Second is the lens hood whose innovative design allows you to retract it over the lens barrel when not being utilised. When extended to its full length, it is long enough to protect the front element from damage while mitigating flare and ghosting.

The one place I feel the OM System 90mm f/3.5 Macro IS PRO loses out to the M.Zuiko 60mm f/2.8 macro is the autofocus speed. Although I give OM System kudos for making a 2:1 macro lens which autofocuses at all, it is still on the slow side. And not surprisingly, it gets worse at 1:1 macro and stronger. Another quirk about the focus limiting switch is that it also changes the maximum aperture. When switched to the macro position, the maximum aperture changes from f/3.5 to f/5.6. Macro lenses in general all have a narrower maximum aperture at their higher magnifications, but this is the first lens where I’ve seen it change so suddenly, rather than a gradual transition. OM-1 + OM 90mm F3.5 @ 90mm, ISO 100, 1/320, f/11.0 Finally, there is the advantage of dust and moisture resistance. Given that many recent Micro Four Thirds bodies are also weather-sealed, you have the green light to shoot in varied conditions, including rain and snow. The lens is built with a metal mount.There are three switches on the side. The top is a focus limiter with three positions: Macro, 0.25-0.5m, and 0.25-infinity. Below is the image stabilization switch with On and Off positions. Below it is an L-fn button which can be customized to your needs.To my eye, the Olympus is ever so slightly sharper, but the differences are close enough that it’s really hard to say for sure that the Olympus is better here. Close focus test – Full image The Lumix G 30mm f2.8 is a macro lens for the Micro Four Thirds system. This means it’ll work on Panasonic or Olympus mirrorless bodies, on which it’ll deliver a 60mm equivalent field of view. Since that’s close to 50mm standard coverage, the lens also doubles-up as a general-purpose prime, but its speciality is close-up photography. This is one of the sharpest lenses I’ve ever used. I was capturing details I never knew existed on animals I have photographed countless times for years. Even after cropping my images significantly, the details remained clear. In fact, the lens is sharp enough that the OM-1’s 20 megapixel resolution was the limiting factor for sharpness, rather than the glass.

At the closest distance, shadows from the lens itself can be a problem, and of course it may not even be that easy to get so close to the subject. Here’s a shot of a ruler taken with the Lumix 30mm from its closest focusing distance where it was difficult not to cast a shadow. I’ve put it alongside a shot taken with the Lumix 42.5mm f1.7 which can focus unusually close for a non-macro lens, but the difference in reproduction (not to mention lighting and shadows) is evident. Previously, I have been working for years with the OM System M.Zuiko 60mm f/2.8 macro lens. At 1:1 magnification, this lens manages a working distance of 8.3 cm / 3.3 inches from the tip of the lens. Although this may sound almost as good as the new 90mm f/3.5 Macro, it’s a bit of an illusion. For lighting purposes, the 90mm lens is far easier to use with an on-camera speedlight, because the lens itself is longer. In other words, it has a much bigger “flash to subject” distance than a shorter macro lens. This offers more room for a larger diffuser, which improves the quality of my light substantially.Beyond my standard gear, I leverage a few other items to produce my macro images. For instance, when I am working with more skittish subjects like butterflies or dragonflies, I’ll pull out the M.Zuiko 40-150mm F2.8 PRO. While not really a “macro” lens, the 40-150 (80-300 FFE) has a short working distance that yields ≈1:4 magnification. Sometimes, I’ll even add the M.Zuiko MC-14 1.4x Teleconverter into the equation. The MC-14 is placed between the camera body and the 40-150mm PRO lens to extend reach (112-420mm FFE). Since it doesn’t increase the minimum focusing distance, the MC-14 gives the lens a slight magnification boost. The Olympus M.ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 60mm f/2.8 Macro Lens is a Micro Four Thirds lens compatible with Olympus mirrorless digital cameras. Being a dedicated macro lens, it lets you take shots at close range in true (1:1) life size, as well as offering you continuous focusing from this distance to infinity. Built with incredible precision, it features an internal focus system with floating lenses that is capable of producing equally high image quality when shooting macro, landscapes, portraits, and more. Create shallow depth of field effects with its open aperture and really show off the contrast between razor-sharp details and circular bokeh that this lens creates. But arguably even more important is the long focal length of 90mm. That’s a 180mm full-frame-equivalent focal length, which makes it one of the longest macro lenses made today. This is important because it offers a huge working distance compared to most macro lenses (AKA the distance between the front of your lens and your subject).

The Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 60mm f/2.8 Macro lens has a combined magnification and distance scale. Somewhat unusually, the scale runs along the longitudinal axis of the lens. There are no depth of field marks. M.Zuiko 30mm f/3.5 E-M1, 1/40, f/8, ISO 200 – M.Zuiko 30mm E-M1, 1/80, f/5.6, ISO 640 – M.Zuiko 30mm E-M1, 1/320, f/3.5, ISO 400 – M.Zuiko 30mm E-M1, 1/60, f5.6, ISO 200 – M.Zuiko 30mm E-M1, 1/4, f/4, ISO 200 – M.Zuiko 30mm E-M1, 1/500, f/8, ISO 400 – M.Zuiko 30mm In short, the OM System 90mm f/3.5 Macro IS PRO is an exceptionally sharp, high-performing macro lens with great usability due to the large working distance. Once you adapt to the peculiarities of focusing with this lens, it’s hard to beat – and I’d say it’s stolen the crown as the ultimate macro lens for the Micro Four Thirds system.

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The 60mm has an aperture range of 2.8 to 22, which provides a little more flexibility than the 3.5 to 22 range of the 30mm. Light transmission performance was the same for both lenses, with the Panasonic Leica lens also measuring 0.4EV lower than the manufacturer’s f/2.8 claim with a 3.2TStop score like the Olympus. The Distortion scores were similar as well with both lenses scoring below the 0.2% threshold, indicating that there was no noticeable distortion measured in either lens. Both lenses displayed slight chromatic aberration with scores of 8µm and 10µm respectively for the Olympus and Panasonic lenses. The Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 60mm f/2.8 Macro has a small 46mm filter thread, which does not rotate on focus. The maximum aperture is f/2.8 but once you enter the close-focus range, the “effective” f-number starts to drop gradually as the reproduction ratio increases, reaching f/5.6 at the close-focus point. This phenomenon is typical of macro lenses and your camera's built-in meter automatically takes this into account when calculating exposure. This lens provides a great combination of great optical performance, lightweight, compact design and value for money.

As you can see above, the Lumix 30mm f2.8 Macro delivers better-defined ‘starbursts’ than the Lumix G 42.5mm f1.7 when both are closed-down to small apertures. When wide-open, there’s the slightest hint of some fringing on the Olympus body I used for testing, but it’s not a serious issue at f2.8 or smaller. Levels of chromatic aberrations are reasonably well-controlled, just exceeding half a pixel width towards the edges of the frame for most apertures. Stopping down beyond f/16 results in a marked increase in fringing towards the edges of the frame, so care may need to be taken photographing high contrast subjects using very small apertures.A weakness with all macro lenses is that, with extreme magnification, the effective aperture gets narrower. Specifically, at 1:1 magnification, the maximum aperture on the lens is effectively f/5.6, resulting in a darker image if you don’t compensate for it. This darkening effect begins to look noticeable around 1:4 magnification. The foundation of my kit is four essential items: my camera, macro lens, flash, and diffuser. Since 2017, I have been shooting with the OM-D E-M1 Mark II. Besides its beautiful image quality, this camera is really compact, weathersealed, has incredible IS, and produces greater depth of field than traditional DSLRs. I also love how customizable it is. By custom setting the C1 position on my Mode Dial, I have all of my favorite macro functions right where I want them. This means you can fill your composition with something that’s a mere 8.5 millimeters wide (about a third of an inch) on a Micro Four Thirds camera. By comparison, a more common 1:1 macro lens can only fill the frame with something roughly 17 mm / 0.67 inches wide on Micro Four Thirds. That’s a huge difference for photographing small, unusual subjects like hairs and pigment cells on tiny animals. OM-1 + OM 90mm F3.5 @ 90mm, ISO 100, 1/200, f/7.1 In terms of depth of field, the macro lenses with the longer focal lengths will deliver a potentially shallower effect, which may sway your choice when shooting at normal distances, but in a macro environment, the depth of field is already so small you may prefer to have all the help you can get. I find that the M.Zuiko 60mm f/2.8 is perfect for my type of photography, which tends to be of small animals – usually reptiles and amphibians. The Olympus M.Zuiko 60mm f/2.8 macro is my go-to lens for these subjects, and has been for many years. I’ve dragged it around the world and always find it very easy to use.