cmcm789
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Regular Member
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Posts: 293
EF-M 15-45 possibly my sharpest lens!!!!
Feb 3, 2019
11
Ok, so the 15-45 must have the worst press of all the ef-m lens. If mine hadn't come bundled with the M5 I wouldn't have one. After all I already had an EF-S 10-18 and Tarmon 17-50 f2.8 which were excellent, and covered that focal length very well. But, since the lens was so compact, and that was whole reason I moved from my 60D to the mirrorless (size), I thought before I cast it aside I should give it go.
Portrait/ family shots
Prior to the 15-45 I used my tarmon for indoor shots due to it's f2.8 aperture. The tamron performs best from around 22mm - 50mm and wide open 2.8 sharpness is excellent. The 15-45 only starts at f3.5 so already at a disadvantage, However, in all my real photo testing, even at 15mm and f3.5 the lens is tack sharp. The only trade off vs my tamron of the nifty 50 f1.8 is when zoomed out to 45mm the 15-45 stops down to f6.3 vs 2.8 (for best sharpness) for the others.
Landscapes
I will have to test a bit more, but mostly the issues are at the wide end (15mm) and stopping down doesn't seem to improve this. I assume it's a decentering issue with the optics which mostly effects the right hand side of my frame making details looked smeared rather than blurry. Now this is only about 5-10% in from the edge of frame and when zoomed in it isn't an issue. When I look at the sharpness this lens is amazing, and I mean that. I have tested against my 10-18mm against a timber fence with like for like settings and the 15-45 consistently resolves more detail (local contrast is better) and has a much sharper/ crisper look to it.
To get an idea of how this lens performs I took a couple of random outdoor shots of a fort at 15mm f3.5 (wide open) and then again at 15mm and f8. Processed in LR with highlights/ shadows (early morning high contrast), tone curve, white balance, and lens profile added. Same adjustment to both images, although one had the exposure reduced by about 1 stop to equalise them (my fault for not getting the correct shutter speed). No noise reduction, contrast, clarity or sharpening has been added. you can see for yourself the outcome. All I can say is at 100% zoomed on the detail on the fort (windows/ door) I can't see a difference and think it is remarkably sharp wide open.
You will also be able to see the effects of decentering or whatever it is and how/ if they impact the image.
From everything I have read this lens gets a bad reputation for copy variance causing decentering issues. Some people also slag off it's plastic/ cheap feel and expect it to be awful because it is a "kit lens" before they even give it a chance. In my experience this is a fantastic piece of kit. It's small, sharp and performs consistently from wide open which is what I want.


Happy to hear feedback and discussion from others.