With such a difficult combination of the angle of view and aperture guaranteeing good performance against bright light is definitely not easy. The task of the rival Sony FE 16 mm f/1.8G was even more difficult here and yet that lens proved it is possible to deliver the goods with flying colours.
Unfortunately the Panasonic Lumix S 18 mm f/1.8 didn't manage to fare so well. When you work in the area close to the maximum relative aperture the performance is perhaps not that bad. Of course even in this situation you can catch quite distinct light artifacts, even when the sun is situated outside the frame.
When you stop down the aperture further the situation becomes even worse – colourful flares can be more or less caught in every situation. When the sun is inside the frame you get a lot of them. When the source of bright light is very near the corner of the frame your shot can be completely destroyed by a blueish reflection, or even a whole series of reflections, yellow for a change, that go along the diagonal. These yellow artifacts, although not so numerous, remain in your photo even when you move the sun away from the frame corner and the distance between them is really big.
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As a kind of consolation you can say that the lens didn't show any noticeable global contrast loss. Of course it doesn't change the fact that the overall assessment of the performance in this category cannot be good.
