Olympus 4/3 mount 50 f/2 - worth it?

Paul Auclair wrote:

dougjgreen1 wrote:

I had one from a 4/3 kit I had acquired at a fantastic price a while back. And while it is a spectacularly sharp lens, I could never find a niche where I would use it within Micro 4/3. So I sold it.

For Macros, I prefer legacy manual focus (and I use both an older 50mm f3.5 Minolta Rokkor MD, and a Tamron SP 90mm f2.5). These lenses are just as sharp as the Oly.

Along with the dzuiko 2.8/60 and dzuiko 50/2 I have a few legacy macros including a Vivitar(Tokina) S1 90/2.5.

ill not argue about which is sharper but I just used the bokina and the oem macros recently and contrast and color of the bokina was very noticeably lacking compared to the native glass.

For portraiture, I prefer a Sigma 60mm f2.8 - and it too is just as sharp as the Oly 50mm. It is also FAR faster for AF - and it can also double as a very good macro lens with the addition of a good front achromat screw-on.

That's not been my general experience with the Tamron, which I grant, is a very similar (perhaps even identical) lens to the Bokina (which I've used in the past with film gear). But what I will say is that those lenses are susceptible to flaring, which certainly can serve to lower the contrast and wash out the color - and one needs to be careful to avoid flare sources when using them. In any case, because of the crop factor, the one I use more often with m4/3 is the Minolta MD 50mm f3.5 Macro, which has the optics far recessed into the barrel, which makes it much less susceptible to flare than the Tamron or Bokina, and it's not got that issue.