Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 25 mm F1.8 Lens, Fast Fixed Focal Length, Suitable for All MFT Cameras (Olympus OM-D & PEN Models, Panasonic G-Series), Black

Product Information

A deep circular hood is supplied with this lens, which does a reasonable job of shading the lens from extraneous light that may cause issues with loss of contrast or flare. Even without the hood in place, this lens is very resistant to flare and contrast levels hold up well when shooting into the light.

Olympus 25mm f1.8: So good! - Focus Review Review Olympus 25mm f1.8: So good! - Focus Review

A vast majority of the time, it nailed the focusing with no problems. Additionally, we usually shot at f1.8. The fact that we’re shooting at f1.8 on a Micro Four Thirds camera translates into approximately f3.5 on a full frame camera. The reason for this is because of the size of the sensor. In effect, this means that at any given aperture, much more will be in focus with a Micro Four Thirds camera than with a full frame DSLR or mirrorless option. The Olympus M.ZUIKO Digital 25mm f/1.8 lens takes small 46mm filters, and comes with a standard Micro Four Thirds mount that is, thankfully, made of metal. This is good news given that the lens construction is predominantly plastic. Olympus does not claim any sort of weather resistance for this lens, and indeed you cannot see a rubber seal around the mount. 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. The 25mm f1.8 would be a definite improvement over what you now have, and a good walkaround lens if you don't mind the single focal length. If you don't need the capabilities of a true macro lens, it's a good choice. As an aside, the 25mm is a true "normal" lens on m4/3 (22.5mm diagonal of the imaging rectangle) v. 35mm on the 35mm film/full frame digital format (36mm diagonal): 50mm, which we've come to think of as "normal" on the latter format, actually is a slightly long focal length. Add to that the slightly chunkier proportions of m4/3, and your perspective will be slightly different from what you're used to (if you are used to it) with the 35mm film/50mm lens combination.

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Olympus M.Zuiko 25mm f/1.8 - Review / Test Report - OpticalLimits Olympus M.Zuiko 25mm f/1.8 - Review / Test Report - OpticalLimits

For me this Olympus 25mm f/1.8 is a very welcome addition to the system. I like it more than the Panasonic 25mm, because it's cheaper, smaller, lighter and the aperture doesn't rattle. In real life image quality is about the same. Highly recommend standard lens! Has solid build, despite being plastic and light. The "decorative cap" is more snug, less inclined to fall off as compared to the Olympus 45mm lens The first immediately noticeable thing about the focus of this lens is the high, very regular sharpness. The sharpness in the in the center is actually equal to the sharpness in the corners – from full aperture on. That is a very good performance and increases the usability of this lens. Many other lenses at full opening have clearly softer corners. Where sharpness is concerned, you’re completely free to choose any aperture between f/1.8 and f/11. The amount of sharpening is partly a matter of personal taste. For my taste, standard jpg files of the Olympus OM-D E-M10 are slightly too sharpened. But there are many photographers who will find that really beautiful. Examine the image below at 100%, and form your own opinion.Olympus OMD EM5– Most folks own the EM5, and believe us when we say that you won’t want to take the lens off the camera. Please Support The Phoblographer Less color fringing than the Panasonic even when both are shot on a Panasonic body (I tested both on my GX7 as well as E-M1) As we get to smaller apertures, the Panasonic retains a slight lead in the center at f/2.5, but by f/3.5, the lenses are just too similar to worry about. Likewise in the corners, the Olympus stays visibly sharper throughout, though by f/3.5 the differences are extremely small. With the Olympus M.ZUIKO Digital 25mm f/1.8 wide open, you can see some light fall-off in the corners, but it’s not too excessive, as you can see in the macro example below. Stopping down to f/4 cures this problem almost entirely.

Review: Olympus M.Zuiko 25mm f/1.8 - Admiring Light Review: Olympus M.Zuiko 25mm f/1.8 - Admiring Light

Sharpness.BOTH of these lenses can render a super sharp image. BOTH have slightly different color and contrast signatures though. I would say that the Olympus is just as sharp as the Panasonic..well, 99.5% as sharp when both lenses are shot at 1.8. I’d say the Panasonic has a little bit better Micro Contrast though as when looking at some real world street shooting files on my 27″ display I see it. This is a sign of a very good lens, and is one area where Leica excels with their uber expensive lenses. For example, the Leica 50 Summicron f/2 has amazing micro contrast and one of my all time favorite Leica lenses for the M system ( or Sony A7). The Panasonic 25 1.4 is a Leica/Panasonic collaboration so it shares some of that Leica magic. I used to think it did not but it does indeed though not to the level of true Leica glass. The difference is not huge between the Panasonic and Olympus by any means but you can see it when pixel peeping. So because of this, For overall performance and sharpness, the Panasonic wins. In short, I don't feel the need to stop the lens down for better image quality. When you do stop it down one or two notches, sharpness and contrast get slightly better. Again, I think it's perfectly fine at f/1.8.This lens features superb IPX1-equivalent splashproof and dustproof performance and freezeproof performance to 14°F for the ultimate reliability unique to the M.Zuiko PRO series. When paired with the Olympus OM-D E-M1 and E-M5 series, you can have peace of mind using this lens in punishing environments such as rain and snow. Fluorine coating is used on the front lens for easy cleaning in rainy, snowy, or dusty environments. Filter Support Bokeh is a word used for the out-of-focus areas of a photograph, and is usually described in qualitative terms, such as smooth / creamy / harsh etc. In the M.ZUIKO Digital 25mm f/1.8, Olympus employed an iris diaphragm with seven rounded blades, which has resulted in quite nice bokeh, at least in our opinion. However, recognising that bokeh evaluation is subjective, we have provided a few examples for your perusal. Olympus OMD EM1– The company’s current flagship OMD camera is also the one that it will focus fastest with as well have the best image quality with. Look at that image above and seriously tell me that you wouldn’t expect to see something like this on a Tumblr blog or Food blog? The colors are insanely accurate right out of the camera and if you process them more in Adobe Lightroom 5 you’ll deliver something even better.

Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 25mm F1.8 Black For Micro Four Thirds Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 25mm F1.8 Black For Micro Four Thirds

While in line with this thinking, one can then make a logical conclusion that it’s tougher to get something out of focus with a Micro Four Thirds camera than it is with a full frame or APS-C offering–and they’d be completely correct. The blue column represents readings from the centre of the picture frame at the various apertures and the green is from the edges. Averaging them out gives the red weighted column. However, when working with Olympus’s sensors, we recommend not boosting the overall saturation and instead doing it by color channel. Color FringingThere is a light amount of chromatic aberration seen at all apertures, but it's mostly only noticeable in the corners and only in areas of high contrast. The effect is a light magenta fringing, and it's probably only visible by viewing 100% crops. Overall, it's very minor -- averaging around 300ths of a percent of frame height -- and something a little post-processing would clear up easily. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc.