The last tine I tried the Panasonic 20mm F1.7 was more than 10 years ago, and it did not leave a good impression on me. From my memory with limited experience shooting with the lens, the AF was the slowest among all Micro Four Thirds lenses and there was something unnatural and not pleasing about the image rendering from the lens. Therefore I never bothered to look at the lens at all. I must admit the Panasonic 20mm F1.7 is a favorite lens among the Micro Four Thirds community, especially the street shooters and I thought it would be a great time to revisit the lens. I found one in the used market recently and I did some shutter therapy with my beloved Panasonic GM1. You can see my video I have made on the same topic here (click).
Now that I am using the Panasonic 20mm F1.7 in 2025, has my opinions changed? Well, spoilers alert, they remained more or less the same since the last encounter with the lens more than 10 years ago.
During the last encounter, I tested the Panasonic 20mm F1.7 on the Olympus OM-D E-M5. Many people were quick to dismiss my claims - of course, a Panasonic lens would perform more optimally on a Panasonic camera. The AF was slow, because Olympus cameras cannot communicate as effectively, there were purple fringing issues because some people claimed the Olympus image sensors lack a UV filter, which I found to be complete load of bullcrap. People seem to "know" a lot of things but honestly, all these problems exist, and are the same, when I tested the Panasonic 20mm F1.7 on a Panasonic body this time.
Though the GM1 was not a new camera, it was good enough to gauge the performance of the Panasonic 20mm F1.7. I doubt newer cameras would have made any difference when it comes to limitations that are posed directly inside the lens.
I also acknowledge that the Panasonic 20mm F1.7 was one of the first few lenses released for Micro Four Thirds system, hence it does have some earlier flaws and limitations that have been fixed in newer lenses. I can forgive some of the imperfections.
Let me start with the things that I do like about the Panasonic 20mm F1.7. I love the pancake design. I love that the lens is so small, so slim in profile, and so compact, it is so easy to pair with any smaller cameras. The weight of 86g made this lens almost non-existent on any camera bodies. There is a certain joy of using such a tiny lens, and we do need more pancake lenses.
I do admit that the Panasonic 20mm F1.7 is a sharp lens. Images do come out really sharp, even at wide open aperture F1.7, and the sharpness is quite consistent across the frame. That is where my likes on the lens ends.
The autofocus performance on the Panasonic 20mm F1.7 is perhaps the worst of all Micro Four Thirds lenses, it was so slow, the lens hunts and hesitates a lot, I have missed many critical shots capturing fast action and quick moments on the streets. In my video you can see a direct comparison of AF speed against even just the kit lens, which was infinitely faster and more reliable than the 20mm F1.7.
The flare and ghosting can be an issue if you point the lens against strong sources of light. It can be quite bad and destructive, so you have to be careful shooting in such situations. Purple fringing can be another problem in high contrast scenarios. Even stopping down the aperture to F2.8, it did not help things. I know you can easily fix this in post, but I never encountered such bad purple fringing, not even on any kit lenses from the Micro Four Thirds camp. Adding an ED element into the lens construction would have easily rectified this issue.
I really dislike the bokeh rendering of the Panasonic 20mm F1.7. It is harsh, nervous and very distracting. I can be very messy with busy background, and that defeats the purpose of having a bright aperture prime lens, creating shallow depth of field to isolate subject just to find the background being a complete mess.
The dealbreaker is this - I don't like how the images look from the Panasonic 20mm F1.7. Overall rendering is very poor, there is no organic look, natural rendering, images just do not look pleasing at all. There is a certain flatness to the images, with no depth or 3D pop, which I usually get from other Micro Four Thirds lenses (for example, Panasonic 15mm F1.7, or Olympus 25mm F1.8). Sometimes it is not all about sharpness, which the 20mm F1.7 can be quite sharp, it falls short in delivering beautiful images due to poor overall rendering.
There is not much to love about the Panasonic 20mm F1.7, yet it is such a beloved lens. I have come to not care about what the general consensus is and be as brutally honest as I can. If I don't like something, I must be honest, else my integrity and credibility of my reviews will be in question. My opinion may be subjective, but the evidence in my images is not.
If Panasonic comes out with a new version of the Panasonic 20mm F1.7 in 2025 or beyond, I'd expect the following improvements:
1. Rework of optical formula to combat purple fringing, and render better looking bokeh and 3D pop
2. Better AF
3. Weather-sealing
