Comparison Leica 8-18 vs 25-10

Comparison

between the Leica Summilux 10-25/1.7 and the Leica Elmarit 8-18/2.8-4.0 lenses with data from Lenstip. Since i already use the Leica 8-18, i have experience from that lens.

It is superb in daylight for travel and landscape for sure. It served me excellent at the Island of Vulcano in the Aeolian Island, north of Sicily. It's very wide views are perfect for a wide angle zoom. It also served me in Berlin, during a thunderstorm when Sal and I rushed out of the hotel back in Aug 2019.

Albeit here the light was rapidly fading, where a brighter lens would have been a better choice (but body IS did help to steady the images at slightly longer exposure times. Speaking of very wide - I feel 8 mm (16 mm) is a bit too wide for my taste. I like that the zoom ends at 10 mm (20 mm), which is perfect.

I always had problems with 14-16 mm extreme wide angle lenses - feeling they are smiply too wide. When people are close to the image border - they get vastly distorted.

Carla had better use for the Samyang 14 mm f 2.8 lens

That's why I gave away the excellent Samyang 14 mm ƒ 2.8 to Carla - and she did some major serious magic with it (but on a 1.6x crop factor camera) resulting into moderate 22 mm wide angle. But it gave her finally serious good quality (compared to the crappy, SLOW aperture standard zoom).

The thing with wide angle lenses - is a matter of taste of course. 14 mm fullframe, is too much for me. I welcome the Leica 10mm (20 mm) !

Surprisingly

the super bright Leica 10-25 zoom is even better in terms of resolution according to Lenstip. The center resolution in both lenses is very good, but the corners are stellar with the 10-25 zoom, and a bit weaker with the 8-18 zoom.

In fact, I have no real problems with the Leica 8-18 and image corners in daylight at Vulcano. They were OK to good, especially on the wide end. And since i had plenty of light, I stopped down which gave peak corner sharpness anyway.

It is a very good lens, highly flexible and ideal for travel without being too bulky or heavy.

Top notch sharpness

The center sharpness of the Panaleica 10-25mm approch the level of the very best lenses ever having been tested by Lenstip among MFT lenses. The top were - Olympus ED 17/1.2 PRO, and Olympus ED 45/1.2 PRO.

The Leica 10-25 is reaching those top levels at ƒ2.8 and ƒ4. A zoom, imagine that !

The "weaker" Leica 8-18 may look as if it isn't performing top notch. But make no misstake - it performs very sharp in the wider center, even at "only" 75 lines resolution. The difference between 75 lines vs 95 lines resolution in the center, is negligent in my personal opinion.

At ƒ 11 - all lenses are affected by diffraction. You can counteract that by using Topaz Sharpen AI or similar, and the fine micro detail's lack of sharpnes become history.

Olympus ED 17/1.2 PRO added (yellow)

I also added the Olympus ED 17/1.2 PRO lens, which holds the record in resolution among all MTF lenses reaching almost 100 lines/lpmm

The Leica 10-25 is actually very close to it, both at 17 mm and 10 mm. However, at ƒ4.0 all focal lengths are above 90 lines resoluti1on ! That is an amazing optical achievement.

The border resolution of the Olympus ED 17/1.2 PRO are a bit weaker compared to the Leica 10-25 zoom, but above the Leica 8-18 zoom.