Inside the barrel, the Olympus 25mm ƒ/1.8 lens features 9 elements in 7 groups, including 2 aspherical elements to help reduce aberrations. This is just for a bit of added style, but if you use a lens hood (which is also included in the box) I can see this item getting lost quite easily. On the very end of the lens, Olympus has included a bayonet-style cover ring, or "decoration ring" in Olympus lingo, that's designed to cover the grooves for attaching a lens hood. Being a focus-by-wire system, the focus ring will turn indefinitely with a buttery-smooth feel. The rest of the exterior is very simple with a single focus ring that measures about 5/8-inch wide and textured in small ribs for an easy tactile grip. It takes a bit of effort to mount it onto our Olympus E-M10 camera and feels very secure on the camera - no wiggle or play. The compact design makes it an excellent walk-around, every day lens that's great for portraits and low-light shooting, as well as general purpose photography.Īs for build specifics, the barrel of the Olympus 25mm ƒ/1.8 feels to be constructed from polycarbonate plastic, in either a smooth matte black or a matte silver finish, with a metal lens mount. However, there is a nice solidness and a bit of heft, which gives it an enjoyable, high-quality and well-built feel.īeing such a small lens, it feels excellent and well balanced on any of the Micro Four Thirds cameras, as you would expect - from the small GX1 test camera we use in the lab to larger cameras like the Olympus E-M1. Like many other Olympus Micro Four Thirds prime lenses, the new 25mm ƒ/1.8 lens is very small and lightweight (about 2 inches long and only 136g). (24cm) with a maximum magnification of 0.12x (1:8.3 ratio), and as such, doesn't provide overly good macro performance. The Olympus 25mm ƒ/1.8 lens has a close focusing distance of 9.4 in. Unlike some Olympus primes such as the M.Zuiko 12mm ƒ/2, which uses a focus ring clutch mechanism, manual focus is, instead, enabled by the camera. Manual focusing is also available with this lens using an electrical focus-by-wire system. The AF system is also very fast with no hunting, taking well under one second to sweep from minimum focusing distance to infinity. In our handling experience, the lens is indeed very quiet to focus. The 25mm ƒ/1.8 lens bares Olympus' "MSC" (Movie and Still Compatible) designation meaning the electronic "High-speed Imager AF" system is nearly silent to help avoid picking up focusing noise in videos. On average, the amount of barrel distortion is well under +0.5%, as is the maximum amount of distortion in the corners. The new Olympus 25mm ƒ/1.8 lens is not completely devoid of distortion - showing a little barrel distortion - but the effect is, again, fairly minor. Vignetting steadily decreases to just under 0.25EV once you stop down to ƒ/5.6 and holds fairly constant throughout the remainder of apertures. Wide-open, the Olympus 25mm ƒ/1.8 lens shows a little over 0.5EV of light loss. Overall, it's very minor - averaging around 300ths of a percent of frame height - and something a little post-processing would clear up easily.Īs many fast-aperture lenses tend to show, there is some noticeable vignetting at the wider apertures with this lens. The effect is a light magenta fringing, and it's probably only visible by viewing 100% crops. There 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. However, center sharpness remains excellent throughout the entire aperture range, from ƒ/1.8 onwards until around ƒ/16, when minor diffraction limiting softness appears. However, stopping down this lens improves sharpness even more - and across the entire frame - especially around ƒ/4-ƒ/5.6. Now, there is a hint - ever so slightly - of some corner softness at ƒ/1.8, but it's so minor that it's hardly worth mentioning. Do you want it to be extremely sharp wide-open? Great, then this new Olympus 25mm ƒ/1.8 is the lens for you! Our tests show this lens produces exceedingly sharp images, even at ƒ/1.8, and all the way into the corners. Pre-order from one of our affiliates here:Īre you a Micro Four Thirds shooter who wants a 50mm-equivalent portrait lens with a very fast aperture? OK.
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