OLYMPUS M.Zuiko Digital ED 12-40mm F2.8 Pro Lens, for Micro Four Thirds Cameras

Product Information

Further improved high image quality and a compact, lightweight design in a standard zoom lens with a fixed maximum aperture of F2.8 In terms of image quality sharpness is outstanding throughout the zoom range enabling you to shoot it wide open at f/2.8 without concern. It can do everything from wide-angle landscapes to portraits and it does it all well. Yes other lenses may be better at specific roles but none offer the versatility and fixed bright aperture of this lens. However having owned all 3 lenses and as an owner of the Panasonic GH5 and Olympus EM5 II I decided that the build quality of the Olympus 12-40mm edged out the Panasonic and so I kept it over its rivals. When I say edged out, it is night and day. The Panasonic’s feel like a consumer grade lens with very good optics. The Olympus 12-40mm feels like a professional grade lens in every way.

The lens barrel is constructed from high quality plastics, with a glossy finish and the bayonet is metal with a rubber gasket to prevent the ingress of dust and moisture into the camera body. Despite the robust construction the lens only weighs 382g. As far as size and handling are concerned, this lens is a perfect match for the Panasonic Lumix G6 camera body used for 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. The new Olympus 12-40mm ƒ/2.8 Zuiko PRO was introduced alongside the Olympus OM-D E-M1 and is part of the company's new "Zuiko PRO" line of professional-grade Micro Four Thirds lenses. The 12-40mm focal range translates to a 24-80mm field of view in 35mm terms, and with the constant ƒ/2.8 aperture, this new Olympus lens is a very versatile lens that should work great in low-light. It's also a rugged lens with splash-, dust- and freeze-proof construction, which makes it a great match with the equally-rugged E-M1. There is only a minimum of light fall-off in the corners, which you will probably not even notice in your real-world photos, and distortion is commendably kept well under control too.Impulses: "I'd be curious how well those hold up at 42-61MP" -- not great... which is often better than the very best MFT lenses have ever done. ;-) If you are trying to decide between this lens and the Panasonic 12-35mm (mark i or mark II) then it really comes down to a few factors as optically they are very similar. The Olympus is better at the wide end and offers a little more range at the long end. However the Panasonic is slightly sharper at 35m than the Olympus is at 40mm. 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. 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.) The Olympus M.ZUIKO Digital 12-40mm f/2.8 Pro lens attached to an Olympus OM-D E-M1, extended to 40mm

Unfortunately for smaller sensors, easy-to-get lens resolution in lp/mm is largely independent of lens format. My 28-200mm (which is surprisingly sharp, although it has other optical issues) is delivering about 20MP of scene resolution on FF, which means about 8.5MP on APS-C. However, A FF sensor is nearly 4X the area of an MFT sensor, so my 28-200mm would only project about 5MP of resolution on an MFT sensor. Excellent MFT lenses tend to come in at around 6-7MP; only one that DxO tested reached 16MP (on a 20MP sensor). 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 And finally we come to the Micro Four Thirds to Full Frame SENSOR comparison and the insistence that discussing equivalence means that the M43 shooter is trying to get the same ISO noise performance. During my testing, dual sync IS between the GH5 and 12-35mm ii made no noticeable improvement in the image stabilisation and didn’t allow me to handhold shots for any longer than when using the Olympus 12-40mm f/2.8 on the GH5.This is a pretty easy question to answer. If you’re getting the OM System OM1, then get it bundled with the OM System 12-40mm f2.8 Pro II. Should you upgrade to it? Honestly, I’m not sure. If you go with the Panasonic 25-50mm f1.7 and pair it with the 10-25mm f1.7, you’ll probably be in pretty great shape. But you’ve got far more range with the OM System 12-40mm lens instead. However, you’re at only f2.8! Years ago, it was an impressive feat to have a 24-80mm equivalent lens with an f2.8 aperture. But the world has moved on. The 12-40mm pro does suffer with some barrel distortion at the wide end if you shoot raw. The Jpegs are corrected in camera and the software does a good job in most cases. At 40mm there is a slight amount of pin cushion distortion. If you are shooting raw and have straight lines in your shots then you will need to correct in post. Chromatic aberrations, typically seen as purple or green fringes along contrasty edges, areonly really noticeable by their almost complete absence from our test images.