A full compliment of kit lenses

I now have to hand a full compliment of kit lenses, having now finally bought a 40-150 MKII.

I also did a bit of testing using the Bob Atkins lens chart, just to make some comparisons, as well as to see if I could tell any difference when using UV filters.

My conclusions are not too scientific, but do reveal something. Basically:

My 14-42 is actually a little sharper than the old 14-45 (I have different copies than I did originally)

The MkI 40-150 is possibly slight sharper than the MKII. But the MKII's close focussing is much more significant than I expected.

However, there is definitely a noticeable difference in contrast between the earlier and later lenses, with the ED glass giving darker blacks.

There is actually a noticeable difference with filters attached, only the 14-42 at 14mm showed no noticeable difference, all other focal lengths revealed a slight softness when using the filter (a B&W Pro S UV).

The Sigma 55-200 is probably not as good as I initially thought. It's equal to the 40-150 at equal focal lengths, but 200mm is indeed very soft (as is often mentioned). However, I might still hang on to that, as it might get the odd shot that would otherwise be missed.

Finally, the old legacy lenses I have, a Tamron 35-70 Macro, and a Korboron 60-300, stand up extremely well against the ZD glass once focussed properly, even fairly wide open (around F5.6).

So, I think overall I'll be carrying about the newer ED lenses, and keeping the others in reserve for when I fancy a bit of a change (or even a challenge). Besides, they go OK with Emily's E-500 anyway.

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Andy Hewitt
Using Olympus E-420 and Apple Mac Mini '09.