By Jim Fisher Let's dispense with the downsides: The Panasonic Lumix G Leica DG Nocticron 42.5mm F1.2 ($1,599.99) is big, heavy, and expensive. But it delivers edge-to-edge sharpness even at its widest aperture, captures a heck of a lot of light, shows no distortion, is optically stabilized, and makes it possible to capture images with a very shallow depth of field, which is not always the case with Micro Four Thirds cameras. If you can get past its bulk and price, you'll be rewarded with a lens that earns a very rare 5-star rating, which also makes it our Editors' Choice. If you're on a budget, the Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 45mm f1.8 is a solid alternative, but its photos can't quite match the look of an image shot at f/1.2.
The Nocticron is hefty, especially when paired with a compact Micro Four Thirds camera. It measures 3 by 2.9 inches (HD), weighs 15 ounces, and supports 67mm front filters. It balances well with the Panasonic GX7, but I don't think I'd want to use it with the diminuitive Panasonic GM1. The barrel is metal, with a large manual focus ring and a physical aperture ring, and the included lens hood is also metal. It connects via a thumbscrew, and is cylindrical in design so there's no wrong way to attach it. The aperture ring has a setting for automatic operation, and full-stop markings from f/1.2 down to f/16, but can be adjusted in third-stop increments. Even though the Nocticron can be used with cameras from Olympus, the ring only functions on Panasonic bodies—you'll need to use the camera to adjust the aperture if you opt to mount the lens on an Olympus body.
Despite the focus ring being an electronic affair—turning it activates the focus motor rather than physically moving the elements—I found manual focus to be quite a pleasant experience. I wasn't turning and turning and turning the ring in order to adjust focus like I had to with the Zeiss Touit 2.8/50M, even when moving toward the 1.6-foot minimum focus distance. That the lens doesn't support macro focus distances helps speed the manual focus experience; if you're looking for macro capabilities in a lens with a similar field of view, Panasonic has you covered with the Lumix G Leica DG Macro-Elmarit 45mm F2.8.
There's a physical switch on the barrel to toggle between manual and autofocus, and one to enable or disable the optical stabilization system. I recorded some handheld video with the system enabled and then with it disabled, and was happy to see that it did its job in smoothing out the motion of the footage. When you're working with stills, the f/1.2 aperture makes it possible to get a really short shutter speed in a lot of situations, but you will want to stop down to increase the depth of field in certain situations. It's not as shallow as the Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM, a lens with an identical field of view when paired with a full-frame camera, so you can get away with shooting at f/2 or f/2.8 and getting enough depth of field to keep your subject entirely in focus. The aperture blades form a perfectly round circle, which works to create a smoother bokeh effect behind your subject when stopped down.
I used Imatest to check the sharpness and distortion characteristics when paired with the 16-megapixel GX7. At f/1.2 the lens bettered the 1,800-line center-weighted score we use to mark an image as sharp, recording 2,051 lines per picture height. There's very little falloff in image quality at the edges of the frame, as is often the case at the widest aperture; it even averaged 1,986 lines at the outer edge of the frame at f/1.2.
Stopping down to f/1.4 offers just a modest improvement in sharpness (2,082 lines), but at f/2 the score jumps to 2,338 lines, and it hits 2,489 lines at f/2.8. Peak sharpness is achieved at f/4 (2,502 lines). At f/5.6 there's a drop-off in detail due to diffraction, but you can stop down all the way to f/11 and get an acceptable image (1,947 lines). Distortion is a nonissue, it shows just 0.2 percent barrel distortion, which is completely irrelevant in real world shooting.
There aren't a lot of bad things to say about the Panasonic Lumix G Leica DG Nocticron 42.5mm F1.2. I was happily surprised by the impeccable quality of the images it captured, even at its widest f/1.2 setting. The shallow depth of field that the longer focal length and wide aperture create gives photos the look of those captured with a much larger sensor. If you're a Micro Four Thirds photographer, and if you can stomach the Nocticron's price and bulk, this is a lens that should be on your wish list. It's about as close to perfect as they get from an optical standpoint, and easily earns our Editors' Choice award.
