DxOmark (Click here) tested the MFT lenses on the new E-M1. Again no surprise to see the best lens is the Olympus 75mm f/1.8. But how does the lens score when comparing the E-M1 and the GH3? Here are the results:
E-M1 Store Links:
Olympus E-M1 body at Amazon, Adorama and BHphoto, Amazon DE (via DL), Amazon UK (via DL), Amazon ES (via DL), WexUK, Topshot FI, CameraWorldUK.
Olympus M. Zuiko Digital ED 12-40mm f/2.8 PRO Lens at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, AmazonDE (viaDL), Amazon ES (via DL).
Olympus E-M1 with 12-40mm Lens kit at Amazon DE (via DL), WexUK and CameraWorldUK, Amazon UK (via DL), Amazon ES (via DL).
Olympus E-M1 with 12-50mm Lens kit at Amazon DE (via DL), WexUK, CameraWorldUK, Amazon UK (via DL), Amazon ES (via DL).
Olympus EP-13 Eyecup for E-M1 at Adorama and BHphoto.
Olympus HLD-7 Battery Grip for E-M1 at Amazon, Adorama and BHphoto.
Olympus LC-62D Metal Front Lens Cap for 12-40mm at Adorama and BHphoto.
Olympus LH-66 Lens Hood for 12-40mm at Adorama and BHphoto.
78 Responses
Own or have owned all but the 75, 60 and 20 II, and this is basically how I would rank them as well.
The Olympus 17mm F1.8 that bad? Really? I just ordered one for the E-M1?
Steve Huff felt that initially it got a bad press but when testing it on the E-M1 he seemed to think that it really came into its own.
Basically the 20mm seems to beat it for sharpness and price. Also expectations were very high after the 12 and 45mm lenses so… it’s been deemed as a let down but in use and on the E-M1 you should be very happy with it.
P.S, it does render out-of-focus items well for that focal length, something that’s often overlooked, I don’t know if DxO go into that?
the more I read Steve Huff…the less I listen to him
I know what you mean, I wouldn’t base any purchasing decisions on his opinions but I like how forthright he is and he supplies good photos to form you own opinions on in his reviews. Plus he speaks a lot about how a camera handles and shoots and with next to no camera brick-and-mortar stores by me, that’s handy.
In reply to Tom about Steve Huff – no point in reading his lens reviews, all his work is ‘central subject +bokeh or darkness’. Any lens will pass those tests!
No, it’s a good lens. It’s sharp center, but corners aren’t wide open. not as sharp in the center as the 20mm. People were expecting a superb lens, they instead got a “very good” one instead.
Yep, optically its very good. Is the 20/1.7 better? Probably, I’ve owned both (own the 17 now) and did not notice a difference. What is noticeable is the silent and fast AF of the 17/1.8 as well as the better build and snap manual focus.
The 20/1.7 is smaller, cheaper, and optically better by some small and mostly meaningless measurement (may show up in test charts, but I haven’t seen a difference in real use).
Yes the 20mm optically is better. However, I still prefer the 17 over the 20, mainly because in real world use it’s not that noticeable of a difference, and the AF speed blows the 20mm out of the water.
I have the pana 20mm 1.7 for some time. I got the 17 1.8 because I wanted faster AF to track my kids indoor. I ended up returning the 17. I much prefer the looks and build quality of the black 17mm I had. The sharpness was good, the brokeh was nice, the AF is silent and quick to move but here’s why I stick with my 20 pana:
1. I find it much sharper than the 17
2. It fits well with my E-PM2, makes it compact, well proportioned
3. AF is good enough.
The main issue I thought I had with AF on my 20 was in very dim light, where it would hunt a couple of times before locking the focus. With the 17, I had the same hunting problem, and even though the motor moved quicker, both have about the same time to lock the focus.
Then I was hoping to get better result on moving objects indoors normal low light. The 17 has a slight advantage, but it wasn’t a clear winner.
