Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 12 mm F2.0 Lens, Fast Fixed Focal Length, Suitable for All MFT Cameras (Olympus OM-D & PEN Models, Panasonic G Series), Black

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I almost didn’t include this lens on the list, but that would have been a bit unfair given the unique characteristics this Nokton has to offer. Like the 10.5mm, the 0.95 aperture coupled with Voigtländer’s distinctive colour rendering and bokeh gives your images a different look. It is not as sharp, contrasty or precise as modern digital lenses, but this might be exactly what you are looking for. Although both the M.Zuiko 12mm and Leica 12mm are very enjoyable lenses to use, I would personally recommend the Olympus lens for a number of reasons.

The Best Micro Four Thirds Wide-Angle Lenses for landscapes

f2.8 Fisheye: designed for APS-C format, it is also available with a m4/3 mount but we haven’t tested it yet. I even went so far as to buy Panny’s 24mm (equiv) OVF, the VF1, which they produced for the bottom end of the LX3’s zoom. I use an OVF (a rather expensive Voigtlander) with the Panny 14 — it’s magic! If you get the opportunity to get your hands on to the Panny OVF (or any other 24mm equiv accessory OVF) I recommend giving it a try. More fun that a lot of stuff that’s not even legal! 🙂

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Similarly, it is not easy to preview the narrow depth-of-field that f/2 should provide (but which is considerably diminished by the very short focal length). In short, the f/2 aperture provides a good headline but it is hard to exploit its full potential using an all-electronic camera. Image quality is good, flare resistance is very good for this focal length, distortion is low as is vignetting but I actually expected more from this lens. The standout is the clutch manual focus which despite being fly-by wire provides a great feel and the Olympus system is fantastic implementation of manual focus this type of lens. We tested this lens in combination with the new flagship of the digital PEN fleet; the Olympus PEN E-P3. As you can see, the M.Zuiko 12mm f2 is a perfect fit for that body in terms of size and proportions (and styling as well, if you can get hold of an E-P3 with a silver finish).

Lens Talk: Olympus M.Zuiko 12mm F2 - Blogger ROBIN WONG : Lens Talk: Olympus M.Zuiko 12mm F2 - Blogger

All these factors considered, my advice would be: go for the 12-40mm instead of the 12mm unless youa) want to avoid large lenses at all costs or b) own a small Micro Four Thirds body. Not only is the optical performance marginally better overall but the fact that it is a constant aperture zoom means you can leave it on your camera body and use it for multiple genres, just as we have during the past four years of owning the lens. Certainly the lens hood should be included, as should a bag for the lens. I bought JJC hoods for my lenses and whole they work okay, they’re not as good as the branded ones (and you must not, under any circumstances, try to reverse the 9-18 hood) but having spent serious money buying the Oly lenses, there was no way I was going to unbelt again for the lens hoods. Very balanced, and I agree with what you have said. I finally decided against the f2 12mm, deciding in favor of smallness with the f2.5 14mm (for professional reasons I also have to have the 9-18 zoom, given that there’s no 9mm or 10mm prime, which is what I would really like), but zi looked very closely at it and agonized over it. To me, this lens embodies what the Micro Four Thirds system is all about; high quality compact cameras and lenses. The perfect balance between size, weight and image quality. There are faster wide angle lenses, but these lenses are much bigger, heavier and often very expensive. It can't be compared to a big zoom like the 12-40mm which serves a different purpose. Kowa Prominar 8.5mm f2.8: I saw this lens at the Photography Show in Birmingham 5 years ago but never got the chance to test a full production sample. The 17mm equivalent field of view is interesting but now that the smaller Laowa 9mm is out, I see little reason to get this one, especially considering the high price.Auto focus performance with both lenses is very impressive. Even in low light, each lens snaps into focus in less than a second. One thing that aids in the speed of these lenses is there are no external moving parts meaning the front element does not move. The Panasonic 20mm f/1.7’s front element does move which means slower AF speed when compared to the 14mm. In addition to slower AF speeds, moving front elements make lenses more prone to dust and gunk into your lens. Standard zoom lenses, whether premium or kit, start from 12mm or 14mm. This gives you an equivalent angle of view of 24/28mm which gives you lots of flexibility if you’re interested in landscapes or architecture. Of course you don’t get the extreme view shorter focal lengths can deliver, but you have a longer reach when zooming in.

