An interesting addition.

It’s not available in the US yet, though B&H already lists it:

The real comparison here for street snappers is the stellar Olympus 17mm f/1.8, which I have been using for a few months now. Regular readers will have noticed that the predominant gear byline for most of my recent street snaps published here is “Panny GX7, 17mm Zuiko” and the reasons are the same I noted in my original review. The fastest AF focus ever, unbelievable flare reistance into the sun, lovely color rendering and excellent optical quality at any aperture. The 17mm Zuiko is very much my “where have you been all my life?” lens.

So this new Panny-Leica optic has its work cut out in the competitive landscape. Fair, it’s a tad wider at 30mm FFE compared with 34mm FFE for the Oly and, truth be told, my brain is hard wired for 35mm after decades with a Leica M2 or M3 and a 35mm Summaron or Summicron attached.

But the point here is that it is heart warming to see so many lenses and makers in the MFT system – Panasonic, Olympus, Leica, Voigtländer with others like Bower/Rokinon joining the frey. And it’s ridiculous to argue that the $600 asked for the new 15mm optic is high. Have you priced Leica’s MF Summicron for the M body recently?

I was going to run a piece in late 2013 on the Panasonic GX7/Olympus Zuiko 17mm f/1.8 as the greatest street snapper combination yet, but decided to hold off until I had more experience with the outfit. Unless there is something very special indeed about the new Leica optic, expect to see that piece run in December, 2014.

Meanwhile, the hegemony enjoyed by Canon and Nikon in pro DSLR ‘flapping mirror/vast bulk and weight’ applications addresses an ever narrowing field of specialization. If you need very shallow depth of field and routinely print larger than 18″ x 24″, there’s still good reason to go with the big boys. But for everyone else, MFT solves. APS-C seems increasingly pointless to me – most of the bulk of FF and none of the pluses of MFT.

Conflicted advice? Hardly. I use a Nikon D3x/D2x and a host of legacy MF lenses, mainly because it’s fun and the investment is amortized. But light and jolly this gear is most certainly not.