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14-35mm worth the expense given the issues?

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Pedal2Floor

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I was an early purchaser of the 14-35mm. I picked it up when I purchased the E-30.

I found the hunting problem and corresponded with Aussie_Dave (sp?) on potential problems fixes. I phoned Olympus, I wrote them, I talked to reps in the NYC area and all concluded that it was all in my head.

I ended up returning the lense because I could not deal with the hunting issue.

What stuck with me was the tremendous sharpness and color from the lense although the AF is seriously flawed for a SHG lense.

Now it looks like Oly is starting to discount the lense by about $300.

I know its been discussed at length, everything from perhaps needing a Olympus HLD-4 Battery grip, to better batteries to ..... well you name it. What is probably needed is a firmware fix either in the camera or the lense but Olympus has dug in its heels and pretty much said, nope, there is no problem when the community at large does see issues. Even look at the well written reviews on Amazon.com. At the same time, i bet sales have not been stellar for them to offer up a discount.

So, looking around I can find it for about $1,500 shipped, question is, is the $1500 worth it or should we all just leave it alone until Olympus finally gets a clue that there is a problem or the price continues to fall?
 
Pedal2Floor said:
I was an early purchaser of the 14-35mm. I picked it up when I purchased the E-30.

I found the hunting problem and corresponded with Aussie_Dave (sp?) on potential problems fixes. I phoned Olympus, I wrote them, I talked to reps in the NYC area and all concluded that it was all in my head.

I ended up returning the lense because I could not deal with the hunting issue.

What stuck with me was the tremendous sharpness and color from the lense although the AF is seriously flawed for a SHG lense.

Now it looks like Oly is starting to discount the lense by about $300.

I know its been discussed at length, everything from perhaps needing a Olympus HLD-4 Battery grip, to better batteries to ..... well you name it. What is probably needed is a firmware fix either in the camera or the lense but Olympus has dug in its heels and pretty much said, nope, there is no problem when the community at large does see issues. Even look at the well written reviews on Amazon.com. At the same time, i bet sales have not been stellar for them to offer up a discount.

So, looking around I can find it for about $1,500 shipped, question is, is the $1500 worth it or should we all just leave it alone until Olympus finally gets a clue that there is a problem or the price continues to fall?
Click to expand...
I would wait until a new pro-body comes out with improved AF and see how it works. I only experience hunting in poor light..... which happens to be the conditions I bought this lens for. My 35-100 is much more consistent.

It would not surprise me to see Olympus redesign the 14-35 and the 35-100. Both of those lenses are old designs that have been modified to work with the new 4/3 system.
 
But the 14-35 is an SWD lens so it's been updated fairly recently. My understanding is that performance is much better on the E30 but I haven't experienced any issues with my copy of the 14-35 on my E3. It's a really sharp lens and it's on my E3 most of the time.
 
I have no complaints about how sharp the lense happens to be. It is a great lense there is no doubt.

I have an E-30 and I originally purchased it with my E-30 but the lense hunted in low light and never focus locked. I returned the lense because I had originally purchased it for available light conditions.

Now, outdoors on a good clear day when i had tested it in the past, it was great.

When I was testing indoors I was not testing say with a single candle in the room.

I had problems focusing it in a 10' x 20' room at night with simple table lamp turned on. That was enough to give it fits. My 12-60mm works great but even it had troubles when I used it at Cologne Cathedral (German: Kölner Dom) the 14-35mm in IMHO would have faired much worse.

If you are saying that you have no troubles in low light/available light conditions I would love to know.
 
I agree that 14-35mm did not do a decent job in low light. Does it worth for its price? For me, the answer is still yes! I always bring my camera equipment with my travel, and like to shoot outdoor scences, portraits, animals etc. but just a few indoor activities. If I really need to shoot in dim light, I will put my FL50R on my E-3 with 14-35mm. 14-35mm may be the one of the best normal zoom lenses in the market without doubt!

Mark
 
I was not early buyer of this lens - waited several months, but cannot resist ... And lot of confusion came with it. I have used E-3 in these days and bought another E-3 kit with 14-35 to avoid issues - what a mistake. My 14-35 focused very inaccurate with both of my E-3's and included particles in optics, AF also seemed to be not enough reliable - so I sent it to service with the body after few days. After it has been serviced and calibrated, I was still not happy with it, because all of the issues still persisted. So I asked for replacing the lens, but another servicing has been done with notice of "fully reprogramming of lens" and after that AF started to be more reliable and faster, but still inaccurate. As a last step, I've tried E-30 and found it works much better especially with this lens, so I've replaced my E-3 bodies with E-30 (and calibrate the lens by myself).

After all previous steps, the AF worked very decent even in low-light - in most cases similar to 35-100/2. But after I bought another E-30 body and have to calibrate the lens again I decided to return it, because I really don't want that "misalligned" lens (different AF fine tuning needed to be applied for each AF point and both wide and tele to get accurate focus) especially at this price. Now brand new replacement is on the way to me, so I should be able to comment if there is difference and if the brand new lens performs better in terms of low-light AF in comparison to the original one. I have noticed that before on 12-60 - my early sample suffered from quite unreliable AF, clicking during zooming and finally dead AF motor, while samples of my friends bought much later works just excellent.

So I've got a real lemon, hope next sample will work as expected - altough I am still missing the point why it is not 12-35, optics of this lens is so great (also in comparison to any other standard zoom I know), I really love this lens and will buy it again. If you are interested, I can let you know if there is some improvement in the later sample.
 
