Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 25 mm F1.8 Lens, Fast Fixed Focal Length, Suitable for All MFT Cameras (Olympus OM-D & PEN Models, Panasonic G-Series), Black

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Chromatic aberration is the lens' inability to focus on the sensor or film all colours of visible light at the same point. Severe chromatic aberration gives a noticeable fringing or a halo effect around sharp edges within the picture. It can be cured in software. The M.Zuiko 25mm f/1.8 is almost indistinguishable from its "longer" cousin (45mm f/1.8). This is good news because the build quality is on similarly high level. The small and light weight lens body looks like high-quality metal but it is actually made of plastic parts based on a metal mount. A barrel-shaped lens hood is included. A deep circular hood is supplied with this lens, which does a reasonable job of shading the lens from extraneous light that may cause issues with loss of contrast or flare. Even without the hood in place, this lens is very resistant to flare and contrast levels hold up well when shooting into the light. There is of course the Panasonic 25mm f/1.4 and optically it's a very good lens. However, the Panasonic is relatively large and heavy (even more so with the large lens hood), it costs more and it does have some optical flaws like soft corners and visible CA.

The build quality is like the Olympus 45mm f/1.8. A large ribbed focus ring, a metal lens mount and a lot of plastic. It doesn't feel fragile and because it's heavier then the 45mm, it feels quite substantial for a lens this size. A plastic lens hood is included. In short, I don't feel the need to stop the lens down for better image quality. When you do stop it down one or two notches, sharpness and contrast get slightly better. Again, I think it's perfectly fine at f/1.8.

Covering a 35mm-equivalent focal length range of 16-50mm and boasting surprisingly good macro performance, it shows great promise as a versatile, single-carry lens for landscape, street and travel photography. For a lens of its focal range and build, the Olympus 8-25mm F4.0 is very compact and lightweight. Its small size has been achieved thanks to a first for an Olympus Pro-branded lens: a retracting zoom design.

Speaking purely to aesthetics, which doesn't figure into the top 100 reasons why I buy a lens but still, I don't mind the plain look of Nikon Z lenses but I do think some of the primes look odd because they're longer than other comparable mirrorless options (eg 20/1.8 S vs the Sony 20/1.8 G, not that Sonys are a hallmark of design or anything).

Some notes: As you can see in the images below, despite both lenses being marked as 25mm lenses, the Panasonic Leica has a slightly longer focal length. I can’t say whether the Leica is longer than 25mm or the Olympus is shorter than 25mm, though in comparison to other lenses I own, I’d lean towards the Olympus being slightly shorter than marked.