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

I researched this product a lot before buying. It is a photography game changer. It creates such a great look to images - nice subject focus with beautiful background blur. Love it. It has improved my overall photography standard massively. It is also a very good price considering how great it is. It is basically as good as everyone says it is.

Lens received with rare and front cap along with lens hood. The mount is metallic but the rest of the lens is plastic but seems to be durable. Used as portrait lens, produced very sharp, contrasty and saturated colours. It is quite sharp at f1.7 & produced beautiful blurred background. The focus is instantaneous, even in poor light. Videos were good, specially when shot in good light. Excellent buy, price is reasonable. Thanks.

This lens is supersharp and great for portraits (head and shoulders) without having to move too far back from the subject.

It's no surprise that dpreview chose this the "Best prime / single focal length lens (for portraits)" among its few "Best lenses for Micro Four Thirds." It's certainly one of my all-time favorite lenses, and is always with me, usually as the lens mounted on my small M43 camera body in a jacket pocket. Astonishingly, it's significantly smaller than Panasonic's 25mm f1.7, which itself is quite compact. The accompanying images show results from this lens, as well as my beloved old 200mm f4 Micro-Nikkor mounted on a glassless M43 adapter, and my two killer workhorse zooms, the Panasonic 45-175mm f4-5.6 and the Panasonic Leica 12-60mm f2.8-4. I made the images of different blooms at different times and days, under widely varying lighting combining light from a table lamp sometimes with daylight through a window, with no post-processing except for the minimum needed to put them in reviews of these outstanding lenses. I prefer Panasonic Lenses and bodies because of (1) the Power OIS integrated between camera and lens, often providing 6.5 stops of IS, and (2) the great short focusing distances. These get me frame-filling shots of flowers and butterflies without macro gizmos and tripods. often making the difference between getting a great shot and no photo at all.

Great lens ...

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.