Indoors low lights with steady objects, both perform equally when the objects are already close to in-focus, which is normally the case: I usually, pre-focus my frame to compose, then focus and shoot (usually with the touch screen) when I have the perfect frame and moment. There is almost no hunting on both lenses. Same goes with great outdoor lighting.
When shooting videos, the 17 has some better continuous AF, although it’s not great, but I don’t shoot much videos.
The only situation where I found that the 17 had much better performances is to lock the focus when you focus on a close object while having the lens set to infinity or vise-versa, but that’s not a situation that I came across in real life that had any use.
It is not a very good lens , but simply an average quality lens… There is nothing special about it except that it replaces outright failure like 17/2.8
That sounds more precise.
I’ve seen photos of both lenses, and strangely, they look better than the numbers would suggest. In fact, I’d guess that, with care, you can make most of the micro Four-Thirds lenses work decently, even though they seem to be more about compact dimensions and low weight than image quality.
So, it gets a better score than any m43 zoom lens including the expensive Panasonic and Olympus high end ones and it is an ‘average’ lens. Those zooms must be unusable then.
This is just because DXO global score method is giving more weight to the center of the image at faster aperture. To get a real view of their comparative strengths and weaknesses, you have to look at the detailed results if you prefer uniformity of sharpness in the whole field and usually shoot at F4 for max DOF and sharpness, you may come to different results.
Hey Tom..”really that bad”??? It is rated as 6th out of ALL MFT AF lenses!!!…and those are some damn good lenses ahead of it…..I have ALL of the lenses above the Oly 17mm and then I bought the Oly 17mm in my E-P5 Kit…
In less than a month I sold my 20mm Panny for two reasons:
1. It’s say classic focal length and fits in right between my Panny 25mm and 14mm. (I did not think that the 20mm got me wide enough from the 25mm).
2. The AF Ion the 17mm is sooooooooooo much faster than the Panny 20mm that it made it really easy to let the 20mm go.
The 17mm is the lens that sits on my EP5 as my starting point. Always. It’s a great lens!
Its a great Lens, just not better than the 20mm. All tests prove that.
The 17mm is better “for my needs”. I think that I stated that very clearly.
The new edition of the 20mm focuses much faster, so that point of your decision is moot. (i.e. you could have fixed it with a new 20 or a new 17)
The new one seems to focus a bit faster but certainly not as fast as the 17/1.8 by far. Seeing how the new version still racks the entire optical assembly back/forth it would be really strange if that were any different.
So no, the ‘new’ version does not address this sufficiently, it would have to use an internal focus mechanism for that.
Its af is fast enough for you? Great, but that is not the same thing at all.
I own both the 17/1.8 and 20/1.7 and I’d say they are about equal. I use them on an E-P5. Both can produce stunning images.
It’s give and take: the Panasonic is slightly smaller, but the Olympus focuses much faster. I really love the rendering of the Panasonic, but the Olympus can look really great as well. And both are very sharp, no matter what reviews say.
Nevertheless, if you want ultimate image quality, get the 25/1.4 instead.
The 17mm f/1.8 is not that bad. It’s even worse. Very ordinary optically for a non-pancake prime lens, but very impressive in AF and in its looks.
Puzzling note… Several of the best m4/3 lenses score higher sharpness scores when tested on E-M5.
It is a shutter shock, so no wonder
I was surprised too. Is it due to the pixels sacrificed for PDAF ?
Shouldn’t the 12-40 be on there?
It is, shouldn’t you read the source article before commenting 😉
http://www.dxomark.com/Reviews/Best-lenses-for-the-Olympus-OM-D-E-M1-Short-telephoto-and-standard-focal-lengths/Best-zoom-lenses-for-the-Olympus-OM-D-E-M1
There is nothing “real world” about DXO. I recently picked up the 17 1.8 for $299. I think it’s well worth it. It’s fast and sharp. Perhaps the 20 is a little more sharp, but the AF is awful on that lens when light gets a little low. What good is a sharper lens if it can’t lock focus properly? The biggest mistake Panasonic made on the second iteration was not addressing the focus speed.
