Oly lack of prof grade medium range zoom?

[dave steinberg]

I had my Panasonic GF1 stolen on the beach in Molokai....Bummer....

I loved the 20mm and 7-14mm lenses. Incredibly sharp lenses. Equal to my best Nikkor lenses.

I would love one of the new Oly Pen cameras announced a few days ago. What keeps me from buying one is the lack of a sharp medium zoom for general walk around use. Both the 14-42 (45) range Pan and Olympus kit zooms seem to give bland results. Has anybody had any luck with a pro grade, very sharp, med zoom lens for micro 4/3?

 

[andy mclean]

I had my Panasonic GF1 stolen on the beach in Molokai....Bummer....

I loved the 20mm and 7-14mm lenses. Incredibly sharp lenses. Equal to my best Nikkor lenses.

I would love one of the new Oly Pen cameras announced a few days ago. What keeps me from buying one is the lack of a sharp medium zoom for general walk around use. Both the 14-42 (45) range Pan and Olympus kit zooms seem to give bland results. Has anybody had any luck with a pro grade, very sharp, med zoom lens for micro 4/3?

Why bother with Oly?

Get a G3, replacement 20 and 7-14mm and nothing Oly produce can touch them - or weren't you insured?

The bland results are from bland photographers.

Good photographers deliver great results whether with Oly or Pannie zooms.

 

[rpm40]

I agree with that point, I think people really get hung up on the gear. The merits of a photo aren't going to be decided by whether its shot with the "lowly" oly 14-42 kit, or the more critically lauded panny 14-45. That minute difference in pure image quality from lens to lens won't hold a candle to the importance of proper technique, good composition, and an interesting subject.

That said, I agree the kit lenses leave a few things to be desired as far as capability of getting the shot- sometimes they're not fast enough, or wide enough, or long enough. However, ultimate sharpness shouldn't often get in your way of getting a good photo, even with the kit lens (wide open at the full 42mm tele excluded ).

 

[Anders W]

I agree with that point, I think people really get hung up on the gear. The merits of a photo aren't going to be decided by whether its shot with the "lowly" oly 14-42 kit, or the more critically lauded panny 14-45. That minute difference in pure image quality from lens to lens won't hold a candle to the importance of proper technique, good composition, and an interesting subject.

That said, I agree the kit lenses leave a few things to be desired as far as capability of getting the shot- sometimes they're not fast enough, or wide enough, or long enough. However, ultimate sharpness shouldn't often get in your way of getting a good photo, even with the kit lens (wide open at the full 42mm tele excluded ).

Agreed! One might add that the resolution figures for the Pany 14-42 or 14-45 at 20 mm are roughly on a par with those for the lauded 20 mm prime at comparable apertures (see Photozone, which has tested all three lenses). The differences are trifling. The zooms do pretty well at other focal lengths too, so there's nothing special about the 20 mm setting. The 20 is a faster lens than either zoom and impressive for what it offers between f/1.7 and f/4.5 (where the zooms cannot go). But that's about it.

 

[daleeight]

How many times have people said, don't buy a body, buy the lenses. The Body has changed several times, but the lenses don't (except Oly and their multiple releases of the kit). If Oly doesn't have the lenses that you need, in the category (amateur, mid, pro, etc) that you think you need, then look elsewhere.

The PEN line is not a pro line. If you want a pro line, you want the Oly E-5 and the bigger lenses like the 50-200 or for more money, the 35-100 or 90-200. Otherwise, get the PEN and get the best they have, or use an adapter, or look somewhere else (Pany, etc).
--
Dale

 

[thearne3]

There are much better 4/3 zooms, but no m4/3. Some online videos seem to provide evidence that the SWF lenses by Oly focus quite quickly with the new Oly bodies. The example used is the zd12-60mm: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JR6dP7fQXRI&feature=related

 

[Barugon]

I had my Panasonic GF1 stolen on the beach in Molokai....Bummer....

