Image courtesy: Photozone.
–
Klaus from Photozone (Click here) analyzed the Olympus 75mm f/1.8 lens performance. And the conclusion is: “The Olympus M.Zuiko 75mm f/1.8 ED is, by quite a margin, the best micro-four-thirds lens that we have tested to date.” If you know Klaus he is quite sever in his judgments. Olympus really should do more lenses like the 75mm prime!
Lens Price check: [shopcountry 31284].
And ThePhoBlographer (Click here) tested the new 17mm prime lens: “Overall, the Olympus 17mm f1.8 is a solid lens that performed well throughout this test. The autofocus speed is incredible and the overall image quality is very good. It is a bit on the pricey side when compared to the Olympus 17mm f2.8 and the Panasonic 20mm f1.7”
Lens Price check: [shopcountry 34914].
54 Responses
What took Klause soooooooooo long to realize this! 🙂
The 75 is amazing. The 17 is what it is.
Agreed, the 75mm is outstanding (well done Olympus), and yesterday I received my $15.50 JJC metal lens hood (screw you Olympus).
LOL!
I see the 75 has very high mtf scores, much higher then the 45 which i already considered high resolving.
I just realized that they switched cameras in the mft lenses test, going from 12 mp(with which the 45mm was tested) to 16 mp (25mm & 75mm were tested with that one)which explains for a part the very high mtf results of the latter lenses.
I did the same months ago, as soon the hood was available. It’s not mandatory at all to buy original expensive hoods from Olympus.
Mandatory or not is pretty greedy of Olympus to be pulling stunts like this and the “black special editions “.Nikon even gives hoods with its low end models that cost >$120 the only lens they dont seem to have a hood with is the $99 el cheapo kit lens { at 99 bucks I can live with it}
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/207359-GREY/Nikon_1928_AF_Zoom_Nikkor_70_300mm.html
Defending these kind or practices is why the companies get away with it,for me and many a hood is an essential part of a lens purchase allowing us to get the best performance from our glass in some tricky shooting scenarios. It also gives a modicum of protection in some circumstances. If Nikon can throw in a hood on a $120 lens then it does not seem unreasonable for us to expect one on a $900 lens. Other than that i love mine
As an outdoor modelshooter,I consider myself lucky never needing a hood(I use flare sometimes as part of the image and if i dont want it its mostly just a matter of moving a few steps). I feel sorry for the ones who do and need to buy it seperately.
I concur. With the willingness of some Olympus fans to pay ridiculous prices for accessories I am surprised that their imaging division is not making a fortune . Lens hoods are not decorative customisation items but are at least useful for wanking . Cheap Scotsman avoid paying prostitutes and my dick is to tiny to suck myself.
Oh look a coward using someone else’s name to post, if you have anything to say about me then at least have the balls to use your own name {the real one not your many back ups}My only posts here are under this ID , it is not worth signing up with a site that allows you to post using any name.And for a while when you clicked on a response to a signed in post the persons email was shown.So the only question remaining is who you are and that basically boils down to the resident village idiot Declan, or the abuse scumbag Rob , want to own up.
If it consoles you to suggest that I am someone else or have multiple IDs just for the purpose of haranguing you ,good for you.The fly in the ointment with that particular ID is that there are so many people with contradictory views to you that it would be a full time job to keep up with it.Frankly you do such an excellent job of making yourself appear ridiculous that no one else really needs to make an effort 🙂
So you prefer not to buy a lens, in this case 75mm, because there’s no hood included? Wow.. You can hold your position, but it would (and to me it’s) be smarter to buy that lens and then a cheap hood.
As far as black edition lenses, sold as special, at a premium and more expensive price, my PERSONAL opinion is that Olympus has the right to milk customers willing to pay for it. I find silly to buy them, so I don’t buy those special versions. I’m not rich, I hardly earn my money, and I think carefully where to spend them. A special black version? The silver one takes the same photos. Its original metal hood? No, thanks, I pay 5$ for an almost identical hood that does exactly the same job. 780€ (8 months ago) for this silver 75mm? Yes, I haven’t seen anything similar yet around.
It’s things like that which make me not want to buy any micro Four-Thirds lenses, and just use the ZD Four-Thirds lenses I already have.
