This first shot was taken under bright Sunlight at the E-420’s lowest sensitivity, so represents ideal conditions. We’d normally shoot this subject with a wider angle lens, but by stepping back we’ve managed to capture the desired field of view with the 25mm lens. As you’d hope, there’s no noise in the crops at 100 ISO, and the 25mm lens delivers sharp results across the frame with minimal fringing. It’s already looking superior to a typical kit zoom.

Landscape: 3.83MB, Program, 1/250, f5.6, ISO 100, at 25mm (equivalent to 50mm)

						Another shot taken under bright conditions at 100 ISO with the E-420 and 25mm pancake lens. As before, the crops are very sharp and detailed. The high contrast boats could present a problem with other lenses, but there’s virtually no fringing here with the 25mm. Again we needed to step back a little further to capture the desired field of view compared to a wide angle lens, but the 25mm is already proving surprisingly flexible as a general-purpose option.

Landscape: 4.55MB, Program, 1/500, f8, ISO 100, at 25mm (equivalent to 50mm)

Normally we’d zoom-in on the approaching boat, but this time, the shorter focal length of the 25mm meant we simply waited for the boat to get a little closer.

Again there’s a lot of detail in those crops and no noise or processing artefacts to worry about. You’d hope there wouldn’t be at 200 ISO, but that’s not a forgone conclusion these days.

Once again the E-420 and 25mm are delivering very sharp results, packed with detail.

This was taken in Program at f9, but by shooting in Aperture Priority at f2.8, the 25mm pancake can produce pleasing out-of-focus backgrounds.

The subject matter here can often be quite forgiving on higher sensitivities, but even so, the results here are very respectable. Again like the others so far, sharp, detailed and without any noise to worry about.

Of course you’d expect sharp results from a prime lens, but the 25mm is proving here how suitable it is over a typical kit zoom as a general purpose lens.

The E-420 doesn’t have anti-shake, but the f2.8 lens has allowed a relatively comfortable shutter speed of 1/50 at 400 ISO under these conditions.

The small depth-of-field at f2.8 though means only a small plane is in sharp focus, so you have to be careful.

As with the previous example, the absence of anti-shake isn’t that big an issue, as the f2.8 aperture of the 25mm lens has allowed a shutter of 1/30.

The boost to 800 ISO has of course seen an increase in noise, but there’s still plenty of detail in those crops and we’d be happy using the E-420 at 800 ISO – especially with the Noise Filter reduced from the default setting.

This kind of composition can benefit from the E-420’s Shadow Adjustment Technology, SAT, so to see a before and after comparison, see our Features page.

Overall the E-420 delivers clean, detailed results across its ISO range and the quality of the 25mm questions the need for a kit zoom.