And another thing. People focus (pardon the pun) too much on these tests. Even the crappiest of kit lenses can beat any of these lenses if the photo is well composed and properly exposed. These lenses simply allow us a better chance at getting THE shot.
+100 on everything that you said……but I think if your photo is well composed and properly exposed that if the image is taken with one of these primes, it will be a notch above any of the kit lenses, especially I’m a decent size print is made from the file…..
I have no doubt about 75mm lens being the sharpnest in the test till the arrival of the Noticron , things might change around .
I owed the 3 top lenses here & really enjoyed it here .
Will post some photos later to support my claims .
@Yun, I really enjoyed the 18 months of “if only x camera had y feature I would buy it” from you. What camera body did you end up with in the end? I recall you demanding IBIS from Panasonic (and me thinking “Never gonna happen”), so did you get the GX7?
I am sure all m43 primes do very well(though i have only owned 3 mft primes sofar), sometimes you must not let yourself guide too much by numbers only, except when there is alot of price difference ofcourse.
They don’t talk about pana 14mm 2.5
Ilya closed the very nice series “Some Portraits from Russia” due to “disagreement with the policy of (DPR m4/3 forum) moderation”, according to Ilya’s thread. Also according to Ilya, Jalywol was involved.
Ilya posted a new thread stating where we can see the continuation of the project a short while ago and the thread got deleted very quickly.
Sad!
(I am not Ilya. Of course I cannot tell you what name I used at DPR or else I will get axed! I was just reading the threads earlier and saw all these happening. Captured some screen shots too.)
DPR µ43 forum is run by Panasonic psychopaths.
Also, that forum should be renamed to “Panasonic Micro Four Thirds vs Olympus OM-D E-M1”
Wow, that is sad, I dont know what happened as I tend just to look at his stunning pictures made with the Helios etc. But now you made me curious.
Do you have a link to his website ? So that we can judge by ourselves ?
DPR forums are a cesspool but that “Some portraits from Russia” series is the best thing I ever saw there.
I bet some people got jealous that’s why we can’t have nice things anymore
wow I had no idea what was going on there
Ilya will be missed
That’s too bad about the Ilya thread; I hadn’t noticed the deletion. When the mods delete something an explanation should be given to the originator, with the provision that the information can be relayed to other members if the member wishes.
I’ve often wondered what kind of vetting is done on the moderators, what kind of qualifications are required, and how much Jeff Bezos is paying them.
Jeff Bezos is what he is, but dpreview forums have always been like that. Even back in the earliest days, Phil Askey himself already used to enforce his stupidly strict posting rules (no links to competing sites!) with an iron fist and to personally threaten users rudely with bans…
I managed to capture a few screen shots of the thread deleted by a DPR m4/3 moderator:
http://public.fotki.com/FairPlayer/new-mod-action/
(I get permanently banned by Aleo or Jalywol earlier this year for commenting on their moderation practice.)
Thanks for posting that; I checked them out. Would really like to investigate but also don’t want to be banned because, despite negative things like this, I really like the website and learn a lot there. Maybe I’ll have to turn on my VPN and register a disposable membership.
I wish the 17mm f1.8 had an IQ output like that of 75mm: I would have paid the extra price of better glass and carry the extra weight.
It was a quite expensive lens, and first reviews were not so pleased about it.
Let’s had the lack of metal (and expensive) official Olympus hood, and here we are, still pointing fingers at how “bad” this little lens is.
It’s not a bad lens at all, it’s really better than the plastic pancake, and I’m enjoying it.
It gave me some really nice photos, I love its fast AF, smooth out of focus rendering and lightness: if I need a heavier and better option I use Voigtländer 17.5mm.
