Optical construction: 16 elements in 10 groups (1 DSA, 2 Aspherical ED, 1 Super ED, 1 ED, 1 Super HR, 1 HR and 1 HD) Yes it does seem like a wasted opportunity. If they are releasing an update to the lens anyway, & the aperture ring is purely an electronic control that doesn't need to be integrated into the optics, why not? For the professional sports or wildlife photographer, this lens offers a 300-800mm equivalent range, which can be extended to 375-1000mm (at f/5.6) using the built-in 1.25x teleconverter! When used with the Olympus OM-D E-M1X it’s also said to be able to give up to 8 stops of image stabilisation! It’s also considerably lighter than full-frame equivalents. For even more reach, it’s compatible with the Olympus MC-14 (1.4x) and MC-20 (2.0x) teleconverters. For a lens of its focal range and build, the Olympus 8-25mm F4.0 is very compact and lightweight. Its small size has been achieved thanks to a first for an Olympus Pro-branded lens: a retracting zoom design.

Up front, you'll find 72mm threads with which to attach your choice of filters, and the front element also includes a fluorine coating to aid cleaning, if the lens gets splashed or smudged.Incorporating an inner focus drive system and stepping motor, the new LEICA DG SUMMILUX 25mm / F1.4 II ASPH. is capable of smooth, silent operation and works with the camera’s high-speed, high-precision contrast AF system for both photo and video recording. It is also compatible with the sensor drive at max. 240 fps to take maximum advantage of cameras with high-speed AF.

We really rated this as a landscape lens when we came to review it, especially given that robustly weatherproof construction that keeps the rain out. It’s also a solid do-it-all documentary lens, with fast and silent autofocus that can be relied upon to nail the shot in varying conditions. We weren’t huge fans of either the manual focusing ring or the aperture ring, the former being too slippery, the latter being incompatible with Olympus. A pity that the high price tag of this lens probably precludes it for MFT shooters who aren’t using Panasonic. Pros Although it does suffer from some chromatic aberration issues, the good news is that these are of the kind you can most-easily correct in the digital darkroom. The hard-to-correct longitudinal variant, also known as LoCA, is barely noticeable in photos from the 8-25mm F4.0 Pro, as is expected of a lens with a smaller maximum aperture.

Also, as we found in our review, sharpness is excellent for a wide-angle – a little soft in the corners as is usual for a lens in this type, but not enough to seriously compromise images. Sharpness in the centre is absolutely top-notch. The lens is also sealed in eleven places, meaning you’ll have nothing to worry about from that late-night dew fall as you capture your astro images. The resistance of the Olympus 25mm 1:1.2 PRO is by no means bad. For example, the Mitakon 25mm F/0.95 produces a completely different level of flares. Lens flare can cause some loss of contrast especially when shooting directly into bright light sources, while multiple ghosts of bright sources can manifest themselves as colored 'blobs' that get more defined the more you stop the lens down. That being said, stopping down just a bit to F2 or F2.8 will result in the sharpest output. But sharpness will drop quite visibly by even F5.6 and certainly by F8, due to diffraction (remembering that F5.6 - F8 on Four Thirds is F11 - F22 in full-frame terms). So it's better to crank your shutter speed in bright light, rather than go beyond those apertures, if possible. Vignetting and distortion

There are certainly some who think the format’s day in the sun is coming to an end. Earlier this year, Sigma announced it would no longer be developing Micro Four Thirds lenses, stating that its future priority would be full-frame lenses. ThePanasonic Lumix G 25mm f/1.7 ASPH has a closest focusing distance of 0.25m / 0.82ft and a maximum 0.14x magnification rating. However, the Olympus 25mm 1:1.2 does not feature image stabilization or an aperture ring (like some Panasonic lenses). Micro Four Thirds cameras use a different image sensor format than full-frame and APS-C cameras, so you need to do some math to match up focal lengths between the systems. Micro Four Thirds uses a 4:3 aspect ratio. Compared with the 3:2 aspect sensors of competing systems, these sensors don't translate as nicely to wide screens and are smaller in surface area. Olympus E-M5 Mark III With 12-200mm Lens

At that minimum distance and with the lens at its telephoto position, you'll manage a maximum magnification of around 0.21x (35mm-equivalent: 0.42x), while at the wide-angle position this falls to about 0.07x (35mm-equivalent: 0.14x). If you zoom in to this image, you'll note a subtle texture on the inside of the out-of-focus highlights. The Leica DG Summilux 12mm f/1.4 ASPH lens is a premium lens with the Leica branding, and the wide-angle lens gives a 24mm equivalent. You’ll find an aperture ring on the lens, and can also control the aperture with the camera. There’s also a solid build quality, thanks to a metal construction, and you’ll benefit from weather-sealing. Perhaps more importantly, the lens also delivers excellent image quality, with plenty of fine detail, even when shooting wide-open. Micro Four Thirds cameras first went on sale in 2008. At the time, the mirrorless concept was novel. Instead of using an optical viewfinder and mirror, like the Four Thirds SLR system that preceded it, M43 takes the view from the image sensor and sends it right to an electronic display. At f/1.7, images are a little soft when examined at the pixel level, but stop down to f/2.8 and they gain noticeably more bite. Sharpest results are generally obtained around f/4-f/5.6, and stopping down further sees diffraction progressively reducing pixel-level crispness; personally, I’d never use an aperture smaller than f/11. It’s important to understand that this isn’t a defect, but an inevitable consequence of optical physics. With smaller sensor formats such as Micro Four Thirds, you simply shoot at larger apertures than with full-frame or APS-C cameras. So if you’d normally use f/8 on full frame, the rule of thumb is to shoot at f/4 on Micro Four Thirds.

Above: Place the Olympus on the left and the Leica 10-25 on the right, both at 25mm and their respective maximum apertures and unsurprisingly the latter is delivering larger blobs at f1.7, albeit almost all of them rendered as ovals until the aperture is closed to f2.8 or smaller. I’d also say the style of the Leica 10-25 blobs isn’t particularly smooth or outline-free here either. Panasonic Launches Renewed LEICA DG 25mm * Fixed Focal Length Lens for the Micro Four Thirds System First up is the focal length. The millimeter number of every lens is relative to its angle of view, and lenses with a smaller number capture a larger view.

It also takes an even smaller, more affordable 67mm filter size, but opts for a stepper motor-based autofocus drive. And once again, the 8-25mm F4.0 Pro offers noticeably better macro specifications. With the Olympus M.ZUIKO Digital 25mm f/1.8 wide open, you can see some light fall-off in the corners, but it’s not too excessive, as you can see in the macro example below. Stopping down to f/4 cures this problem almost entirely. Micro Four Thirds is often readily dismissed in conversations about astrophotography, mainly due to the smaller sensor size of the cameras. However, the system has a lot going for it when it comes to shooting the night sky. Newer Olympus and OM-System cameras, in particular, feature ‘Starry Sky AF’, an innovative system designed to help achieve pin-point focusing accuracy on distant stars.