About a month ago, I received my copy of the heavily-hyped Panny-Leica 42.5mm/1.2 Nocticron lens from B&H Photo. I even posted a quick, first impressions blog about it using my Olympus E-M5 body.

Since then I've been meaning to do some comparison between it and its most direct competitor, the Olympus 45mm/1.8 lens, and also throw in the highly-praised Olympus 75mm/1.8 for shits and giggles. Various freelance work and photoshoots have prevented me from doing it sooner, but that's life for you.

Thankfully, I had a trusty, scantily-clad friend that I could always rely on for stupid informal "tests" (I am using that term very, very loosely here). Her name is Uyen, and some of you readers with Yellow Fever may remember her from my Thanksgiving blog post when I shot with her in Houston, Texas.

So basically I am keeping this very simple, and other than my simple opinion near the end of this entry, I will let you guys make your own conclusions (because I hate overanalyzing photos and pixel-peeping; it just gives me a headache!). My parameters:

I will present 2 sets: one set will be full body (edit: more like 3/4 body) , and the second set will be head-and-shoulders portrait.
Each set will have 3 photos that represent each of the 3 different lenses, all shot wide open.
I shot the same photo with each lens 3 times; I then picked what I felt was the best/sharpest/correctly focused one out of the three.
Uyen is shot in my studio with a brick background, about 12 feet (or 3.7 meters) behind her. She is lit with a large window light from camera right, with a reflector on the left for slight fill.
All photos were shot on the same camera body: Olympus OMD-EM5. The camera is on a MeFoto RoadTrip tripod, and is moved to have her fill the frame as similarly as possible with each lens.
Camera settings: Aperture Priority, Image-stabilzation turned off, native base ISO 200, Auto White Balance, eye-detection focus turned on. Note: Since we were working with natural light and partly cloudy sky this afternoon, there will be some very slight variances in the background shadows.
Images are straight raws out of camera with default Adobe Camera Raw settings with minor white balance tweaks only.

Previous 3 photos lined up for easier comparison (click to view bigger)

100% crop of detail.  (You may have to click to see it at 1:1) — 100% crop of detail. (You may have to click to see it at 1:1)

So there you have it. What do you guys think?? I'll tell you what I think:

They're all way too close for the average citizen to even notice or care.
All are very sharp wide open--even my copy of the O45 (the least expensive of the 3 lenses) gives the others a run for their money.
Differences in background: maaaybe the PL 42mm is a hair blurrier than the O45...then again my eyes keep playing tricks on me the longer I stare. You can see more background compression with the O75 (the brick wall is slightly "closer/larger").
At $350-$400, I maintain my stance that the little Olympus 45mm/1.8 is the best bang-for-your-buck lens!
Is the PL 42.5mm/1.2 worth the $1600 asking price? Again, I will say no if you're not a pro/making a chunk of your income with photography. BUT some people really do need the optical image stablization of the PL42 lens if they have a Panasonic body (or an Olympus non-OMD body), or they really do need that extra stop of light gathering that the O45/O75 can't reach. Plus, the 42.5mm is a much more useable focal length for most portrait shooters than the Oly 75mm. So for working pros: YES--but just barely.

Anyway, I'm outta here.....here's a couple parting shots of Uyen from the same afternoon to end this post:

Shot with the PL 42.5mm/1.2 lens at f/1.2.  Strobist info: 3-light setup, KEY LIGHT is 28" Westcott Apollo softbox upper camera right. Backlighting at the rear on each side are CTO-gelled speedlights in shoot-through umbrellas. — Shot with the PL 42.5mm/1.2 lens at f/1.2.
Strobist info: 3-light setup, KEY LIGHT is 28" Westcott Apollo softbox upper camera right. Backlighting at the rear on each side are CTO-gelled speedlights in shoot-through umbrellas.

Sexy Studying: shot with the Lumix 25mm/1.4 lens at f/1.4.KEY light is: speedlight in an Orbis ringflash adapter just camera right.  Backlight is speedlight with a Honl 1/8 grid.  Color temp in-camera turned down to cool, but the speedligh… — Sexy Studying: shot with the Lumix 25mm/1.4 lens at f/1.4.
KEY light is: speedlight in an **Orbis ringflash adapter** just camera right. Backlight is speedlight with a Honl 1/8 grid. Color temp in-camera turned down to cool, but the speedlight in the Orbis has a warming gel on it.

Later!