Panasonic Leica DG Macro-Elmarit 45mm F2.8 ASPH. MEGA O.I.S. Lens

Comments about Panasonic Leica DG Macro-Elmarit 45mm F2.8 ASPH. MEGA O.I.S. Lens:

Macro and portrait photography are the key strengths of this lens. Field work created a bit of a problem by having to constantly be stepping back to frame the image properly.

Macro images offered extremely shallow depth of field and sharp crisp images.

Portrait work provided sharp focus and great clarity. Depth of field issues can occur if not focused manually and utilizing a proper f-stop.

Portraits at 8-feet with an f-stop of 5.6 with the subject 4-feet from the nearest backdrop will provide a clean portrait with diffused background.

Comments about Panasonic Leica DG Macro-Elmarit 45mm F2.8 ASPH. MEGA O.I.S. Lens:

The lens works beautifully. It takes sharp macro and mild telephoto pictures. It focuses quickly, but you can defocus the background. The O.I.S. is particularly helpful for this focal length lens. This lens and all of the Leica lenses for Panasonic have exceptionally rich, beautiful color rendition. This may be due to the modern coatings and the aspherical lenses incorporated into their designs.

Comments about Panasonic Leica DG Macro-Elmarit 45mm F2.8 ASPH. MEGA O.I.S. Lens:

Great build quality, excellent IQ, love the color rendition. Perfect complement to Lumix 20mm. Expensive, but you won't be disappointed. Very nice bokeh. Was worried that it was only a 2.8, but results are fantastic.

Comments about Panasonic Leica DG Macro-Elmarit 45mm F2.8 ASPH. MEGA O.I.S. Lens:

great image quality, versatile, well made

Comments about Panasonic Leica DG Macro-Elmarit 45mm F2.8 ASPH. MEGA O.I.S. Lens:

This superlative lens is an absolute joy to use. Rendition is excellent, CA almost nil. Auto-focus acquisition speed is excellent under most circumstances with my E-PL2. Manual focus is tight and controllable.

Comments about Panasonic Leica DG Macro-Elmarit 45mm F2.8 ASPH. MEGA O.I.S. Lens:

I own the Olympus micro 4/3 macro, and then I bought this lens because I needed a macro lens. Having used both, I like the Oly better for everything but macro. The Oly doesn't do macro, so if you need that this is the one to get. If you don't, well the Oly is cheaper, faster, smaller, lighter and not being a macro it focuses faster. The Oly 45 is probably my favourite lens. I shoot Olympus bodies, so the image stabilization built into this lens is of no use to me, but if you use Panasonic bodies, then I guess that would be a plus for this lens.

Don't get me wrong, this is a great macro lens.

Comments about Panasonic Leica DG Macro-Elmarit 45mm F2.8 ASPH. MEGA O.I.S. Lens:

I had been using an old OM set up with adapters on my Pen - learning about Macro shooting. I have been wanting this lens ever since it was introduced. I am loving it. I love the sharpness and the super close focusing ability - I also love playing with the depth of field - this lens creates beautiful bokeh with almost no effort and little light. It's noisy and if you are shooting anything except macro you will want to flip the switch to speed up the focus.

I bought this primarily for a texture project that I have been working on and I am finding that I am doing so much more creatively because of the sharpness of this lens.

Comments about Panasonic Leica DG Macro-Elmarit 45mm F2.8 ASPH. MEGA O.I.S. Lens:

I bought this lens instead of the oly 45mm because it can be used as a macro lens. The biggest draw back of this lens compared to the oly 45 is the smaller aperture and its price.

But my justification for buying this lens is that this lens is a 2-in-1 lens. as it can do both macro and portrait. The f2.8 is not something to be too worried about either.

Overall great lens.

