The Olympus 12mm F/2

What does one say when they see this lens? I often see and here various platitudes from people who have either never owned or never shot with this lens, most of them negative, trivialised, biased and in many cases completely nonrepresentational to any sort of reality about this lens. The lens gets down trodden based on something they read once in a web review of the lens and never seems to get a second look in. The Olympus 12mm F/2 is one of the most harshly critiqued and criticized lenses but is also the most misunderstood and underrated lenses in the Micro Four Thirds lineup. If one lens receives more negative comments in the Micro Four Thirds lens lineup its this one and for the majority of cases the disparagement is entirely misdirected.

From the moment you lay your hands on it, you know there is something about the lens, the way that its built a solid lens built in a metal casing and with low dispersing glass, offering durability that is unmatched in any of the Micro Four Thirds primes. The lens feels solid despite its diminutive size.

The 12mm F/2 gains an advantage from its design using DSA, aspherical, ED, and Super HR elements and it features aan perture range from f/2-22, currently the widest and fastest native prime for Micro Four Thirds. The lens also features silent focusing for movie photography even when tracking moving targets and focus down to 20mm. It features 11 lens elements in 8 groups and a 7 blade aperture ring.

This lens introduces a dual fly by wire focus system with a snap back focus ring, snapped forward in manual focus mode the focus will continue to move freely and continuously, snapped back you get a lock to lock focus ring from 20mm to infinity.

If there is one true fault with this lens its that the Olympus LH-48 metal lens hood is an accessory for this lens and it does not come with the kit, why Olympus continues to follow this trend is beyond reasoning with, however it seems to be part of their practice to charge customers at each opportunity.

Mounting the lens on your camera you will notice that your camera becomes somewhat heavy, I would say this lens adds approximately 150grams of weight to the front of your camera which can feel like quite a lot as compared to some of the kit lenses and particularly on a larger camera like an OM-D or G/GH series camera from Panasonic. This becomes a significant issue where your main aim may be primarily to reduce weight, the lens does not achieve this, but for its build quality its something that I'm willing to put to one side.

Open the lens up and take it outdoors it becomes a perfect accompaniment for the landscape photographer, it's noticeably fast to expose and fast in action making low light photography a breeze even at wide apertures but also at narrow ones. It's easy to get trigger happy and keep clicking photos.

The lens is just as useful indoors and in low light where some assume it may be too wide, it's just right, when using its perspective you can gain some dramatic effects indoors simply and straight forward out of the camera with minimal processing.

This lens from me receives a 4.5 simply on the basis that it doesn't actually come with a hood, and because of its price this is a serious complaint for a lens of this price, but if you need a 24mm lens with no compromises of being part of a zoom there really isn't a lot of other options on the market that are either as fast, silent or that actually auto focus. You can spend more on the Olympus 12-40 F2.8 you can even look at the Panasonic 7-14 F/4 but its not as fast either. If you need a fast lens in this lens width then this lens is hard to overlook.

maljo

And so am I.

Me too.

I didn't mention the fact that it has a distance scale when snapped back in manual focus no, unfortunately I can't edit the post to add the fact. It makes it the most useful 24mm equivalent lens this side of the Olympus 12-40 F/2.8.

Yes this lens is my top performer and combined with the LEE Sev5n filters is my stay on lens for landscape and old city walks.

BTW  I bought it from a friend for 400$ USD,:-) he sold it for a 12-40  f2.8 which he found better for his type of work.

M43 Dude wrote:

The 12mm F/2 ... features aan perture range from f/2-22, currently the widest and fastest native prime for Micro Four Thirds.

Puzzling comment.  Are you forgetting the Panasonic 15mm f/1.7; Olympus 17mm f/1.8; Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 etc?

Chippy99 wrote:

M43 Dude wrote:

The 12mm F/2 ... features aan perture range from f/2-22, currently the widest and fastest native prime for Micro Four Thirds.

Puzzling comment. Are you forgetting the Panasonic 15mm f/1.7; Olympus 17mm f/1.8; Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 etc?

There's also the Rokinon and Samyang 12mm f/2 lenses. MUCH less expensive than the Olympus. Manual focus, though. Still, excellent glass all around ... and they come with hoods!

Godiwa wrote:

Chippy99 wrote:

M43 Dude wrote:

The 12mm F/2 ... features aan perture range from f/2-22, currently the widest and fastest native prime for Micro Four Thirds.