Just look at the ‘numbers’ in DXO comparing Nikon to Canon cameras. Then shoot a Nikon and a Canon camera and compare the images. It’s enough to tell you that DXO scores are nonsense, and they probably post scores based on money they squeeze out of Nikon.
Mike, honestly I have never looked at DXO charts, since I don’t understand how they test lenses ad give numbers away. Plus, much more important, I prefer to see a great picture, period.
I have never asked a chef what kind of pots he was usìng when he was cooking my dinner..
Back in June, I captured how Aleo moderated a thread.
He praised the new Panasonic 20mm and get challenged.
Just before he locked the thread, he praised the lens again.
And then he deleted all the negative comments.
And finally, he deleted the thread.
http://public.fotki.com/FairPlayer/old-mod-action/
(Some of you may notice that I have a 3rd album containing another set of screen captures that caused me banned permanently. Somehow, those captures in that album are not showing.)
There are no captures in that third album. Could it be possible that dpreview made Fotki delete them? Have you asked Fotki about the images?
It’s a shame that in so-called democratic countries freedom of speech dies at the will of any bully who happens to call himself or to be made moderator…
I believe that, although part of the Jeff Bezos empire, DPreview is actually based in Pyongyang, therefore creating a wall protecting them from lawsuits (and unhappy Amazon stockholders) over the actions of some moderators. In fact, I also read that one moderator was ordered shot by Kim Jung Eun for admitting he made a mistake and apologizing to a poster. His family members were banished to an internment camp called East Gary, I think.
The mod aleo is a panasonic shill. Nobody culd make 300 posts per week unless they were getting paid. The jallywol one banned me for telling him to fuck off and stop stalking me. I believe they are sending spam to my yahoo.
@DonTom
I’m currently holding a GX7 .
The EM1 should be a close if I don’t mind about good looking & stylus camera .
Just in case anyone is interested the only prime there that is relatively hot spot free for Infrared work is the Panasonic 20mm f1.7, particularly when shot at f2.8 which still gives you hand holdable shutter speeds on an Oly body with 5-axis IBIS.
I have read that also 17mm f1.8 works well with infrared filters (here’s one of my fav shots)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/marcosartoriphoto/8922183439/in/photostream
On the other hand I have read (and test for myself) that 60mm is not so good at it.
Thanks Marco, I had not tested that one personally, I will follow up and see if I can find some more examples. Do you know if what F stop it can be used an remain hot spot free?
I keep wondering how a site can be taken seriously that measures sharpness in megapixels…
DXO taken seriously? OK, by some people but definitely not me. I trust Photozone and Lenstip, and take care with many other reviewers, especially DXO.
Actually DxOmark explains pretty well how they arrive at that “sharpness” number and they call it acuity in their graphs. Optical designers use MTF over a frequency range to quantify resolution, but I think it’s reasonable to try to condense that into a single figure of merit for the general public. Call it MP, or whatever, that’s just a unit.
The only number they publish that is completely useless is the total score. There are just too many different use scenarios to ever arrive at one single number.
I look at their field maps for the different aperture I’m interested in. But their global sharpness score is too heavily weighted toward the center of the field and toward faster aperture. For those who care more about sharpness uniformity from corner to corner and for the optimum aperture to get it, the global sharpness score isn’t that useful.
None of the voigtlanders make it to the top eight?
I think DXO tests only electronically coupled lens, so no Voigty there.. I might be wrong though.
DXO is relevant – I owned/own five of the above 8 lenses and DXO ratings are very much in line with my experience of those lenses.
It sometimes commentators at this blog feel if there is a lens better than lens A, lens A is poor – very wrong.
The comparison 75mm on GH3 and EM1 is interesting and shows the EM1 sensor/processor delivers better (resolution). It should as it is new and GH3 is two(?) years old.