I find that the Panasonic 7-14mm and 8mm fisheye are good lenses but the ZD 8mm fisheye is weather-sealed and close in price, while the ZD 7-14mm is about US$900 more but weather-sealed, and I can use it on more than one body.
What I’ve seen are too many compromises with the micro Four-Thirds lenses. My GH3 may have firmware corrections for them, but for most of the prices, the lenses should be amazing.
+1 😉
> The Olympus M.Zuiko 75mm f/1.8 ED is, by quite a margin, the best micro-four-thirds lens that we have tested to date
What? Why was I not informed of this?!
Now that I know I can try to take nice photos with it! 🙂
Yes Marco. Its no good seeing what you and others do with the lens that counts. Its being told by someone who has a website that makes the lens work. Until it has been officially endowed with respectability, we all know it wont work properly.
The 75mm is amazing… Price being no exception ;). While I do think that m43 lenses too often trade performance for price, the 45mm shows that there is an excellent middle ground. It might not quite be the 75mm, but at less than half the price it wins in my book.
This one is actually priced right. If you look elsewhere, what lens on any format has an effective aperture of f1.8 and an angle of view of 150mm?
The 17 1.8 on the other hand (35mm f1.8) is very over priced for what it is
Lust.
I know I lotta people hate the DEALS posted on here, but what kinda irks me is review posts of lenses that have been out for quite awhile. Eh, gotta post something I guess.
45mm is a nice lens, but far behind 75mm in every respect.
45mm and 1.8 is really pushing it if you’re after creamy background blur and it can be hard to get decent subject separation.
It’s also very sharp in the corners and it suffers from CA wide and near wide open (not particularly surprising since it’s a common fault with fast primes, including much more expensive ones).
I’d say 75mm is a batter deal for the money if you account it’s properties than the 45mm, despite 75mm being (over) twice the price.
One can compare sharpness, CA, etc between two very different focal lengths…but for me (I own both) the lenses are not swappable at any given moment? Equivalent comparing a 90mm to a 150mm is silly. I may try to work the situation so that I can experience the sharpness and incredible bokeh of the 75mm…but when I need my 45…I need my 45. It a great lens on its own!
45 and 75 mm are two different type of lenses. While i believe the 75 is one heck of a lens, it does not mean the 45 is less. It all depends on your needs. You cant do much with a 75 in a small home studio(the 45 is already a challenge here forfull body shots). If you have a tight budget, the 45 is a MUCH better deal then the 75, even if the latter is superior in mtf values.
It’s also NOT very sharp in the corners and it suffers from CA wide and near wide open (not particularly surprising since it’s a common fault with fast primes, including much more expensive ones).
-corrected 🙂
Who gives a fu@#. They made a lens focal length that not many people asked for, needed, or use. It’s the best though at doing nothing anyone needs. What a marketing triumph.
The fact that they dont cater to your specific needs doesnt mean they arent doing what ppeople want. And the people want faster, longer lenses.
Right on homer.
I use the 75mm quite frequently – just because one clown doesn’t have a need for it doesn’t mean the rest of us dont
So why does Canon/Nikon make a 135mm? Noone mounts a 100mm on a cropped body?
Lenses like this make me dispair with my Pana cam. I’d love to use a lens like this – but stabilized one way other.
Meanwhile, Pana develops the next generation 14-42 kit zoom 5.5. I might be off to Oly, even though i like the G-Panas for their perfect holdability and side-hinging touchscreen.
It’s your money. No one is holding you at gunpoint if you don’t like what Panasonic is doing.
In Panasonic’s defense, I think they’re the ones single-handedly keeping MFT alive in the states.
Merkins have no taste or appreciation of quality.
I have it and use it on panasonic bodies no problem. Nice and sharp photos. But then again im not an idiot who cant set a proper minimum shutter speed and needs IBIS/OIS to breathe.
No, instead you are an idiot who doesn’t recognize the usefulness of a feature.
Prior to image stabilization, we used a wall, a tree, a sign pole to stabilize ourselves in order to get shots. Of course, our equipment was heavy and not micro Four-Thirds light.
You really shouldn’t have any trouble with blurry shots unless you’re on a moving vehicle.
And canon, nikon, sigma, zeiss, sony, pana have a bunch of non is primes and people have been doing fine for years
No, not every picture gains from is, but that doesn’t change it is a very useful tool. For people like you, one of 2 things is true: you are ignorant on purpose because your prefered brand doesn’t have a solution, or you are just too dumb to understand a useful feature when you see one.
