In reply to jethro kiernan:
So I have both the 15/1.7 and the 12/2.
Both the 12/2 and 15/1.7 have pretty decent optical quality and are both sharp enough - you won't have an issue with either.
---Olympus 12/2---
- Excellent metal build quality and beautiful design
- Lens is pretty light and compact
- Pulling back the focus ring reveals a pseudo manual focus ring, however it is still focus by wire and it has about 7 distinct focus zones, so the implementation isn't perfect
- Lens is fairly expensive
---Panasonic 15/1.7---
- Pretty good metal build quality, but not quite as good as the 12/2
- Has noticeable longitudinal chromatic aberration on Olympus bodies (shows up as slight purple edges on high contrast edges), probably only noticeable in specific situations
- Lens is also light and compact
- Aperture ring doesn't work on olympus bodies
- You'll get shallower depth of field with 15/1.7 compared with 12/2
Other than than the above, it really comes down to personal preference with focal length. Both have decent optical quality.
I don't own either the 17/1.8 or 14/2.5, although they're both supposedly a step below the 12/2 and 15/1.7 in terms of build quality and optical quality.
Post edited at 22:45