A couple of weeks back, I was given a gift of the Xiaoyi Yi 42.5mm f1.8 lens by my dear friend Robin Wong. Robin also wrote a review about the same lens here. I value an 85mm prime lens or equivalent greatly as a stage photographer, and it's probably my most used focal length for gig shoots. So this gift by Robin really goes a long way in expanding what I can do with the Panasonic GM5 I normally carry for general outings and street photography, (which was also another gift from Robin that has become a valuable part of my project shooting).
The Xiaoyi (a subsidiary of Chinese smartphone giant Xiaomi) 42.5mm lens has an interesting pedigree. It came as part of a kit with their first and only M4/3 interchangeable lens camera, the Yi M1 back in 2016. The M1 had since been discontinued, and the lenses are now finding their away around the grey and used market at a very affordable price.
Build
The Yi lens is about as basic as it gets. It's almost entirely plastic down to the mount and somewhat longer than its Olympus and Panasonic contemporaries, though in terms of diameter it's roughly equivalent. It's also very lightweight and the price is an absolute bargain, so I'd say with the few things you lose, you get a lot more in return.
There's no manual focus ring: the ribbed section is just a grip for you to get a better handle on the lens. You can't control the manual focusing on a Panasonic or Olympus body: only the Yi M1's touchscreen lets you use this lens in manual focus.
This article isn't a technical review per se. Instead, I'm just approaching it from a practical usage perspective, largely for street photography. If there's anything I noted, it's simply because it happened during the course of regular shooting. There was no intention to shoot in a way to specifically bring out technical issues otherwise.
In Use
In actual use, the Yi 42.5mm is more than capable. It focuses quickly on the GM5 (unless you toggle the macro switch), focusing is generally accurate, and images come out more than sharp enough, and without major aberrations.
I say 'generally accurate' because the way I use the GM5, I disable the touchscreen and centre focus and recompose shots. It's muscle memory from shooting DLSRs which on rare occasions can result in misfocused shots with any lens. With the Yi being a telephoto lens, any focusing errors are going to be more pronounced than on the 14mm. So I want to be very clear that any misfocused shots are more likely my own mistake than any fault of the lens.
Unlike Robin, I didn't encounter any issues with chromatic aberration in my images, so I'm guessing the GM5 automatically corrected them, even in the raw files.
I generally don't use an 85mm for street photography, because I prefer a 28mm or 50mm equivalent. However, the short telephoto distance works well if you want to hang back and observe, while also giving plenty of flexibility for street portraiture. I view shooting wide as training in composition, reading a scene and timing your shot so everything falls into place, Meanwhile, shooting at telephoto is an exercise in observation. What attracts your eye from a distance? Why this particular subject, and what's the relation to the wider scene?
Also, one thing I really love doing is make images that don't look obviously telephoto. With enough distance to move around, you can make a shot look wide while enjoying the benefits of telephoto compression to make the background look closer. The idea of telephoto landscape shots may seem paradoxical, but it's a very interesting exercise merging landscape and portraiture concepts. I did this often during gigs, but very little outside, as I rarely use telephoto lenses otherwise. When I did however, it'd get me shots like this one below.
Here's what I got shooting with the Yi 42.5mm f1.8 lens:
Disclaimer: unless stated, all images were shot on a Panasonic GM5 in Raw, and processed in Adobe Lightroom 5.7 using the Kodak Gold VSCO Film Filter Pack on Vibrant. By default Lightroom 5.7 doesn't have the Panasonic colour settings, so it reverts to the Adobe standard, which looks significantly different from in-camera raw previews. I chose this filter because I have shot with the Kodak Gold film before and am somewhat familiar with its rendition.
Bokeh
Background bokeh on the Yi 42.5mm is somewhat nervous, more so if your background is busy, It's more apparent with highlights in the background, so try not to have subjects backlit (so avoid stuff like fairy lights or streetlamps in your background if you can help it). It's still more than usable enough for portraiture or macro in my books, but if smooth backgrounds are an absolute non-negotiable requirement, you might want to look into the Olympus or Panasonic equivalents instead.
Flare
From 3 days of shooting with it in broad daylight, I've only managed to produce these two shots that exhibit some sort of flare-related characteristics. That's very good in my books, especially since the lens doesn't have a bayonet mount to screw on a lens hood (so you can't use the petal hood that comes with the Panasonic 14-42 kit lens for example).
In the image to the left, you can see a slight loss of contrast and a bit of haziness as the sun was at the edge of the frame. This was easily fixed in post-production.
Macro Mode
The Yi has one handy trick up its sleeve to distinguish itself from its contemporaries: a macro switch. When toggled, it reduces the minimum focusing distance from 0.5m to 0.25m and stops the minimum aperture down to f3.5. In macro mode, focusing speed slows down significantly, and the lens is more prone to focus hunting. You may need several tries to get a positive focus if lighting isn't great, so it's recommended to take more than one shot, as even a slight misfocus would be much more apparent in macro shooting than at a distance.
It's not a true macro lens per se, but it is a useful feature to have on a lens that already delivers a lot of value. On my GM5, the uses are mostly limited to good light without a tripod. But on an Olympus body which by default has IBIS, the macro mode is going to be a lot more useful while keeping your ISO manageable.
Note: The first two shots (the flower and umbrellas) and the last one (dessert) do not use the Kodak Gold filter, as in this case I wanted to see the lens' characteristics where the filter's increased contrast might distort the rendition.
Conclusion
The Xiaoyi 42.5mm f1.8 lens is honestly impressive, punching well above its price category (the Olympus 45mm f1.8 costs about 3 times more than the Yi here in Malaysia, though you are getting a smaller lens with better build and bokeh rendition). It's a great companion to any M4/3 kit lens. As far as bargain lenses go, this is about as good as it gets. There's also some anthropological value to the lens: the Yi is one of the few autofocus capable, third party lenses for Micro Four Thirds. Now discontinued, I see it as an interesting footnote in camera history.
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