Panasonic has built a smart-looking camera that's available in all black or a two-tone black and silver finish. There's an integrated handgrip with a textured rubber feel. The GX7 is comfortable and secure in hand thanks to the grip, especially if coupled with a wide wrist strap, even when using a heavy lens like the 42.5mm Nocticron. The top plate houses a pop-up flash, but there's also a hot shoe so you can add an on-camera strobe or PocketWizard. The mode dial, power switch, shutter release, top control dial, and record button are also housed on the top plate, directly behind the handgrip.There's an EVF toggle switch on the rear, directly underneath the hot shoe, that doubles as the programmable Fn4 button. The flash release is next to it, and the MF/AF toggle switch and Autofocus/Autoexposure Lock button is a bit further over to the right. The remainder of the controls run along the rear right side of the body. They include a rear control dial, the programmable Fn1/Q.Menu, Fn2/Delete, and Fn3/Wi-Fi buttons, and a four-way controller pad with a center Menu/Set button. The control pad sets the ISO, White Balance, Self-Timer and Drive mode, and the active autofocus point, and is also used to navigate through menus.
The Q.Menu button launches an on-screen menu that provides quick access to a number of shooting controls. By default it sets the color output, flash settings, video and image resolution and file format, autofocus mode, focus area, metering pattern, exposure compensation value, ISO, and white balance, but you can set which options are available via the camera's main menu. That's just one of the ways you can set up the GX7 to suit your needs; there are the four physical Fn buttons that can be remapped, and an additional five on-screen run along the right side of the LCD and can be programmed.The rear LCD is 3 inches in size and extremely sharp thanks to a 1,040k-dot resolution. It tilts up and down, and its touch design makes it possible to swipe through images when reviewing photos, and to tap an area of the display to focus or focus and fire the camera. There's also a neat feature that lets you slide your finger around the rear display to move the active focus point while using the EVF—it works really well and is one that I look forward to using whenever I pick up a Panasonic camera that supports it. The size of the focus box is adjustable, and you can make it very small using the Pinpoint focus setting.If you opt to use manual focus for a shot, there are a couple of focus aids available. By default the GX7 magnifies a portion of the frame so that it's easier to perfect hit focus, but instead of it occupying the entirety of your display, it floats above the unmagnified view in a picture-in-picture type format. This way you can keep track of the overall framing of the image while focusing. Peaking, which highlights in-focus areas of the frame, is also available.
At 2,764k dots, the LCD EVF is really sharp. Its native 16:9 aspect ratio leaves a lot of unused space when shooting stills at the native 4:3 ratio. The viewfinder tilts all the way up, which is especially helpful for tripod use. You could also peer down into it while handholding the camera, but for this type of shooting the rear LCD is a bit more useful. Both the OM-D E-M10 and Sony Alpha 6000 actually put less pixels into their 1,440k-dot EVFs, but both of those cameras present an image that appears larger to my eye, which is a more pleasant experience. That's not to say the GX7's EVF is poor—far from it. It's just not quite as fantastic as its resolution would imply.The GX7 supports Wi-Fi and has NFC pairing to connect to phones that support it. That's great for Android users, and if you have an iPhone, it's a simple matter of connecting the two devices via a password. It's easy enough to transfer images from the camera to the phone as long as you shoot in JPG or Raw+JPG mode. And if you take the time to setup a Lumix Club account, you can post directly from the camera to popular Web services, including Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr. This aspect of Wi-Fi isn't quite as refined as that of the Samsung NX300, which allows you to post to Web services without having to set up an additional account.
Remote control is also supported via the free Panasonic Image App (available for iOS and Android, but not Windows Phone). The Live View feed is very smooth, and full manual control is available. You can tap an area of the frame to focus, or focus and fire, and you also have full access to all Q.Menu settings via your phone or tablet. Olympus also builds remote control into its similar PEN E-P5, but it doesn't offer the breadth of manual shooting controls when controlled via a phone.
