OLYMPUS M.Zuiko Digital ED 12-40mm F2.8 Pro Lens, for Micro Four Thirds Cameras

Product Information

Off center performance is good enough that I’m not at all reluctant to put subjects well off center. Yes, this is the full frame I took. Further out is the smaller, metal-ribbed focus ring, which is about half an inch wide. It rotates easier and smoother than the zoom ring. When you want manual focus, pull the ring toward you to engage manual focusing and reveal the focus distance scale. The focus ring will rotate indefinitely when using autofocus but will rotate about 90 degrees in manual focus with hard stops at either end. There are two rings on this lens, the zoom ring and the focus ring. The zoom ring is located closer to the camera body and is about one inch long and has metal ribbing for an easy grip. It rotates smoothly, but has a nice resistance, which is stiff enough that it won't creep, but it definitely takes two fingers to rotate. This lens, while an internally focusing lens, is not an internally zooming lens, and will extend while zooming. It actually extends ever so slightly from 12mm until about 18mm, then from 18mm onwards, it extends more significantly, about an extra inch or so. With a FF camera, as @NZ Scott says, you can just up the ISO 2 stops and still come out with a very good image and equal or better noise.

In terms of features, the M.ZUIKO Digital 12-40mm f/2.8 Pro lens has quite a lot to offer. For starters, it has a so-called L-Fn button, which allows users to temporarily suspend continuous auto focus when something suddenly comes between the lens and your intended subject. This is mostly useful when shooting a movie clip with C-AF enabled, but the feature can also be used when photographing action. Make no mistake, this is one of the best kit lenses you’ll ever get your hands on. But if you do, you’ll desperately want to supplement it with OM System’s beautiful Pro-level prime lenses. You’ll also want to get more zoom lenses at the longer end because they’re just that great.Tipping the scales at 382 grams and measuring 84mm in length and 70mm in diameter, the Olympus M.ZUIKO Digital 25mm f/1.8 is quite a substantial standard zoom lens, but given the constant f/2.8 maximum aperture, that's perhaps no surprise. When it's zoomed out to 40mm, it measures nearly 13cms in length.

The Olympus 12-40mm f/2.8 is a lens that fills a need for a lot of shooters, and I’m happy to report it does so with excellent quality. The lens is simply brilliantly sharp across the frame right from wide open and at all focal lengths. It’s really hard to ask more from a zoom. It might be the overall sharpest standard zoom I’ve had the pleasure to use. No one is saying the exposure changes when you engage a crop mode. In fact that article and several of my comments spell out that the standard exposure model is designed to work across formats. Regardless of what someone's typed into Wikipedia, f-number has no direct connection to shutter speed: it's mediated through ISO, which assumes you care about how much light per sq cm your sensor is receiving, not how much light per portion of the final image your sensor is receiving.A retracting mechanism makes this the world’s most compact, lightweight model as a fixed aperture value, 300mm equivalent (35mm equivalent) telephoto zoom lens, measuring approximately 99.4 mm long (124 mm long when in use) and weighing approximately 382 g, making it amazingly compact and lightweight. The lens was designed with a focus on ease of use when shooting and is equipped with a mechanism that makes it possible to retract and store the lens simply by turning the zoom ring. It also uses an inner zoom system that keeps the lens length the same across the entire focal length, suppressing center of gravity changes while zooming. Using compact, lightweight lenses in the front drastically reduces the feeling of heaviness, eliminating the long lens barrel and weight at the front of the lens, which is common to telephoto lenses, making shooting easier and more well-balanced. In terms of the optical construction, the new Olympus 12-40mm ƒ/2.8 Zuiko PRO is comprised of 14 elements in 9 groups, with two EF elements, 1 EDA lens, 2 HR lenses, 1 HD lens, 1 DSA lens and 2 aspherical lenses. It has a 7-bladed circular aperture that stops down to ƒ/22. Its IP53-rated seal protects against ingress of dust and water, and the lens is freezeproof down to 14°F / -10°C. This enables you to shoot in the most inhospitable environments, whether that's dust, rain or snow.