OM SYSTEM OLYMPUS M.Zuiko Digital 17mm F1.8 Silver For Micro Four Thirds System Camera, Compact Design, Beautiful Bokeh, Bright

So I recently made the switch from DSLR to micro 4/3. Cannot express how happy I am with that decision. The stock lens is great but it fails me in darker settings. So after some careful research, I went with this lens. I needed a big eye and this glass certainly delivers.1. BuildThis lens is made of some quality stuff. The weight feels great in hand but it does not add anything to the camera itself. The only area where there may be some concern is the focus ring. When switching from manual to auto, there is some definite wobble. I personally have not had trouble with it but it is there.2. GlassThe pictures are tack sharp. I cannot state that enough. The center as well as the corners of the pictures are sharp and distortion is kept at a minimal. Chromatic aberration is little to none.3. SpeedThis lens is fast. Auto focus is near instantaneous and has really helped to get those shots.So in conclusion, I am obviously in favor of this lens. I checked the other options available in this class and I am sure they are all great options as well but I am glad I went with this one.

This turned out to be a great all around lens. Sharp images, with nice looking bokeh when the aperture is wide open.

Used this lens extensively over the holidays in all sorts of conditions; Inside/Dim, Outside/Bright, Outside/Dusk, etc.Pros:- Great image quality, 100% crops are very sharp at low ISOs. None of the softness some reviews talk about- AF is super fast, even in darker rooms- FOV on m4/3s is perfect for small indoor rooms or larger group shots outside- Small and light. I can fit this lens + OMD-EM5 into my jacket pocket- Manual focus mode. Makes dark shots possible without the AF hunting foreverCons:- Doesn't have a very helpful distance scale on MF modeVery pleased with this lens and generally take it out over the Panasonic 25mm f/1.4 because of it's size. The depth of field is also acceptably shallow to let your subjects pop. I worried at 17mm there wouldn't be enough background blur. There isn't as much as the 25 1.4 but that turns out to be an asset in a dark room with people at different depths.

The micro-four-thirds format has been blessed with some really excellent primes. The 75/1.8 and 12/2 are expensive but excellent. The 25/1.4 at its current price is superb. The 45/1.8 it an amazing value for the quality it delivers.Where does the 17/1.8 fit? Well, at the moment a bit pricey for what it delivers I think. In the absence of the previously mentioned lenses it might rank five stars, but given the stiff competition I have trouble rating it above four stars. HOWEVER, for certain applications it is a five star lens.There are already some excellent reviews, so I'll cut to the chase.The lens has excellent center sharpness wide open, it has a nice bokeh, doesn't flare at all and color fringing in out of focus areas is so well controlled as to be a non-issue. AF is fast and build is excellent.The corners are a bit soft wide open but not unusually so for such a lens. What is a bit disappointing is that they don't sharpen up as quickly as one would hope give the performance of other primes in the system. What this means is that when stopped down to F/4 or F/5.6 the image is acceptably sharp in the corners but it really isn't doing better than the better zooms.What is the take-away from that kind of performance? For things like environmental portraiture or closer in "street shooting" where you want a wide aperture but the corners will be out of focus anyway this lens is great. There really isn't a better choice near this focal length for that - the 20/1.7 is the only thing close and its AF performance is quite a bit slower. I can attest it is great for babies/kids playing where a wider perspective still with shallow DoF makes very nice portraits.On the other hand, if you are a landscape shooter who is looking for a prime to outperform a zoom in corner to corner sharpness at infinity focus and stopped down this lens is not particularly compelling (unlike say the 12/2 or 20/1.7).So, wide open close to mid range portrait probably a five star lens. Landscape probably not quite four stars, maybe 3.5 simply because it offers little for the price compared to a zoom when shot stopped down at infinity focus.One final disclosure. I have returned my copy of this lens. It appears to have a decentered element so one corner was much softer than the other three. I have tried to form my conclusions with the knowledge that my lens was not entirely up to snuff and supplement my experience with what I've learned from other reviews and sample images to fill in the gap. I have purchased lots of camera gear over the years and it is an unfortunate fact of life that on occasion you will get defective items - not every lens off the line gets a full optical test after all. It was my turn to get a bad one this time. Fortunately Amazon handles returns very easily for defective items and I was glad I had purchased from Amazon this time. If the lens had still been in stock I would have done an exchange - I like the lens for my uses. I'll probably be purchasing it again when the stock situation is improved.UPDATE (4/24/13) - I now have a second copy of this lens that appears to have no issues and I've been able to do some more specific testing. Much of what is written above is still accurate. I would add, however, that in direct comparisons to the 20/1.7 I'm actually seeing not that big a difference. I think the claim that the 20/1.7 is sharper is perhaps a bit exaggerated by MTF50 numbers (fraught with problems) from various test sites rather than examining images visually. It appears the 20/1.7 is very marginally sharper with a tiny bit more contrast at the center of the frame viewed at 200% when shot at F/1.8. However, I'm also seeing that the extreme corners of the 17 are marginally sharper in the same case. Stopped down to F/4 and I see the same, slightly better center on the 20 and slightly better corners on the 17. Add in that the 17 has more pleasing bokeh than the 20 and I find it hard to claim the 20 is optically better than the 17 - perhaps different, but I don't think necessarily better.I also shot a comparison against the 14-45 at with both lenses at 17mm and F/4. At the center they are nearly identical, viewed at 200% the 14-45 might be very slightly sharper but it suffers from a bit of purple fringing around highlights that the 17 does not. It the corners the 17 is a bit sharper, as one would hope. Again, I'm not sure the 17 is a huge improvement over a zoom for a landscape shooter (i.e. small aperture, edge to edge sharpness) but it does appear to be better than one of the nicest m43 zooms in this focal length.

The lens was affordable, high quality design, fast, great optics, and compact. My business photos require the best possible resolution of architectural detail to convey design and construction issues to design professionals, Owners, and contractors. At the same time, my gear needs to be compact, lightweight, and impact resistant for daily field use.After about 4 weeks of daily use, it has performed exceptionally well. It remains on the OM-D camera body most of the time. The wide angle and fast, 1.8 maximum aperture, provides optimum photo versatility.Tom Ellis