Comments about Panasonic Leica DG Macro-Elmarit 45mm F2.8 ASPH. MEGA O.I.S. Lens:

This lens is sharp, small and lightweight. It's a perfect tool for the world of macro discovering. The sharpness is quite enough and even more.
It's sharper than Leica DG 25mm/1.4. The size is almost same, but 45/2.8 is a 5-mm longer. I have the both, but I can't say witch of them I like more.
No any geometry distortion, no CA.
90-mm focal length in equivalence demands more accuracy when shooting.
Autofocus is very fast in conventional focusing range, but a bit slow in macro.
O.I.S. is less helpful in macro.
Seems who was disappointed about the slow autofocus they simply forgot to switch the appropriate AF mode.
It looks cool when coupled with Panasonic GF2.

Comments about Panasonic Leica DG Macro-Elmarit 45mm F2.8 ASPH. MEGA O.I.S. Lens:

It took me a while to buy this lens, even though I shoot macro quiet a bit. I had had comparable macros from Nikon, Canon and Tamron in the past and thought they were all pretty good glass. The price of the Panasonic seemed a little high for this focal length and lens speed. On the the other hand, it didn't seem so bad since it had some form of image stabilization. Well, I finally bought it thinking I would probably return it-thinking it wouldn't live up to the price. After several weeks I still have it and have really enjoyed it. I feel it is as good as anyone's macro lenses; the build quality is really good, the OIS works great, and I think it focuses plenty fast enough (it does have a focus-limiter switch if needed). No complaints on the image quality either-sharp, contrasty and a pleasing background blur when shooting wide open. Compared to other macros I have used, this one does everything as well, and sometimes better. It would be nice if it was cheaper, but wouldn't everything? It is one lens I know I can count on to deliver excellent image quality. As a side note; after using it, the possibility of adding the Panasonic 25 1.4 seems quiet likely.

Comments about Panasonic Leica DG Macro-Elmarit 45mm F2.8 ASPH. MEGA O.I.S. Lens:

Excelent image quality and very nice construction.

Comments about Panasonic Leica DG Macro-Elmarit 45mm F2.8 ASPH. MEGA O.I.S. Lens:

Nice prime lens. Sharp enough, but not as sharp as the price should give. Rattles, but that does' seem to bother performance.

Comments about Panasonic Leica DG Macro-Elmarit 45mm F2.8 ASPH. MEGA O.I.S. Lens:

This lens just oozes awesomeness. Some quick points:
This lens works well as a general purpose lens, not just for macro. However, you are stuck at 45mm, a mild telephoto; shooting my nephew's first birthday party with it was tricky.
Autofocus is sloooow. I use this on my GH2 and shooting video at said birthday party had laggy focus response.
All that said, the photos are amazing. I have not gathered scientific evidence of it, but I feel the photos are even higher quality than my 14-140mm that I usually have on for general purpose.
As another user said, this lens sounds like a rattle toy if you shake it. I thought it was broken until I read that comment on here and it made sense.
You never realize what shots you are missing until you have this lens on your camera. While I'll still be bringing my 14-140mm along; this lens will likely see more camera time.

Comments about Panasonic Leica DG Macro-Elmarit 45mm F2.8 ASPH. MEGA O.I.S. Lens:

This is a great complement to my DMC-g3 and DMC-GH2. I took it to the local arboretum and got many great flower macros(hand-held). The focus is slow for macros, but when it does focus, it is right-on. The focus switch which allows a faster auto focus when not shooting macros, is a valuable feature.
My 6 year old granddaughter wanted to take a photo,so I put the wrist strap around her arm and nervously let her take a pic of me. To my amazement, it was the best photo of me taken in the last 10 years. I give the lens the credit.

Comments about Panasonic Leica DG Macro-Elmarit 45mm F2.8 ASPH. MEGA O.I.S. Lens:

Originally I had a Olympus 50mm 2.0f 4/3 macro adapted to a Olympus EPL-1 camera. The pictures it took were fantastic (this is also echoed by reviewers), but the auto focus was so bloody slow that it was frustrating to use. Initally I figured that I'd keep using manual focus on the olympus lens since everyone online says macro work requires a lot of manual focusing. But boy was it frustrating; I eventually stopped using the Olympus lens despite the awesome pictures I got from it.

