The scale on the left side is an indication of actual image resolution. The taller the column, the better the lens performance. Simple. The lens barrel is constructed from high quality plastics, with a glossy finish and the bayonet is metal with a rubber gasket to prevent the ingress of dust and moisture into the camera body. Despite the robust construction the lens only weighs 382g. As far as size and handling are concerned, this lens is a perfect match for the Panasonic Lumix G6 camera body used for testing. While it is a larger lens for Micro 4/3 in comparison to some of the tiny primes, it is not oversized and much smaller than something like the Canon 24-70mm f/2.8. You can carry it attached to your camera all day and not notice the weight. Alongside the OM System OM-1 camera, OM Digital Solutions announced a pair of new lenses for its OM System, the M.Zuiko Digital ED 12-40mm F2.8 PRO II and the M.Zuiko Digital ED 40-150mm F4 PRO. When using both lenses, the kit covers a 35mm-equivalent focal length range of 24-300mm, which is versatile well-suited to many kinds of photographs. Your mistake is forgetting the micro 4/3s sensor is 1/4 of the size, so it doesn't need the same amount of photons to properly expose it. It only needs 1/4 of the photons to expose 1/4 as many photoreceptors.

Panasonic 12-35mm or Olympus 12-40mm? That’s actually a tougher call than it might seem. The Panasonic seems a little more “balanced” between it’s wide and telephoto ends in terms of sharpness. The Olympus beats it at 12mm and f/2.8 but loses to it at 35mm f/4. The Panasonic has more chromatic aberration, though, though their lens corrections do a better job in a number of areas. You can’t really fault either of the two lenses, so the choice really falls to two things. This lens isn’t specifically built for macro, with a maximum magnification ratio of 0.3x / 1:3.3 (0.6x / 1:1.7 in 35mm eq.) and a minimum close-focusing distance of around 20cm (7.87 in.). Still, the Olympus 12-40mm ƒ/2.8 Zuiko PRO provides a respectable performance in the macro category. The 40–150mm F4.0 PRO is a completely new design, constructed of 15 elements in nine groups. It includes two Extra-low dispersion (ED) elements, one Super ED element, one High Refractive (HR) element and two aspherical elements. The lens delivers a minimum focusing distance of 70cm (27.6”) and measures 69mm (2.72") diameter, 99mm (3.9") long and weighs the same 382g (13.5oz) as the 12-40mm, without the lens caps or hood.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.

In this Olympus 12-40mm f2.8 review I will go through the pros and cons of this professional grade zoom lens after having used it for well over a year in my personal and professional work. And whether you want to go into it or not, linear sensor response means that, so long as you're above the noise floor, it doesn't matter what digital number your exposure is recorded at. 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 petal-shaped hood is supplied with this lens, which does a reasonable job of shading the lens from extraneous light that may cause issues with loss of contrast or flare. Even without the hood in place, this lens is very resistant to flare and contrast levels hold up well when shooting into the light. Vignetting on the Olympus 12-40mm lens is very well controlled throughout the entire aperture range and at all focal lengths. There is some vignetting at apertures wider than ƒ/5.6, but light falloff never even reaches half a stop. In fact, most focal lengths show closer to a quarter of a stop of light falloff between ƒ/2.8 and ƒ/5.6 (12mm shows a little more between ƒ/2.8-ƒ/4).