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OLYMPUS M.Zuiko Digital ED 12-40mm F2.8 Pro Lens, for Micro Four Thirds Cameras

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The scale on the left side is an indication of actual image resolution. The taller the column, the better the lens performance. Simple. First, stabilization. If you’re shooting on a Panasonic body, the Panasonic lens probably gets the nod simply because it has OIS and the Olympus does not.

This is a pretty easy question to answer. If you’re getting the OM System OM1, then get it bundled with the OM System 12-40mm f2.8 Pro II. Should you upgrade to it? Honestly, I’m not sure. If you go with the Panasonic 25-50mm f1.7 and pair it with the 10-25mm f1.7, you’ll probably be in pretty great shape. But you’ve got far more range with the OM System 12-40mm lens instead. However, you’re at only f2.8! Years ago, it was an impressive feat to have a 24-80mm equivalent lens with an f2.8 aperture. But the world has moved on. You can get really close with this lens. I think it's a very nice option to have and I can imagine that many photographers don't need an extra macro lens. This Olympus 12-40mm might very well be the only lens many people ever need. Especially when combined with the very efficient Olympus in body stabilization. It's a do it all kind of lens. And it does it well too. This is a pro-grade optic that's one of the "holy trinity" lenses, offering a fast, fixed f/2.8 aperture and full weather sealing. (Indeed, as noted, it offers the best weather sealing in the business.) As with most m4/3 lenses these days, the assumption is that you're going to be shooting JPEGs and using in-camera correction, or using a raw convertor that has lens corrections. So "performance" is getting a little tougher to define these days. Let's start with the "corrected" parameters of the lens:

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With a FF camera, as @NZ Scott says, you can just up the ISO 2 stops and still come out with a very good image and equal or better noise. For the most part, the lens lives up to what you’d expect in this department, with a tightly assembled body with high-quality plastics and a metal shell over most of the lens body. However, I felt that it fell a bit short of what I would generally consider a ‘Pro’ build. The inner lens tube rubbed slightly when turning the zoom ring, and the extending tube has a small amount of play. Overall, it’s a well-built lens, but the sister to this lens, the 40-150mm f/2.8, has a more solid construction in my opinion. During my testing, dual sync IS between the GH5 and 12-35mm ii made no noticeable improvement in the image stabilisation and didn’t allow me to handhold shots for any longer than when using the Olympus 12-40mm f/2.8 on the GH5. Vignetting: Probably the worst of the traits of this lens. Even corrected the lens has high amounts of vignetting in the corners at 12mm (over one stop wide open, two-thirds of a stop even at f/8). Longer focal lengths do better, but I wouldn't call this good corner performance. The good news is that the area of highly vignetted results is very much pushed out into the corners, and it shows a circular pattern. The high overall vignetting levels seem to indicate to me that the image circle of this lens is barely covering the m4/3 frame. Optical design with 14 elements in nine groups for excellent resolution across the entire zoom range

In other words, there’s little that I’d use to distinguish between the two lenses. We could quibble. If you’re mostly shooting at the wide end, the Olympus is probably the better choice, but if you’re mostly shooting at the telephoto end, the Panasonic probably is the lens of choice, despite it’s 5mm shorter length. But I don’t think most people think of a workhorse mid-range zoom that way: they want it to be useful across the board. Both these lenses are, just with different nuances as you move through the focal and aperture ranges. If you are shooting on a Panasonic body then perhaps you might prefer to go with the Panasonic lens to take advantage of Panasonic’s depth from defocus system and in the case of the mark ii lens their dual sync IS. The Panasonic lenses are both lighter than the Olympus. But no M43 users is worried about "How can I use an equivalent lens to make my M43 sensor ISO as good as or superior to FF?" We know the smaller sensor will have limitations and just try to get the best ISO that will get an exposure.

In terms of image quality sharpness is outstanding throughout the zoom range enabling you to shoot it wide open at f/2.8 without concern. It can do everything from wide-angle landscapes to portraits and it does it all well. Yes other lenses may be better at specific roles but none offer the versatility and fixed bright aperture of this lens. The Olympus OM-D E-M1 used for this test is a great match for the lens, offering good balance, fast auto focus, and full environmental seals. The M.ZUIKO Digital 12-40mm f/2.8 Pro lens itself is very well built, fully living up to the PRO designation that Olympus have given it.

