First Looks: Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 45mm f/1.8
The Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 45mm f/1.8 is a beautiful Micro Four Thirds lens that is perfect for portrait shooting. The fast f/1.8 aperture lets you grab quick shots in low-light and also pleasingly blur backgrounds to emphasize your subject. Here's a quick look at how the lens performs.
Introduction
The Micro Four Thirds mirrorless system is enjoying a bumper crop of native lenses, twenty five in total at the time of this writing. While a large choice of lenses may not be a big deal for casual users, it's an important factor for enthusiasts when choosing which system to invest in. In comparison, the Samsung NX system has ten native lenses in their list, the Sony NEX has seven, and the Nikon 1 has four lenses.
Besides the M.Zuiko Digital ED 12mm f/2.0, the other Micro Four Thirds prime lens Olympus introduced this year is the M.Zuiko Digital 45mm f/1.8. Where the 12mm provided a wide 24mm field of view (when you take into account Micro Four Thirds 2x crop factor), while the 45mm is a tight 90mm. It's close to the classic 85mm focal length, which is often used for portraits because the flattening of perspective at that focal length is flattering to features. Not to mention the wide f/1.8 maximum aperture, which gives you a soft, blurry background thus focusing a viewer's attention directly on your subject.
It also shouldn't hurt that Olympus' 45mm prime is a beautiful looking lens with an attractive silver finish.
Design & Handling
The Olympus 45mm is not a big lens, it's comparable in size to the standard Olympus 14-42mm kit lens. It isn't as complicated a design as the 12mm; the manual focus ring doesn't slide back to reveal distance and depth of field indicators like the 12mm. The silver finish is metal-like, but it's not constructed out of metal, and feels a little light in the hands, not as solid as the Olympus 12mm (maybe that's why it's half the price). Still, that doesn't detract from the fact that this is an attractively-designed lens.
A Movie & Still Compatible (MSC) mechanism, similar to the 12mm, provides high-speed, near-silent auto-focus, which is especially important when shooting video, as you don't want the footage to pick up sounds from the auto-focus motor.
Micro Four Thirds lenses, when compared to other mirrorless systems like Sony NEX or traditional D/SLR camera systems, are smaller and easier to carry. With the Olympus 12mm and 45mm, plus the Panasonic Leica DG Summilux 25mm f/1.4, it's now quite possible to carry a camera and essential primes around without too much of a strain. That's quite amazing when you think about it.
The 45mm lens is small and compact. Here it is compared to a standard Olympus 14-42mm kit lens, and a 40-150mm telephoto lens.
The 45mm when mounted on an Olympus E-P3. The lens doesn't add much size to the camera.
The Olympus E-P3 with a standard 14-42mm kit lens mounted (lens is retracted). It's very similar in size to when the 45mm is attached.
Image Performance
The Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 45mm f/1.8 makes for a great portrait lens. The longer the focal length, the more perspective is flattened. With a 90mm equivalent, a person photographed with the lens looks more natural than when photographed with a shorter focal length (see below for examples). The f/1.8 aperture setting provides a pleasingly blurry background, providing more depth to the image and drawing attention straight to your subject. The 90mm equivalent focal length also lets you stand a comfortable distance away from your subject while shooting.
Sharpness from edge to edge looks to be best from f/4.5 to f/6.3. To be honest though, that's only when we zoom down to 100%, corners look fine anywhere from f/2.8 to f/8.0 when viewed at normal distance. Background blur - or bokeh - is pleasing to the eye, and the background can remain pleasingly blurry up to higher aperture settings. The Olympus 45mm f/1.8 produces beautiful images, and should be a welcome addition to any Micro Four Thirds collection.
A simulated portrait shot at 35mm with a different lens.
A simulated portrait shot with the Olympus 45mm. See how the longer focal length (90mm in 35mm equivalent) flattens the perspective, giving the features a more natural and pleasing look.
A quick f/1.8 lens also lets you grab shots in low light with a faster shutter speed, decreasing the risk of a blurry shot. This was shot at night at 1/80 sec. Note that you have a very shallow depth of field, so your focus will have to be spot on.
f/1.8 at 90mm (35mm equivalent).
f/4.0 at 90mm (35mm equivalent).
f/8.0 at 90mm (35mm equivalent).
Sample Photographs
These are sample photographs shot with the Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 45mm f/1.8 lens. The photos have not been post-processed and are copyright to SPH Magazines. They are provided for your reference only and we ask that you do not reproduce them elsewhere. Click for the full-resolution images.
f/1.8 at 90mm (35mm equivalent), 1/640 sec, ISO160.
f/2.2 at 90mm (35mm equivalent), 1/1600 sec, ISO160.
f/1.8 at 90mm (35mm equivalent), 1/1000 sec, ISO200.
f/1.8 at 90mm (35mm equivalent), 1/100 sec, ISO1600.
f/8 at 90mm (35mm equivalent), 1/2 sec, ISO1600.
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