I believe DXO “sharpness” in reality shows a combination of sharpness and resolution, hence larger sensor systems shows higher “sharpness”. (I own both m43 and FF)
the better sharpness numbers for larger sensors come about because it is easier to design lenses for larger sensors, because you don’t need quite as low an f-number to get the light. if you compare primes with similar f-number and price, they are not so different in resolution between m43 and ff.
Sorry Sebastian, but my practical experience is very different from what you say. Also is the logic. 36 mpix means lots more resolution than 16 mpix. The FF sensor area is close to four times of m43. Neither of these facts can be ignored by any thinking human being.
My take is that “sharpness” is rather close between m43 and FF while “detail” is different. “Resolution” is a combination of sharpness and detail.
We also have to consider the processor and, most important of all, the code. Olympus, like Nikon and Fujifilm are very strong in coding. Sony has been behind in this area, but seems to be catching up with the RX100,RX1 and A7(r) cameras.
sure, if the sensor resoltion is better you need better lens resolution to make the best of it, and that makes for a tougher design problem. But for equal sensor resolution and equal f-number I don’t see why anything other than linear scaling should apply. so at the equivalent focal lenth (half for m43 comapred to FF) the same design works for m43 and FF. OK, I do optics professionally, but not camera lenses, so I’ll be the first one to say you know it better if you have practical design experience in that field.
Making lenses for big systems is easier…
That is more then a bit of a simplification really.
– for getting more lines/height, yes, its easier, has nothing to do with the silly light argument however. Its simply that you need fewer lines/mm to get the same lines/height, as you simply have more mm.
– for getting better corner to corner performance? nope, actually more difficult
– for getting fast lenses? nope again, actually more difficult
Generally, its easier to get more lines per height, but its more difficult to get things out of center well corrected.
The 1MP of sharpness score less for the GH3 is probably nothing other than its (useful) AA filter. Although it could be a different sample of the Oly lens being used, not quite as sharp.
I made a price/Mpix ratio, that gives us the best affordable lens in terms of sharpness, and it is the Sigma 60mm f2.8.
Which for people with limited budget might be interesting to know.
lens price score mpix price/score price/mpix
Sigma 60mm F2.8 DN A Micro 4/3 239 21 10 11.4 23.9
Sigma 30mm F2.8 DN A Mount 43 199 18 8 11.1 24.9
Olympus 15mm 1:8.0 Body Cap 79 5 3 15.8 26.3
Sigma 19mm F2.8 EX DN Micro 4/3 166 16 6 10.4 27.7
Sigma 19mm F2.8 DN A Mount 43 199 18 7 11.1 28.4
Panasonic Lumix G 20mm F1.7 ASPH 400 22 11 18.2 36.4
Panasonic Lumix G 20mm F1.7 II ASPH 400 21 10 19.0 40.0
Olympus M. Zuiko Digital ED 45mm f1.8 389 23 9 16.9 43.2
Olympus M.ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 60mm F2.8 m 499 19 10 26.3 49.9
Olympus M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 17mm f2.8 300 15 6 20.0 50.0
Panasonic Leica Summilux DG 25mm F1.4 579 24 11 24.1 52.6
Olympus M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 17mm f1.8 500 22 7 22.7 71.4
Olympus M.ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 75mm F1.8 899 27 12 33.3 74.9
Olympus M. Zuiko Digital ED 12mm f2.0 769 22 10 35.0 76.9
Pana-Leica DG Macro-Elmarit 45mm F2.8 668 18 8 37.1 83.5
crap, the comment got unformatted..
I own the Sigma 60 and 30 Art: The 60mm is great in practical use. The 30mm is decent. Both are a bargain! The 60mm is as sharp as the expensive (relatively 🙂 )45mm in centre. Borders are significantly softer though.
Is it fast to focus?
because in that focal length i have a manual lens, so a 60mm with AF would be mucho welcome, and the 75mm is waaaaay out of my lens roadmap, since you know, being poor and stuff.
I compared the results of the E-M5 to those of the E-M1 and all lenses get better results on the E-M5 than on the E-M1, at least when it comes to sharpness. I wonder why ?
