Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 45 mm F1.8 Lens, Fast Fixed Focal Length, Suitable for All MFT Cameras (Olympus OM-D & PEN Models, Panasonic G-Series), Silver

Product Information

Finally, I haven't stated that we believe the manufacturers have responded to our requests (I'm sure if we're requesting it, plenty of other people are too, and I'd hope any company would pay more attention to their broader market research than just making what we recommended).

Since I already had the Leica DG Summilux 15mm lens, which is great for both street and landscape photography, I decided to devote more time to street after my return. No matter if on the other side of the world or in front of my door here – the degree of sharpness the Leica lens delivers is remarkable, especially wide open, turning it into a monster even in low light conditions.

Olympus 45mm f1.8 design, build quality and focusing

As falloff and distortion are corrected by the camera's image processing engine when shooting JPEGs, falloff and distortion will only be easily visible when shooting in RAW format. The lens does provides poor macro ability at best - at its close focusing distance of 50cm (around 20 inches) it provides only 0.11x magnification. Olympus PEN E-PL7 + Olympus M.Zuiko 45mm f/1.8 (1/2500 sec, f/1.8, ISO200) (Image credit: James Artaius) Olympus M.Zuiko 45mm f/1.8: Performance

As far as I know, the M.Zuiko is usually a bit cheaper than the Leica. But, it should also be mentioned that the Leica lens is designed by Leica in Germany but manufactured by Panasonic in Japan. If you are willing to pay that bit extra for the illustrious brand name and all it brings with it, this is the lens for you.The manual focusing ring turns smoothly and is a step-up from the manual focusing rings on the kit lenses, but it’s not quite in the same league as the silky smooth manual focusing rings of the Panasonic Leica models including the 45mm f2.8 macro. The M.Zuiko Digital 45mm f/1,8 may have a lot of plastic parts but the lens mount is, thankfully, made of metal. Olympus does not claim any sort of weather resistance for this lens, and indeed you cannot see a rubber seal around the mount (note that no current Micro Four Thirds camera is weather sealed anyway)

The EM1 was set to its base sensitivity of 200 ISO and the lens focused on the center of the composition using magnified Live View assistance. The corner and center crops shown below were taken from the areas marked with the red squares, right, and presented at 100%. Finally the Pansonic 45mm enjoys optical stabilization, whereas the Olympus 45mm has none built-in. This may be a moot point though depending on which body you own. All Olympus PEN and OM-D bodies sport built-in stabilization which works with any lens, so mount the 45mm f1.8 on an Olympus body and it’ll become stabilized; having stabilization built-into the Olympus bodies also makes the optical stabilization on the Panasonic lens redundant. But if you mount the Olympus 45mm f1.8 on a Panasonic Lumix G body they’ll become an unstabilised combination which could be an issue depending on your usage. Putting aside its fast maximum aperture of f/1.8, the lens offers very little in the way of features. There is no distance scale, DoF marks, focus limiter or optical image stabiliser on board. The latter won't really be a problem for users of Olympus' own digital PEN cameras, all of which boast a sensor-shift anti-shake mechanism, but Panasonic owners should be aware that this is a non-stabilised lens. The only control on the lens barrel is the focus ring, which isn't mechanically coupled to the moving lens elements but still feels very nice and natural in use. As the Olympus 45mm f/1.8 lens has an internal focusing mechanism, the length of the lens barrel does not change and the filter thread does not rotate on focus.The Olympus 45mm f1.8 M.ZUIKO Digital Lens is a short-telephoto prime designed for Micro Four Thirds compact system cameras. With its equivalent range of 90mm on a 35mm film camera and large f/1.8 aperture, the lens is ideal for a variety of applications, including portraiture, interior work, low-light shooting, and everyday snapshots. We've been asking manufacturers to make a proper portrait lens for as long as we can remember. APS-C may have become the de-facto standard sensor size, making up the majority of interchangeable camera sales, but you'd never know it to look at the lens ranges current available from most camera makers. There are very few prime lenses specifically intended for APS-C and fewer still that offer the classic combination of large aperture and the circa 100mm equivalent focal length that film users used to enjoy (though some people use 85s or less perfectly, 50s to give something around 135/85mm equivalent on APS-C). None (some may consider build slightly plasticy, but then if it would be metal they would complain its heavy; so at this price point, go away, NONE) As a dedicated macro lens – indeed the first macro lens for Micro Four Thirds – the Panasonic Leica 45mm f2.8 boasts a closest focusing distance of 15cm allowing 1:1 reproduction. In contrast the Olympus 45mm f1.8’s closest focusing distance is a modest 0.5m, allowing just 0.11x magnification, or a reproduction that’s almost ten times smaller. You can see the difference in practice in my Olympus 45mm f1.8 macro results. To evaluate the real-life performance of the Lumix 42.5mm f1.7 lens, I shot this exterior scene at every aperture setting using an Olympus OMD EM1 mounted on a tripod.

Traveling with a micro four-thirds system means you potentially have the full range of focal lengths while carrying only what’s necessary. And as far as I can judge, there isn’t much loss in quality due to the smaller size of the equipment, compared to other bigger gear.

Product Specification

Falloff of illumination towards the corners is very well controlled, especially so for a fast aperture lens. At f/1.8 the corners are only 0.76 stops darker than the image centre and visually uniform illumination is achieved at f/2.8. The lens has only one control on it, the manual focus ring. The ring is plastic with thin ribs, about 5/8'' wide. The focus ring sits in the center of the lens and is very smooth to turn, yet stiff enough that it will stay where it is set. With its fly-by-wire focusing design, the lens does not have any stops on it to let the user know it has reached either its close-focusing distance or infinity distance. I've used this lens extensively for professional assignments and private commissions, and it has come through every time. Obviously it's designed as a portrait lens, but I also find it great for street photography and reportage (which are typically the realm of 35mm equivalents). It's an absolutely fantastic portrait lens that's also adept at day-to-day photography if you know how to use it. So while this is mainly one for the headshot hunters, it's more versatile than it seems –and if you want to try your hand at portraiture, it's such low price and great value that you can't really go wrong.