I saw this lens, but the price turned me off completely. I figured that since it was branded a Leica lens, that it would always be expensive. Then the regular price dropped, I'm assuming courtesy of panasonic. I took a chance and bought it, being totally frustrated with such useless autofocus.

It was TOTALLY worth the price. Pictures look just as good as the Olympus, focus speed was MUCH better, and although the F stop was higher on this lens, for macro work, having more depth of field is usually a asset rather than a hindrance anyway. I gave my girlfriend the Olympus, but after she tried out this lens, she is now seriously considering it as well.

The only downside to this lens that I can find is that if you shake it, you can hear 2 of the lenses moving around. I understand this happens with lens based stabilized lenses, but I still can't help but wonder if this lens is more prone than most to shattering if dropped. The plastic body certainly feels solid.

on a personal note: I don't believe the Leica hype one bit - In this case the Leica branding means no software correction is done with the lens to make the picture you see, but the trade-offs of software correction in the camera are so minimal as to be a non-issue in my opinion unless you are VERY picky about your picture quality.

Comments about Panasonic Leica DG Macro-Elmarit 45mm F2.8 ASPH. MEGA O.I.S. Lens:

I purchased this lens to take pictures of small items in a photo tent.
It is a good lens. I love to focus using manual and it gives me plenty of light to see what I am doing. I have been taking pictures for over 50 years. From a box Brownie to Nikon to medium formatt. I am just comfortable with prime lenses. I am sort of new to Panasonic. I have a Lumix GF1 and a Lumix DMC-G2. I am just learning to use them. I have been shooting in manual settings mode using studio lights pointed to a light box. So far I am very happy with the look and feel of this lens. It is a quality item. If I had a complaint it would be the 45mm filter instead of 52mm. What were they thinking?

Comments about Panasonic Leica DG Macro-Elmarit 45mm F2.8 ASPH. MEGA O.I.S. Lens:

I am a novice photographer looking to expand into the macro world. Even though I havn't had time to play with it enough, it appears to be exactly what I need, without the need for an upgrade.

Thanks again for a fantastic lense Leica.

Comments about Panasonic Leica DG Macro-Elmarit 45mm F2.8 ASPH. MEGA O.I.S. Lens:

For a 1:1 macro, this is a small lens, which makes it ideal for travelling and hiking. Though it is tiny, the results are highly pleasing. The focus ring is extremely smooth, and the short telephoto focal length (equivalent to 90mm on full frame) is also excellent for shooting portraits and scenery.

The IOS is nice to have, though it's not something I would use for macro shots. Also, I turn of MF assist for macro shots.

Autofocus is very fast and accurate, if not completely silent. Unlike other macro lenses I've used, it also actually works well for macro shots. When the camera is turned off, the the OIS unit noticeably rattles around inside the barrel, which always makes me think it's broken. Panny says this is normal behaviour for this lens, however. It stays locked in place when the camera is turned on.

The lens allows aperatures from f2.8 to f22, with nice bokeh. I haven't noticed any distortion on any of my shots, and I do a lot of macro work.

In summary, it's on the expensive side, but probably worth the investment for those who are keen on macro photography using Panny/Leica equipment.

Comments about Panasonic Leica DG Macro-Elmarit 45mm F2.8 ASPH. MEGA O.I.S. Lens:

Ya, this the only one Macro lens in M4/3 system (of course you can convert other macro lens). Note, it is LEICA designed lens, how much to get a Leica lens? This one is cheapest one so what I am still thinking about? Just buy it!!

The lens comes with hood and pouch. You got O.I.S & focus limit switches. AF speed is quite fast if you don't compare to other new Panasonic lenses. Sometimes you may heart some motor sound. What's about the pictures quality? em...you know it.
That's it :-)

Comments about Panasonic Leica DG Macro-Elmarit 45mm F2.8 ASPH. MEGA O.I.S. Lens:

I'm using this lens with both a GH1 and an AF100. This lens is built for stills capabilities—but on the AF100, the focus is quick, reliable and sharp just as well! AND the OIS is a great asset to hand-held video.