Hey

Just my two cents.. I spent about an hour in a photoshop in their studio comparing the 14-35 f2 with the 50 f2 (on my E30 body). Mostly looking at focus accuracy under studio lighting but also used both lenses to focus on dark areas within the studio (random). This is by no means any scientific test, but in my opinion I had the same and even better focus lock results using the 50 f2 compared to the 14-35 f2. Two complete different lenses with different uses, for sure, but interesting for me none the less. I decided not to go for the 14-35 f2, as a lens of this price class and caliber should perform near flawlessly in the area of focus speed and accuracy as well..

Cheers and good luck

C
 
You've tried the lens and it didn't live up to your expectations. I strongly suspect trying it again will lead to the same result and would strongly urge you not to do it.

--
Good Shooting,

English Bob
 
Pedal2Floor said:
I was an early purchaser of the 14-35mm. I picked it up when I purchased the E-30.

I found the hunting problem and corresponded with Aussie_Dave (sp?) on potential problems fixes. I phoned Olympus, I wrote them, I talked to reps in the NYC area and all concluded that it was all in my head.
Click to expand...
After various efforts, including sending mine back to Japan and trying different versions on different bodies I sold the lens due to the hesitancy in low light. I bought the lens for event work, but was disappointed with the performance in low to medium light on the E-3+grip.

I think it would be a mistake to try it again, if you've already found it unsatisfactory....it will be in the back of your mind. Maybe try the Sigma 18-50/2.8.....I haven't tried the AF on that lens, so can't comment....but maybe worth a go.
 
First I have seen someone mention medium light. I had the exact issue with my E-3, Grip and a rented 14-35. I was shocked to see how long it took to lock on IN MEDIUM LIGHT! My 35-100 handled this MEDIUM LIGHT with out issue.

Too bad, it really has nice optics.
dab1 said:
Pedal2Floor said:
I was an early purchaser of the 14-35mm. I picked it up when I purchased the E-30.

I found the hunting problem and corresponded with Aussie_Dave (sp?) on potential problems fixes. I phoned Olympus, I wrote them, I talked to reps in the NYC area and all concluded that it was all in my head.
Click to expand...
After various efforts, including sending mine back to Japan and trying different versions on different bodies I sold the lens due to the hesitancy in low light. I bought the lens for event work, but was disappointed with the performance in low to medium light on the E-3+grip.

I think it would be a mistake to try it again, if you've already found it unsatisfactory....it will be in the back of your mind. Maybe try the Sigma 18-50/2.8.....I haven't tried the AF on that lens, so can't comment....but maybe worth a go.
Click to expand...
--

Quote by Robert Roaldi: I often take pictures at less than optimum apertures and shutter speeds. At 1-to-1 on my monitor I can often see the blur that is the result of too low a shutter speed and too much coffee. But I can often fix those pictures by just reducing the magnification and printing them anyway and pretending that I never saw them at 100%. It seems to eliminate the problem.
 
No doubt the AF is a common issue with this lens which is a shame. It is really a sharp lens with great contrast and color.

Isn't 2010 the year Olympus said they were going to concentrate on lenses? Maybe we will get a new pro-body and some new lenses...... and improve some of the existing lenses.

I really do not understand why Olympus is struggling with AF. The 12-60, 50-200, and 35-100 all are dependable and relatively fast to lock focus.

I would love to see Olympus improve the 14-35 and 35-100 to F/1.4 lenses, and move the 12-60 and 50-200 to constant aperture f/2.8 lenses.
 
Wolfe_boy said:
... how large a 14-35 or 35-100 1.4 would be?

I don't either, except that they'd be HUUUUUUUGE!

Give me 1.4 primes, please. Or 1.2 primes.
Click to expand...
They would not be any bigger than they are now. The 35-100 is the same size as the 70-200 F/2.8 Nikon. At 100mm F/1.4 would have an aperture of 71.43mm which is the same as a 200mm F/2.8.

What would be huge about it? It might not be optically possible, but physically there would not be much (if any) difference.
 
Pedal2Floor said:
I was an early purchaser of the 14-35mm. I picked it up when I purchased the E-30.

I found the hunting problem and corresponded with Aussie_Dave (sp?) on potential problems fixes. I phoned Olympus, I wrote them, I talked to reps in the NYC area and all concluded that it was all in my head.

I ended up returning the lense because I could not deal with the hunting issue.
Click to expand...
I guess I'm in a minority here. Attached is an image I did this weekend at Ev=4, (hand-held at 1/30 sec) which is about where I normally shoot the 2 SHG f/2 lenses and to shoot at this specific location is why I bought them.

The 14-35 locked the focus in immediately, in this and every other photo I shoot in this location. In fact FWIW I find the 14-35 to lock focus faster and better than the 35-100.



--

Ted
 
Are you using an E-30 or E-3 and did you setup the camera in special way or did you never have a problem since the day you recieved the lense?

I wondering why such wide results!
 
I had also a problem, with my 35-100 together with the L10.

Finally I brought the 35-100 back and got 90% of my money back.

I thought, at what price would I be willing to keep the 35-100 despite medium front focus ?

I came to the answer, at 50% of the original price I can live with some problems.

This I also suggest to you - 300$ are not enough

cheers
Martin
 
This is odd...I thought Hawaii Geek said the E30 "fixed" all his 14-35 issues. It was with the E3 that his and others struggled so bad!

I definitely didn't buy it before the rebate new or used because of all the complaints and no real need.

Given the current price a second copy might be worth trying again on an E30 but be sure you can exchange it or get a store credit.

Good luck...I'm sure you'd put it to good use...just a question if it would be "good" to you!

Dan

;)
 
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