I loved the 20mm and 7-14mm lenses. Incredibly sharp lenses. Equal to my best Nikkor lenses.

I would love one of the new Oly Pen cameras announced a few days ago. What keeps me from buying one is the lack of a sharp medium zoom for general walk around use. Both the 14-42 (45) range Pan and Olympus kit zooms seem to give bland results. Has anybody had any luck with a pro grade, very sharp, med zoom lens for micro 4/3?

The problem isn't that the kit lenses aren't sharp (because they're quite sharp); the problem is that they're slow! f/5.6 is way too slow for a camera that has 1/4 the sensor area that a full-frame 35mm camera has. It's really difficult to limit depth of field with the kit lens.

What we need is a 14-42mm f/2 zoom.

--
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[linj]

What we need is a 14-42mm f/2 zoom.

--
http://www.pbase.com/dot_borg

There is a 14-35mm f/2 zoom for Four Thirds, but I will acquiesce a native MFT 14-42mm f/2 zoom would be wonderful.

I think the market would be quite limited though...

 

[xanax77]

they might be fast, but AF on MFT cameras is very slow

The only FT lenses I use with my EP1 are the Panaleica 25 and the Oly Macro 50 - fantastic lenses, but the AF. The Panaleica AF is precise, the Oly I use mostly in MF mode

 

[Barugon]

What we need is a 14-42mm f/2 zoom.

--
http://www.pbase.com/dot_borg

There is a 14-35mm f/2 zoom for Four Thirds, but I will acquiesce a native MFT 14-42mm f/2 zoom would be wonderful.

I think the market would be quite limited though...

I can't speak for "the market", but I'd be on it like a bum on a bologna sandwich. If f/2 is not feasible then at leas f/2.8....

--
http://www.pbase.com/dot_borg

 

[DekHog]

I don't think we'll see fast M.Zuiko zoom lenses from Oly, purely because, unlike Panasonic, the physical size of things is part of their Pen ethos, and making fast zooms small enough simply isn't possible.

m43 is a compromise (that I'm more than happy with), and if you can't accept that, you really should have looked at alternative systems that offer what you want/need in terms of fast lenses....

 

[Barugon]

I don't think we'll see fast M.Zuiko zoom lenses from Oly, purely because, unlike Panasonic, the physical size of things is part of their Pen ethos, and making fast zooms small enough simply isn't possible.

So, you can't have both small lenses and a couple of fast lenses? I personally believe they could make a 14-42mm f/2.8 zoom that's smaller than the 40-150 (though probably not as light). That seems reasonable to me.

m43 is a compromise (that I'm more than happy with), and if you can't accept that, you really should have looked at alternative systems that offer what you want/need in terms of fast lenses....

if I really want to lug some DSLR equipment around, I have a Canon 5D Mark II and an array of lenses.

--
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[Gregm61]

Has anybody had any luck with a pro grade, very sharp, med zoom lens for micro 4/3?

In native micro mount? No, they do not exist. The 12-60 f2.8-4 Zuiko I use on my E5 is the equal of any lens you could put up against it, fits my E-PL1 via the 4/3rd's to micro 4/3rd's adapter and does autofocus, but does so slowly so when I do use it with the Pen I often manually focus, which is extremely easy with the eyelevel VF-2 finder.

The video I saw of the AF performance of the 12-60 on the E-P3 seems to show much improvement, and that was in indoor evening light. If the improvement outdoors in daylight is equally improved it will become my default standard zoom once I have the E-P3 until something better in native micro mount exists. For now I can survive with the 14-42II, which seems plenty sharp to me. It's the more narrow 3x zoom range and the wide end stopping at 14mm that's limiting to me. After you've used a standard zoom that goes as wide as a 24mm equivalent, 14mm just is not wide enough.

 

[dave steinberg]

Will the Oly 12-60 balance ok on a M4/3 Pen? Or is it to heavy? I originally tried the Pan Leica 14-150 on my previous GF1 and it was impossible to handle-focus-and move controls because of the weight imbalance.

