Impressed by first shots with 14-54ii ZD

They are actually, but maybe geometric distortions were less of a concern with the longer flange distance and telecentric lens designs.

Do you have a site source on that Dan? Reviewers began dual-testing for corrections with m43 gear, and no one mentioned it in 4Thirds sites that I visited. I'd like to know that before more 4T lenses attack my wallet..

I guess it was just common knowledge in the Four Thirds days. By having the correction data inside the lens (and from there, in the EXIF of each image), FT consortium members could introduce new lenses with functional geometric and vignetting correction without having to upgrade the firmware of existing bodies.

I see that Andrzej Wrotniak, maybe the greatest 'authority' on all things Four Thirds, mentioned it in his review of the E-1, which is still available on his site:

"Lens correction:

• Light fall-off
• Geometric distortion

Now, this is something only Olympus can offer. The Four Thirds lenses, in addition to the usual data, provide the camera with their characteristics regarding these two flaws, especially hard to avoid at short focal lengths.

The camera then may use that data to correct the image. For light fall-off (Olympus refers to it as "lens shading") this is probably done by applying a multiplicative correction to pixel brightness; the correction can be turned on or off from the menu (it is meaningful, anyway, only for wide lens angles). Correction for geometric distortion — has to be done by mapping the light estimate for a given photosite to a different pixel [..]"

It was also alluded to in this brochure for the Olympus E-500:

Anyway, the fact that there was a correction mechanism built-in, should not lead you to believe that these lenses were optically lacking -- they were anything but.