The Panasonic-Leica 10-25mm f1.7 changed the game for many, and perhaps for the entire Micro Four Thirds platform.

Panasonic already has a number of premium prime lenses with fast apertures that sport the Leica badge:

• Panasonic-Leica 12mm f1.4
• Panasonic-Leica 15mm f1.7
• Panasonic-Leica 25mm f1.4

You can even throw the Panasonic 14mm f2.5 and 20mm f1.7 in that conversation of fantastic prime lenses for Panasonic.

But now, you have one lens that can essentially replace them all.

The caveat?

It’s size. It’s relatively enormous. At 690g, it’s heavier than all three of the aforementioned Panasonic-Leica prime lenses combined (335g, 115g, and 205g).

But in fairness, not much bigger than the often adapted Sigma 18-35mm f1.8 (pictured in the thumbnail of the YouTube video below).

With the .71x Metabones Speedbooster on the GH5, the Sigma 18-35mm f1.8 is a ~13-25mm f1.3 on Micro Four Thirds. As one of the most popular lenses for video shooters, no doubt Panasonic wanted to create a native lens that could replace that.

Valentin Kossenko thoughts on Panasonic-Leica 10-25mm f1.7 vs Sigma 18-35mm f1.8

The closest competitor to the Panasonic Leica 10-25mm f1.7, at least in the video side of things, is the Sigma 18-35mm f1.8; a lens for APS-C cameras. The Sigma is often paired with a Metabones Speed Booster adapter for an effective wider focal length “conversion” and a boost in the lens light gathering capability. For this reason, the Sigma 18-35 1.8 has been very popular for videographers. So how does the native Panasonic Leica 10-25mm f/1.7 stack up against the crowd favorite?

In his comparison video, photographer and filmmaker Valentin Kossenko recommends beginning MFT shooters to consider the Panasonic Leica as their first purchase for its reliability, being a native lens. He cites the Sigma’s lack of weather sealing and poor video autofocus performance (which Kossenko highlighted in his video above).

“…I’m also a big fan of travelling light. The Leica allows me to do that and replaces a few other primes I’d otherwise have to carry in my backpack. Since I got the lens, I barely even touched the other ones I own which is great because changing lenses takes time and exposes your sensor to dust. As you can see, I’m a big fan of the Leica and I honestly thought I’d be this impressed.”

Dave Maze

Filmmaker and Indy Mogul host Dave Maze offers a fresh insight into the Panny-Leica vs. Sigma+Speedboster combo debate. In his review, Maze praises the level of build quality you’d expect from a lens bearing a Leica badge. He also touched on how discussions on the Panasonic vs Sigma debate becomes a little GH5 and video-centric, when content creators like himself can pair the Panasonic Leica 10-25mm f1.7 with an Olympus EM1 MkII for more of a hybrid of stills and video use case.

“If you’re shooting a hybrid of both video and stills, this is a better option than the Sigma ‘cause you’re going to get much better autofocus tracking, much better autofocus performance with this lens on any Panasonic body, of course, because well it’s an actual micro four thirds lens…

I can’t speak too much to the image quality for stills because I’m just not a photographer, but I will say that the images I’ve taken with it are fabulous and if you want a one camera and a one lens setup, it’s really amazing.”

Sharpness of the Panasonic-Leica 10-25mm f1.7

One of my favorite source for evaluating sharpness of lenses is LensTip.com. For reference, the current best result is 98.6 lpmm from the Olympus 17mm f1.2. And from this graph we can see that the Panasonic-Leica 10-25mm f1.7 gets right near there in the mid 90’s:

Quite typical of most lenses, it’s sharpest 2-stops from wide open, and the middle of the focal length is the sharpest.

But what about real-life comparisons to prime lenses?

David Thorpe on Panasonic 10-25mm f1.7 vs Prime Lenses

Prime lenses are great. They offer gorgeous image quality and fast apertures while keeping things light and portable. One caveat is that you can “zoom with your feet” only up to a point where space allows, and swapping out lenses mid-shoot is a luxury a lot of professionals do not have. This is where the versatility of zoom lenses come in.