A) this is due to the pixels used for PDAF (so it comes at a price)
B) this is enhanced by the fact that DXO doesn’t weight corner sharpness that much and thus the new algorithms supposed to enhance corners sharpness aren’t really taken in account.
C) DXO used a more severe method of scoring for the E-M1, so the results fir the two kind of cameras aren’t really comparable.
D) Sample variation.
I think it is A). What is your take on this ?
What I think when comparing real world results as well as test images between my E-M1 and 2 E-M5s, that the E-M1 produces sharper pictures especially when also considering out of center parts of the frame, to the extent that for many cases I rather use the E-M1 instead of the E-M5, even when ergonomics, pdaf, c-af etc are not relevant. The 2 exceptions are where compactness is key and when doing long exposures.
Thanks for sharing your experience. I own the E-M5 and was able to test the E-M1 for a short time. I took the same shots with both the E-M1and E-M5 and was under the impression that the E-M1 shot were a little sharper/cleaner. However I made a blunder and only came home with jpegs (didn’t check that the guy in the shop had reset the camera default). So I have no Rawls to compare.
Are you shooting jpegs or raws ? I’m rather surprised by the DXO results. on the other hand I always thought that giving away pixels for PDAF may add difficulties.
I shoot raw + jpeg, use the resulting jpegs 9 out of 10 (or even more), and only keep the raws to ‘deal with trouble’ much of the time.
When I have a bit more time (not today) I’ll take a look at how this works out when exclusively using raws, through I bet the exact converter may matter there. That would simply be Olympus Viewer 3 in my case, which may do the same or similar processing to what the E-M1 does itself.
RAWs converted with olympus viewer give me the same conclusion as ooc jpegs.
You should consider also that Em1 has no AA filter at all, while Em5 has a weak one. I had the same impression: pics on Em1 are a little bit sharper than those taken with Em5, no matter what DXO heads say.
the 75mm f1.8, the 12mm f2 and the 20mmf1.7 are all I need for my GX7 and EM1.
but for work, I still use my D80E and 5D3.
so all camera systems are great, so horses for courses.
personally I think APS-C ,especially the Fuji system dies out pretty soon , there won’t be much life left there.
My real world ranking: (my ply trilogy: 17, 45, 75)
The 17 1.8 is a tricky lens (don’t know why, just doesn’t always get the shot), but it is more fun, more challenging and engaging than the 14, or old 17. And when you get it right, you see the difference. The focus ring, the tactile feel and the quality of production – despite being “made in china” – make it an experience. The 14 seems sharp, and colors are nice, but it seems “cartoonish” in comparison. while it has the pancake advantage, i’m putting up for sale, because the 17 1.8 is just a step above and seems like a classic (I don’t have the 20).
The ply 45 has grown on me. I wish it had a focus ring. I remember thinking, why would I need this 45 1.8 if I have the 4/3 50mm/f2? While the 50 has weather sealing, macro and produces, i’ve heard it said, a “godlike” quality, the 45 is infinitely faster! (and the 50 crawls on the em5–someday i’ll test it on the em1, but it isn’t fast on anything i’m guessing…) the 45 is something like 10 years newer, cheaper, brighter… I finally tested it on the streets at night, and wow! what a compliment to the 17 or 12 for a walk-around street kit… but it can’t go in a snowstorm like the 50 or 12-50/60…
I’d love to test the Voigtlander trilogy to these…or simply add the pant leica 25… thoughts?
The 75… my only complaint was with night shots, it flares (or ghosts?) much more than the 45 imo….
I also have the 12-60, and that is the precision focus, fast, resolution zoom for my kit (well, on the E5)… Can’t decide if i should bother with the 12-40 for the em5 or get the em1 for the 12-60, hahaha… Any comparisons for that one??
Love that every lens has its qualities, and even multiple lenses in similar focal lengths can be rewarding…
ply should be “oly”.. autocorrect or something