Do Oly cameras automatically correct for distortions and vignetting like Panasonic camera/lens combos? If so, Will the camera automatically correct for distortions on non M4/3 lenses like the 12-60?

 

[Anders W]

Do Oly cameras automatically correct for distortions and vignetting like Panasonic camera/lens combos? If so, Will the camera automatically correct for distortions on non M4/3 lenses like the 12-60?

Oly m43 cameras correct for distortion with m43 lenses. Pany m43 cameras with Pany m43 lenses correct for distortion and lateral CA, and, for some lenses, vignetting (at least according to Photozone). I think no corrections will be made for non-m43 lenses.

 

[Brian Mosley]

I'm just happy that we have the 12mm f2, 45mm f1.8 coming, to add to the 20mm f1.7 for a three lens set of super quality prime lenses. The mZD 9-18 and mZD 14-150 are superbly compact and capable zoom lenses - granted not super high grade, but for that in the most compact form I'm happy with the primes.

Cheers

Brian
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[Gregm61]

Will the Oly 12-60 balance ok on a M4/3 Pen? Or is it to heavy? I originally tried the Pan Leica 14-150 on my previous GF1 and it was impossible to handle-focus-and move controls because of the weight imbalance.

I would not use the 12-60 on my Pen without an eyelevel finder. With the camera up to your eye and using your left hand like you are supposed to underneath the lens the balance is fine. The only four-thirds lens I have that is just way too big to handhold with the Pen is the 50-200 SWD.

Do Oly cameras automatically correct for distortions and vignetting like Panasonic camera/lens combos? If so, Will the camera automatically correct for distortions on non M4/3 lenses like the 12-60?

Micro cameras are designed only to corrected distortions within their own system of lenses, so you have to have micro lenses to get that automatic distortion correction.

The difference is, optics like the regular four-thirds lenses (and any other high quality non-micro lens of other brands) have most of their own correction built-in with the optics. Part of the reason why micro lenses can be built so small is, they intentionally do not optically correct everything so you HAVE to have correction take place using software in the camera. You probably do not want to see the type images a micro lens creates without those corrections!

There is some complex distotion at the very wide end of the 12-60 that, depending on the subject, you may or may never notice. For subjects where it is visible, I use a $25 program called PTLens that corrects it with three clicks of the mouse.

 

[TrapperJohn]

CDAF's quickly, sharp wide open (F2.8), sharp throughout it's entire range, a hallmark of the better fast ZD zooms. There is also the second generation PL 14-50, but it's slower and a lot harder to find - only came on the L10.

The 14-54II is larger and heavier than either of the M43 14-42's, true, but not that much larger or heavier. If you value sharp photos, it's worth looking at.

 

[Vaughan Williams]

I'm just happy that we have the 12mm f2, 45mm f1.8 coming, to add to the 20mm f1.7 for a three lens set of super quality prime lenses. The mZD 9-18 and mZD 14-150 are superbly compact and capable zoom lenses - granted not super high grade, but for that in the most compact form I'm happy with the primes.

Same here. I personally would not buy a high grade normal zoom for m4/3.

I tested my Oly 14-54 against my Panasonic 14-45 and found very little difference. The 14-45 is slower of course. But if I want faster and sharper than the 14-45 I would go for the small primes rather than an inevitably larger, heavier and more expensive zoom.

--
Vaughan
http://www.flickriver.com/photos/jvwpc/

 

[Jogger]

Will the Oly 12-60 balance ok on a M4/3 Pen? Or is it to heavy? I originally tried the Pan Leica 14-150 on my previous GF1 and it was impossible to handle-focus-and move controls because of the weight imbalance.

I would not use the 12-60 on my Pen without an eyelevel finder. With the camera up to your eye and using your left hand like you are supposed to underneath the lens the balance is fine. The only four-thirds lens I have that is just way too big to handhold with the Pen is the 50-200 SWD.

Whats the point of this combo.. are you really saving any weight compared to a proper SLR like the E620 or even E30.