Zooms won’t be as optically flawless as primes, and for a lot of photographers, it’s a worthwhile compromise. But that’s not to say there have been no attempts for a “prime killer” zoom. Enter the Panasonic Leica 10-25mm f1.7, a lens shaping up to be the prime killer that the micro four thirds system has been waiting for.

Let’s address the 1.52 lb (690 g) elephant in the room. The Panasonic 10-25mm f/1.7 is quite a hefty lens. However it’s size and weight, which are deemed exotic in the micro four thirds realm, can be easily forgiven if it can replace at least three prime lenses in your camera bag.

David Thorpe, m43 enthusiast and music photographer has tested this lens with his Panasonic G9 using its 80-mp high-res mode. The results seem to have impressed him enough to think the Panasonic 10-25mm f/1.7 can take the place of three highly regarded primes: Panasonic 12mm f1.4, Olympus 17mm f1.8, and Panasonic 25mm f1.4.

“Center sharpness is up there with the Panasonic Leica 25mm f1.4; my yardstick lens. It keeps that level of sharpness all the way through the range of 10 to 25mm.

The 10-25mm f1.7 is an uncompromised tour de force. It will replace at least three prime lenses and be as sharp as all of them.”

Richard Wong – Additional thoughts on replacing prime lenses

Yet another pro vouching for the Panasonic 10-25mm f1.7’s optical performance is portrait and wedding photographer Richard Wong. In his in-depth review, Wong puts sample images taken with the “prime killer” zoom alongside two popular prime lenses for the micro four thirds system: the Panasonic Leica 12mm f1.4 and 25mm 1.4.

In his sharpness tests, Richard Wong found the zoom to be “virtually as sharp” as the 12mm 1.4 in center sharpness when shot wide open, while significantly outperforming the 25mm 1.4 in the same test. The Panasonic Leica 10-25mm f1.7 also shines in the distortion, vignetting, flare control and bokeh rendering test and have proven to be very comparable with the two primes. See more side-by-side image comparison in Wong’s written review here.

“When Panasonic told me about this lens, they told me this is a lens that can replace multiple prime lenses. I was skeptical because zoom lens rarely can match the quality of prime lens. But after testing this lens, I agree with them. If you are a pro photographer or videographer who is currently rely on multiple prime lenses within this focal length range, I think you should consider switching to this amazing lens. It would make your life a lot easier without sacrificing the image quality.”

James Popsys – What about replacing the Panasonic-Leica 8-18mm f2.8-4.0 and the 12-35mm f2.8?

For many professionals, traveling with a lot of gear if not physically impossible, can become a logistics issue. A few hundred grams of weight savings here and there can be the difference between breezing through an out-of-town shoot and a photography outing nightmare.

Travel and landscape photographer James Popsys is seriously considering getting the Panasonic Leica 10-25mm f/1.7 to replace four lenses in his camera bag:

• Panasonic Leica 8-18mm f2.8-4
• Panasonic Leica 15mm f1.7
• Panasonic Leica 25mm f1.4
• Panasonic 12-35mm f2.8

Keep in mind that the lens he had for the review was a pre-production model, and therefore may have slight differences with the final release version. That said, Popsys seems to have been very satisfied with the images he got from his comparison tests against the other lenses he already owns.

“If I had one lens that does roughly the same job as four others, then I’ll need to change lenses an awful lot less and therefore, in theory, I should miss less shots.

…I don’t think I’d have any qualms, based on what I’ve seen so far and what I’ve read from other reviews, with replacing the primes for this.”

The Panasonic Leica 10-25mm f1.7 has proven to be quite the performer, coming in extremely close and sometimes beating out prime lenses within its range. Opinions and in-depth reviews from the pros above all concur with the lens’ quality, and that’s not counting the wealth of testing and acclaim from the photography community that didn’t make it on this article. So if you’re looking to shake things up in your camera bag and dispatching some underused gear, this phenomenal lens might be the right fit.