I like the image displayed by photozone , a silver GX1 &
the 75mm lens . That is exact what I holding right now with a LVF2 .
I love this lens when come to portraits , it might be a bit long but it doesn’t really matter as long you know how to control the distance when shooting with the lens .
The only thing I have to worry is without IS so have to hold it as well as I can .
The 75mm lens is a lens full of endless praises , hopefully Pana’s 42.5 F1.2 can acheive the same standard or even higher than this lens .
The voigtlanders are pretty good too
Whilst I agree that the three Voigtlanders are great, comparing my Voigt 25 to the Oly 75mm…the 75mm has amazing IQ straight from 1.8 whilst the 0.95 is soft until 2.8 and then never as sharp as the 75mm.
Don’t get me wrong, the Voigtlanders take some beautiful photos and I use them frequently for low light street shoots, it’s just never going to hold a candle to the 75mm’s performance in more controlled and well lit scenes.
…unless you need something other than a 75mm x2 crop
Stupid statement …actually, a little bit of interpretation from the actual review from 43rumors.
Olympus, please take advantage of me an release a limited edition black 75mm kit. I am your humble sucker. I have a felling Panasonic will get my money first with the 42mm though.
It’s your “fault” if you feel the need for waiting and paying more for a black version of it. Of course we are free to ask for purple, yellow, goldish and dot versions, and Olympus is free to ask for a bitter and higher price. Then it’s up to customers to realize if it’s worth or not to spend more money like that.
To me, and for my uses, this lens is great, and there are no similar options from other brands.
I have the 75mm in silver and it seriously stands out too much on the black body, it draws too much attention when what I want to do is remain inconspicuous and record events. For portrait situations this is fine but I don’t use this lens for portraits very often. A black iteration would be nice for us photojournalists that want to use this prime in more situations.
Anonymous, this 75mm let you stay away from the subject enough to go unnoticed. If you need to take a candid face portrait you have to stay quite near the subject, and ask for permission. At least if you want to post his/her face on the web or on a magazine. If you need to ask, then you don’t need to be stealthy. I had to work as photojournalist too, and being stealthy has little to do with a silver lens. I don’t think I’m a ninja, and I don’t have any cloack of invisibility, but from my experience I can tell you that I have never had a problem in using a silver lens or a silver body when out in the streets taking candid photos.
Olympus is just obsessed with releasing EPx and PENx useless cameras. I own the 45mm f1.8, and couldn’t consider the 75mm because of its price. Oly could focus on very fast lenses to really compete with fast DSLR optics.
I’m then still looking forward to seeing the Pana 42mm f1.2, that furthermore is stabilized. For short movies, it would be great, and Oly’s coming 12-40mm f2.8 is useless today as it’s not fast enough and the Pana zoom is already there.
Johnny: I agree that 45mm is a good lens, but I assure you that 75mm is way better. Not only its build construction, but its out put. You should try it in person. Of course it’s more “difficult” to find a use for it on daily walk arounds, compared to 45mm, but if you go to theaters or are into portrait photography, this lens gives you outstanding results. It’s up to you to decide if you need it or not, but in any case it’s a great glass. (Me too I’m curious about Panasonic 42mm f1.2, but given Pana sloooow release times, I’m not holding my breath waiting for it.)
Yeah, the 75mm seems great, but i don’t have the money, and even if i love portrait photography, i’m looking for a lens for video. The 42mm is like never arriving (i’m sad Panasonic marketing is so bad about it).
I’d like to try it, but don’t know where and when.
It’s a bit sad when the number 1 attribute of these lenses is that they auto focus quickly, especially at the high price. They should be nearly perfect.
?
And its very sad when one makes such comments.
Anyone with this lens find they get chromatic aberration? Most reviews I’ve read tend to say it is minimal, but I still find I am getting quite visible purple CA of high contrastish scenes when shooting wide open or f/2 etc.
Nothing that isn’t easily removed post processing, just wondered if this means I have a bad sample or it’s common.
Mooboy, no, I have never found CA with Zuiko75mm. I notice them sometimes on 45mm, on high contrast scenes and open wide, but not on 75mm. I use an OMD-Em5.