Olympus Micro Four-Thirds Lens Round-Up

2011.04.11

A round-up of all current Olympus Micro Four-Thirds lenses was just published at Neocamera. This marks our first lens performance samples, concentrating on sharpness but also touching on vignetting, distortion and build quality.

A round-up, rather than individual lens tests, is extremely useful for choosing between lenses within a system, particularly when we have the luxury of comparing an entire lineup at once. This is because people rarely choose lenses in a vacuum but instead tend to compare then against each other and make decisions based on differences rather than absolute performance measuresments.

The lens sharpness tests follow the a similar model as the sharpness tests that appeared in the Pentax K-7 and Pentax K-5 reviews. Each lens was tested at the limits of its focal-length with one image chosen to represent each available aperture. Since performance can be dramatically different at corners compared to the center, something that is clear from the M.Zuiko lenses compared in the round-up, crops were taken from the center and all four corners of each image. This way, one can see the variance of sharpness at each aperture and note any quality asymmetry.

• Digital Camera
• Lens