Leazes Park

After taking delivery of the Panasonic 42.5mm f1.2 DG ASPH Nocticron, I headed over to Leazes Park at lunchtime to take some test shots before it started to rain.

I'd never used an 85mm equivalent as a walk-around lens before, so wasn't quite sure what to expect. It's a focal length traditionally associated with portraiture, so probably not the ideal for creating a sense of place.

That said, its extremely shallow depth of field, even for a Micro Four Thirds system, made for some interesting detail shots.

I was quite impressed with the image quality, especially the beautiful rendering of out-of-focus areas, which very much reminded me of the spectacular Leica 50mm f1.4 Summilux-M Asph , which I used extensively on both my Leica M (Type 240) digital rangefinder and my Leica M6 film body.

While there are many Leica snobs who would scoff at the idea of a £1,000 micro four thirds lens being compared to classic Leica glass, I could definitely see some of that pedigree in the image this lens produced.

The build quality is almost as good too. It's a solid metal barrel, that feels reassuringly expensive in the hand. It might sound daft, but that's something I sorely miss from my days using the Zeiss 50mm f1.4 T* Planar on my Canon EOS 5D Mark II ; an incredible lens, even if it was manual focus only.

The Panasonic 42.5mm f1.2 DG ASPH is of course auto-focus, but I didn't really have the opportunity to test it out on a moving target.

The closest I got was a handful of swans, who seemed quite content with my being there, and didn't really give a challenge.

These photographs were taken on my Olympus Pen micro four thirds camera and the super-sharp Panasonic 42.5mm f1.2 DG ASPH .