Pocket-sized gem

[PStu]

I recently picked up this lens on sale at a large NYC-based reseller, looking for a bright lens useful for portraits during a recent family get-together. The only disappointing thing is that I hadn't picked up this lens earlier. This lens fills the gap between my 20mm Panasonic and 60mm Olympus lenses, neither of which have image stabilization. Using the extra reach over the 20mm, much better auto-focus performance, OIS, and my G6's electronic shutter, I was able to unobtrusively take a number of pictures at this family event that I will treasure for years.

One has to be careful, as the bright aperture and image-stabilization give false confidence of a sharp picture in indoor and low-light situations where subject movement is the obstacle to a sharp photo.

 

[Sa7724473]

I recently picked up this lens on sale at a large NYC-based reseller, looking for a bright lens useful for portraits during a recent family get-together. The only disappointing thing is that I hadn't picked up this lens earlier. This lens fills the gap between my 20mm Panasonic and 60mm Olympus lenses, neither of which have image stabilization. Using the extra reach over the 20mm, much better auto-focus performance, OIS, and my G6's electronic shutter, I was able to unobtrusively take a number of pictures at this family event that I will treasure for years.

One has to be careful, as the bright aperture and image-stabilization give false confidence of a sharp picture in indoor and low-light situations where subject movement is the obstacle to a sharp photo.

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http://www.flickr.com/photos/38021327@N07/

Just following up on this review, can you say a bit more about that final paragraph? Am delighted with the Oly 45mm in general but I see that when doing concerts indoors there are cases where I wonder if stabilization/OIS would improve percentage of keepers.

 

[PStu]

Sorry I didn't see this question earlier. My only point was to be careful whether instability of the photographer/camera is the obstacle to a sharp photo or the movement of the subject. I'm pretty careful not to go over ISO 1600, and in a dimly-lit room, f/1.7 will only take you so far unless your subject is sitting pretty still.

 

[Sa7724473]

Understand. Yes, I find the same: I find ISO 3200 on these things starts to move you into the territory of using RAW and some work, so prefer ISO 1600, which sometimes pushes you into shutter speed limitations.

Incidentally, I ended up getting this lens for stills and videos at events indoors, for which it is quite good. So your review was spot on.

Have played around with it occasionally as a "walkabout" lens as well, and it does well there too.