 105mm lens on a 4×5 camera has the same depth of field as the same focal length on an MFT one).

Second, the lens has no OIS shake reduction. OIS adds two stops of safety so 1/30 at f/1.4 without OIS is the same as 1/8 at f/2.8 with OIS. The sole beneficiaries here will be Olympus MFT Pen users where OIS is built into the body, though I suspect any Pen body will be overwhelmed by this big lens. No Panny MFT body includes OIS – it’s in selected lenses.

Third, there’s no indication of how quickly this lens focuses. It will have to be fast and accurate to justify the astronomical price tag.

Fourth, you can buy a 50mm f/1.4 for your Canon for $450 or your Nikon for $400. Sure, you lose the compactness of an MFT kit, but that’s an enormous price difference.

Fifth, by MFT standards, the lens is huge. Who wants that when one key reasons to use MFT is compactness?

Finally, the new 16mp sensors found in the Panny GH2 and in the upcoming G3 add a rumored two stops of grain reduction. So your poky f/3.5 lens just became the equivalent of an f/1.7 by simply setting your ISO 4x faster for the same level of noise as before. And a G3 body at $600 still leaves $400 in change from the Leica-branded optic.

So I confess I’m unsure who this lens is marketed to. It’s too costly, lacks OIS, too bulky and you can do a better job with background blur in a few seconds using Photoshop’s tools. I doubt Panny will sell many.

I would much rather see Panny fixing what ails the 20mm f/1.7 and maybe making a good 45mm (90mm FFE) fast portrait lens. A 20mm f/1.4, say, with OIS, proper flare control and fast focusing at $600 would get my attention.