Olympus M.Zuiko 12mm f/2 Review: the best - MirrorLessons Olympus M.Zuiko 12mm f/2 Review: the best - MirrorLessons

Fashion-conscious people happily spend hundreds of euros extra for nicely made clothes. With photography, that’s less of a given. I know few photographers with a hand-cut, Italian (or British) suit. Given equal quality, we usually choose the less expensive version. That is in this case the Olympus 12 mm f/2, and that is indeed just as good. When fitted to an optical-viewfinder camera, a fast maximum aperture such as the f/2 found on this lens would aid composition under low light levels but the Olympus E-PM1 used for this review has only a rear screen on which to display the view so the f/2 advantage was not readily apparent in this case. A DSA (Dual Super Aspherical) lens element and ZERO (Zuiko Extra-low Reflection Optical) coating is applied to minimize aberrations and internal reflections as much as possible. This lens has little trouble with lateral chromatic aberration, and we did not encounter any disruptive color bokeh. Color boken, that is to say magenta edges at sharp contrast transitions in front of the focal point and green edges at contrast transitions behind the focal point, often appears with bright lenses(

The Olympus 12mm F/2 - Digital Photography Review The Olympus 12mm F/2 - Digital Photography Review

There is no doubt, however, about the exceptionally high sharpness figures that this lens achieved in technical testing. The MTF curve did not dip below the critical 0.25 cycles-per-pixel level (except to an insignificant degree at f/22) and its peak was within 10% of the theoretical maximum level (0.5 cycles per pixel). sample images That's a bit disappointing for a premium fixed-focal lens, although as seen above the automatic correction works well. (By the way if you happen to be a RawTherapee user, entering an amount of about -0.160 in the Distortion field on the Transformations tab has approximately the same effect as the in-camera processing.)The real showstopper with the Olympus is the focus ring. It has a smooth and buttery action, but that’s not what makes this special. At first look, the focus ring seems like any other focus ring, but pull it towards the body of the camera and it will slide down into manual mode—which is pretty sweet. After you slide down the focus ring, you will see distance scales like in old manual focus lenses. Any photographer that is a fan of zone focusing should be very excited with this feature. AF Performance Panasonic GF-1 with Panasonic 14mm. Shot at ISO 500, f/2.5, 1/25 sec. You will not have trouble from vignetting with this lens, whether you shoot in jpg or RAW. Even at full aperture, the vignetting is less half a stop. In comparison: For a standard lens on a camera with a full-frame sensor, one and a half stops, so three times as much, is not unusual. Pure RAW score:This table shows the performance of this lens if the file is saved in the camera as a RAW file. This score approaches the intrinsic quality of the combination of lens and test camera. If you make use of Photoshop, Lightroom or DxO Optics for the conversion of RAW files, then the RAW scores are the same as the jpg scores. The first and most obvious difference between the M.Zuiko 12mm and Leica 12mm is the size and weight. Not only is the latter more than twice as heavy as the former but it is also significantly larger, making it a better choice for mid-sized to large Micro Four Thirds bodies. By contrast, the small and lightweight nature of the Olympus lens means it can comfortably be used on any body, even the tiny Lumix GX850 or Pen E-PL8. You can see how they compare in size to the mid-range Lumix GX85 below. I’ll admit it. I have a huge thing for wide angle lenses. I’ve always been fascinated by the way you can represent the vastness of a place, using the lens’ natural distortion to make interesting compositions, and playing with perspective or tri-dimensionality. Since I first began photographing with DSLRs, I have always made a point to invest in good wide angle lenses. My favourites are the Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 and the Nikkor 24mm f/1.4.