A Micro Four Thirds Standard Zoom Lens Review. I take a look at the features and sharpness as well as distortion and vignetting. The four tested lenses are the Olympus M.ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 12-50 mm 1:3.5-6.3 EZ, the Olympus M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 14-42 mm 1:3.5-5.6 (I), the Panasonic LUMIX G VARIO 14-42mm F3.5-5.6 ASPH. MEGA O.I.S. (I) and the Panasonic LUMIX G VARIO 14-45mm F3.5-5.6 ASPH. MEGA O.I.S.
Hier klicken für die deutsche Version des Artikels.
Features
The Olympus M.Zuiko 12-50mm offers the most feature wise: It is the only non-pro Micro Four Thirds lens that is weather sealed and it has an internal electronic zoom. Further it offers an additional “L-FN” button and a macro mode with roughly a 1:3 reproduction scale. It is also the only of the four tested lenses, which offers 12mm at the wide end.
Both Panasonic lenses feature an optical image stabilization. How useful this is depends on your camera, if it offers in-body stabilization that is compatible with stills and video, the O.I.S. is pretty useless, if your camera has no stabilization it is a must-have for many people. The only difference in features between the two lenses from Panasonic is the physical O.I.S. switch on the 14-45mm. On the 14-42mm you have to turn stabilization on and off in the camera menu.
Least to offer has the Olympus M.Zuiko 14-42mm (I): It is the most compact of the lenses, but its noisy AF-drive and its rotating front element are not state-of-the-art anymore, as the first is bothersome for video recording and the second makes it nearly impossible to use circular polarization filters.
