In addition to water, oil, and dust repellent performance, the fluorine coating on the front-most lens reduces friction. Both lenses can easily be cleaned with a blower or cloth when dirty, allowing users to continue shooting immediately. MAIN FEATURES: M.Zuiko Digital ED 12-40mm F2.8 PRO II The Olympus OM-D E-M1 used for this test is a great match for the lens, offering good balance, fast auto focus, and full environmental seals. The M.ZUIKO Digital 12-40mm f/2.8 Pro lens itself is very well built, fully living up to the PRO designation that Olympus have given it.

Distortion is well corrected in camera, but without corrections applied, Imatest detected 5.51% barrel distortion at 12mm being replaced with only 0.965% pincushion distortion at 40mm. The level of distortion at 12mm will be quite noticeable in images with lines parallel to the edge of the frame, although the distortion pattern is uniform across the frame throughout the zoom range, which should make applying corrections in image editing software afterwards, relatively straightforward. The Mad Kiwi: focal length does have at least a little to do with the f-ratio, given that the “f” in “f/4” is the focal length. The overall expression “f/4” (focal length divided by 4) gives the diameter of the entrance pupil which is ± the “hole” through which light enters from the subject. 150mm f/4 and 300mm f/8 have an identically-sized hole of 37.5mm, therefore they collect the same amount of light from any given part of the scene. It’s just that the 150mm lens then spreads that light on an area a quarter of the size, leading to a higher density – but that doesn’t make it collect more light from the subject, any more than a focal reducer on the 300mm lens would. (It’s clear that the latter can’t make more light enter the lens since it’s mounted after the point where it happens, yet it does reduce the f-ratio of the overall combination, demonstrating that the f-ratio doesn’t tell the whole story.)In other words, there’s little that I’d use to distinguish between the two lenses. We could quibble. If you’re mostly shooting at the wide end, the Olympus is probably the better choice, but if you’re mostly shooting at the telephoto end, the Panasonic probably is the lens of choice, despite it’s 5mm shorter length. But I don’t think most people think of a workhorse mid-range zoom that way: they want it to be useful across the board. Both these lenses are, just with different nuances as you move through the focal and aperture ranges.

This lens appears to be particularly affected by diffraction at small aperture settings, with a dramatic reduction in sharpness being visible at f/22. Although this may not be an issue for many, those wishing to use small apertures for longer exposures, might want to use a neutral density filter instead so that the lens can be kept closer to its optimum aperture range. This model uses an optical design with 14 elements in nine groups (one EDA lens, two aspherical lenses, one DSA lens, two ED lenses, one HD lens, two HR lenses) with four aspherical lenses including a DSA lens effectively placed to achieve a compact, lightweight form and superior depictive performance expected of an M.Zuiko PRO lens. Effectively compensating for aberrations that occur when zooming, results in high resolution from the center to the edges of the frame across the entire zoom range, from wide-angle 24mm equivalent to mid-telephoto 80mm equivalent 1. This high-performance lens fully utilizes the high image quality performance of the camera body when using High Res Shot mode. Purchasing anything through the B&H Link below helps support Admiring Light at no additional cost to you: Overall, the new Olympus 12-40mm ƒ/2.8 Zuiko PRO is a very sharp lens, even wide open and throughout the entire zoom range. There's also very little corner softness at ƒ/2.8 at each focal length we tested. We saw just a bit more corner softness at 40mm at ƒ/2.8, but it was extremely minor.Bokeh: There's enough spherical aberration that out of focus highlights get the "corona" effect, where the edge of an even circle of light is a bit different in brightness than the centers. Moreover, it appears that the aperture blades in my sample have just a tiny bit of a joint point in them, as I can see that the circle has two distinct "points" on it as I stop down. Thus, the bokeh is nothing to get excited about. It's mostly well behaved, but it's not the dreamy, creamy type many crave. Make no mistake, this is one of the best kit lenses you’ll ever get your hands on. But if you do, you’ll desperately want to supplement it with OM System’s beautiful Pro-level prime lenses. You’ll also want to get more zoom lenses at the longer end because they’re just that great. Regardless of what someone's typed into Wikipedia, f-number has no direct connection to shutter speed: it's mediated through ISO, which assumes you care about how much light per sq cm your sensor is receiving, not how much light per portion of the final image your sensor is receiving.

The Olympus 12-40mm f/2.8 was the first of its Pro lineup of lenses, eventually going to be a set of four (7-14mm f/2.8, 12-40mm f/2.8, 40-150mm f/2.8, 300mm f/4). As such, it’s a high performance lens that’s been built at a high level of quality, as well. Its IP53-rated seal protects against ingress of dust and water, and the lens is freezeproof down to 14°F / -10°C. This enables you to shoot in the most inhospitable environments, whether that's dust, rain or snow. Second, price. If you’re shooting on an Olympus body, the Olympus lens at MSRP is a bit less expensive, so becomes sort of a no-brainer.The Olympus 12-40mm f/2.8 was the first in Olympus’ Pro series of lenses designed for Micro 4/3 cameras. It is a weatherproof (dust, splash and freeze proof) fixed aperture zoom lens offering the 35mm equivalent field of view of a 24-80mm lens. It has a fixed aperture of f/2.8 throughout the zoom range with a filter thread of 62mm. 62mm filter thread

The Olympus M.ZUIKO Digital 12-40mm f/2.8 Pro lens attached to an Olympus OM-D E-M1, extended to 40mm The scale on the left side is an indication of actual image resolution. The taller the column, the better the lens performance. Simple. TheOM System 12-40mm f2.8 Pro II we tested was a loaner unit provided to us by OM System. It was used with the: This is regardless of whether or not the scene detection is on. So with all this said, you’ll have to give the OM System 12-40mm f2.8 Pro II a bit of focusing assistance by choosing an area for it to focus on. This is in some ways an antiquated way of thinking for a lens like this. If it were a much longer focal length and photographing birds, it would be different. But there were surely times where the OM System 12-40mm f2.8 Pro II frustrated me over a period of a few months of testing. Falloff of illumination towards the corners is fairly typical for a standard zoom lens, and shouldn't pose too many issues. At 12mm and f/2.8 the comers are 1.35 stops darker than the centre of the image and at 40mm, and falloff is reduced and the corners are only 0.76 stops darker than the image centre. Stopping down to f/5.6 results in visually uniform illumination across the frame throughout the zoom range.

Comments

I thought the Panasonic 12-35mm f/2.8 was good, and it is, but I like this Olympus even better. It has less distortion and CA and it's sharper on the wide end. It seems to me that this lens gives a more consistent output then the Panasonic f/2.8 zoom. The biggest surprise may be that it comes with a lens hood.