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Olympus M.Zuiko 25mm f/1.8 - Review / Test Report |
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Lens Reviews -
(Micro-)Four-Thirds
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Page 1 of 3
Review by Klaus Schroiff, published November 2014
Introduction
There has been a revival of standard prime lenses in recent years and there's also no shortage of them in the Micro-Four-Thirds system. The Panasonic/Leica Summilux 25mm f/1.4 ASPH comes into mind or the Voigtlander Nokton 25mm f/0.95. However, these are rather pricey lenses. In early 2014 Olympus released its first entry into this market segment - the Olympus M.Zuiko 25mm f/1.8. The lens follows the tradition of the M.Zuiko 45mm f/1.8 in being not overly expensive yet fast enough to make a difference compared to the fast zoom lenses of the system.
Please note that while the maximum aperture of f/1.8 is certainly fast with respect to light gathering the depth-of-field capabilities remain limited. On an MFT camera you are are effectively losing about two f-stops in this respect compared to the classic full format. Thus the M.Zuiko 25mm f/1.8 is equivalent to a "50mm f/3.6" as far as the creative potential is concerned. However, this is still sufficient for quite shallow depth-of-field images when keeping a close distance to the main subject in a scene.
The M.Zuiko 25mm f/1.8 is almost indistinguishable from its "longer" cousin (45mm f/1.8). This is good news because the build quality is on similarly high level. The small and light weight lens body looks like high-quality metal but it is actually made of plastic parts based on a metal mount. A barrel-shaped lens hood is included.
The AF motor of the Zuiko has also been optimized for movies ("Movie-Still-Compatible" or MSC). It offers fast and silent AF operations. Manual focusing works "by-wire" so there's no direct mechanical coupling. From a real world perspective there's little difference compared to conventional manual focusing though.
| Specifications |
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| Equiv. focal length | 50mm (full format equivalent) |
| Equiv. aperture | f/3.6 (full format equivalent, in terms of depth-of-field) |
| Optical construction | 9 elements / 7 groups inc. 2xaspherical elements |
| Number of aperture blades | 7 (circular) |
| min. focus distance | 0.25m (1:8) |
| Dimensions (L x W) | 57.8x42mm |
| Weight | 137 |
| Filter size | 46mm |
| Hood | Barrel-shaped, bayonet mount, included |
| Other features | - |
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