The 62mm front element sits relatively vulnerable at the front of the lens, though Olympus supplies a reversible LH-86 petal-type hood that you can use to give some protection. As you zoom, the lens extends in length by a considerable amount, so don’t get deceived by the 3.3” (84mm) collapsed size; the lens will easily hit 5” with hood when zoomed. Focus does not rotate or move the front element. In terms of the optical construction, the new Olympus 12-40mm ƒ/2.8 Zuiko PRO is comprised of 14 elements in 9 groups, with two EF elements, 1 EDA lens, 2 HR lenses, 1 HD lens, 1 DSA lens and 2 aspherical lenses. It has a 7-bladed circular aperture that stops down to ƒ/22. Sell the kit you’re not using to MPB. Trade in for the kit you need to create. Buy used, spend less and get more. Buy. Sell. Trade. Create. Since the OM System branding is still new, it's worth pointing out that OM System lenses are fully compatible with Olympus cameras and vice versa. OM System lenses look exactly like previous Olympus lenses, save for the OM System name on the barrel and lens caps. Chromatic aberration is the lens' inability to focus on the sensor or film all colours of visible light at the same point. Severe chromatic aberration gives a noticeable fringing or a halo effect around sharp edges within the picture. It can be cured in software.If you are trying to decide between this lens and the Panasonic 12-35mm (mark i or mark II) then it really comes down to a few factors as optically they are very similar. The Olympus is better at the wide end and offers a little more range at the long end. However the Panasonic is slightly sharper at 35m than the Olympus is at 40mm. Richard "If I take an image on a 150mm F4 lens on micro four thirds, and one at 300mm F8 on full frame for the same exposure time, then both sensors will be exposed to the same number of photons." The 12-40mm pro does suffer with some barrel distortion at the wide end if you shoot raw. The Jpegs are corrected in camera and the software does a good job in most cases. At 40mm there is a slight amount of pin cushion distortion. If you are shooting raw and have straight lines in your shots then you will need to correct in post. Its IP53-rated seal protects against ingress of dust and water, and the lens is freezeproof down to 14°F / -10°C. This enables you to shoot in the most inhospitable environments, whether that's dust, rain or snow.

Of course the camera's built-in corrections take care of much of this, though with a bit of strangeness. At 12mm corrected JPEGs have about a half percent barrel distortion. The oddity is that the camera takes the modest amount of pin cushion distortion at marked 25mm focal length and changes it into a modest amount of barrel distortion! This tells me that the table the camera is using is more a smoothed curve than a very precise set of values for each and every focal length. I wouldn't be afraid to use this lens at any focal length from f/2.8 to f/8, though technically f/4 is probably a slightly "best” aperture overall, and I mean slightly. That, too, is a bit unusual for a fast lens. One other thing that I found unusual: there's very little field curvature at 12mm (or anywhere in the lens, for that matter). I didn't really find myself having to adjust for field curvature or focus shift, which was a bit unexpected. The OM System 12-40mm f2.8 Pro II doesn’t contain a whole lot of innovation over the previous lens. It has better optics, fast autofocus, and a whole lot of things the previous version had. But in the grand scheme of things, there’s not a lot that’s groundbreaking here. Comparatively speaking, it doesn’t shine as much compared to many of the other PRO-monikered lenses from OM System. Ergonomics This model uses an optical design with 14 elements in nine groups (one EDA lens, two aspherical lenses, one DSA lens, two ED lenses, one HD lens, two HR lenses) with four aspherical lenses including a DSA lens effectively placed to achieve a compact, lightweight form and superior depictive performance expected of an M.Zuiko PRO lens. Effectively compensating for aberrations that occur when zooming, results in high resolution from the center to the edges of the frame across the entire zoom range, from wide-angle 24mm equivalent to mid-telephoto 80mm equivalent 1. This high-performance lens fully utilizes the high image quality performance of the camera body when using High Res Shot mode. And whether you want to go into it or not, linear sensor response means that, so long as you're above the noise floor, it doesn't matter what digital number your exposure is recorded at.This lens isn’t specifically built for macro, with a maximum magnification ratio of 0.3x / 1:3.3 (0.6x / 1:1.7 in 35mm eq.) and a minimum close-focusing distance of around 20cm (7.87 in.). Still, the Olympus 12-40mm ƒ/2.8 Zuiko PRO provides a respectable performance in the macro category.

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