Puzzling comment. Are you forgetting the Panasonic 15mm f/1.7; Olympus 17mm f/1.8; Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 etc?

I think you know what he means... I guess it is the wording.

It is the fastest lens in 12mm, there is wider but they are nowhere near as fast, there is faster but they are nowhere near as wide. And I don't think any of those other lenses goes from f/2-22 as he listed? Not sure though and it is AF not MF.

There are two native primes that are faster and as wide or wider:

SLR Magic 12/1.6

CV 10.5/0.95

If you count the Samyang 12/2 (an APS-C lens with MFT mount, like the Sigma MFT lenses), then there are three that are at least as fast and at least as wide. If rumors are right, there is additionally an Oly 8/1.8 fisheye in the works.

Chippy99 wrote:

M43 Dude wrote:

The 12mm F/2 ... features aan perture range from f/2-22, currently the widest and fastest native prime for Micro Four Thirds.

Puzzling comment. Are you forgetting the Panasonic 15mm f/1.7; Olympus 17mm f/1.8; Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 etc?

None of them are as wide as the Olympus 12mm F/2.

markymark101 wrote:

M43 Dude wrote:

What does one say when they see this lens? I often see and here various platitudes from people who have either never owned or never shot with this lens, most of them negative, trivialised, biased and in many cases completely nonrepresentational to any sort of reality about this lens. The lens gets down trodden based on something they read once in a web review of the lens and never seems to get a second look in. The Olympus 12mm F/2 is one of the most harshly critiqued and criticized lenses but is also the most misunderstood and underrated lenses in the Micro Four Thirds lineup. If one lens receives more negative comments in the Micro Four Thirds lens lineup its this one and for the majority of cases the disparagement is entirely misdirected.

...is poor quality control. A significant number of reports - including me - of decentered lenses. I don't think anyone who has a good copy has said it's a bad lens. But, the 12-40 equals or bests it for sharpness at equivalent FL. At the price point it's at, with no hood nor weather sealing, and it's only 1 stop better then the 12-40. Frankly, IMO, it should be priced more in line with the 17mm and 45mm.

Saying that, it does render very nicely.

Yes, there are too many of these comments, unfortunately, whatever reason? My copy is an original made in Japan 1st edition copy of the lens, so perhaps that equates for its quality. While I see comments that the 12-40 is close or beats it in terms of sharpness, we can turn around and say that this lens is almost 1 full stop of light faster than the 12-40 F/2.8

I can also say holding the 12-40 F/2.8 in store, that lens is not for me, if I had wanted that lens, I might as well have bought a Canon 100D body and uses my existing wide angle zoom which would have weighed about the same.

I'd left those kinds of comments out of the discussion on the matter merely leaving this thread for guidance of people who were interested in the 12mm F/2. However. now that it's said the 12-40 F/2.8 is no lighter and not much shorter than a lot of my Canon EF lenses and it defies the point of why anyone would go with Micro Four Thirds in the first place.

By the time you buy the 12-40 and look at the cost of it you might as well buy a D3300 or 100D and lenses, there is little weight and cost savings. As others have said the 12 F/2 can be bought cheaply these days because of comments such as the above.

Godiwa wrote:

Anders W wrote:

Godiwa wrote:

Chippy99 wrote:

M43 Dude wrote:

The 12mm F/2 ... features aan perture range from f/2-22, currently the widest and fastest native prime for Micro Four Thirds.

Puzzling comment. Are you forgetting the Panasonic 15mm f/1.7; Olympus 17mm f/1.8; Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 etc?

I think you know what he means... I guess it is the wording.

It is the fastest lens in 12mm, there is wider but they are nowhere near as fast, there is faster but they are nowhere near as wide. And I don't think any of those other lenses goes from f/2-22 as he listed? Not sure though and it is AF not MF.

There are two native primes that are faster and as wide or wider:

SLR Magic 12/1.6

CV 10.5/0.95

If you count the Samyang 12/2 (an APS-C lens with MFT mount, like the Sigma MFT lenses), then there are three that are at least as fast and at least as wide. If rumors are right, there is additionally an Oly 8/1.8 fisheye in the works.

how many of those have AF?

One. But the requirement was native mount, FL, and max aperture, not AF.

I just got the PL 15mm f/1.7 can't wait to play with it

Looks like a nice alternative from what I have seen so far.

A part of my comments above was based on the fact that the lens actually auto focuses which is why none of the other options are listed.