Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 7-14 mm F2.8 PRO Lens, Wide Angle Zoom, Suitable for All MFT Cameras (Olympus OM-D & PEN Models, Panasonic G Series), Black

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At the 14mm end, the angle of view is 75°, which is the same as that of a 28mm lens on a 35mm full-frame camera. I would say that I became comfortable running the 7-14mm f/2.8 at f/4 or f/5.6 shooting landscapes. With the type of near-middle-far landscape I work, I'm pretty sure I can make this lens perform at f/2.8 the way I'd really want it to, too, as extreme corners generally have distant areas in them that I don't mind going slightly soft (e.g. depth cues). The close near object in the central part of the frame will be spectacularly sharp, but middle field edges become the only problem I found I had to watch for (edges at the far zone aren't, because being slightly soft at distance is a depth cue, and I generally pull focus in front of the hyperfocal distance to emphasize that). The obvious comparison is to the Panasonic 7-14mm f/4. I no longer have my Panasonic, so haven't tested it on the latest 20mp m4/3 bodies. What I'd say about that lens on my 16mp m4/3 bodies is this: like the Olympus, there's a high degree of linear correction being applied, though not quite as much as with this Olympus Pro lens. Field curvature is the big difference between the two lenses, as the Panasonic has far less (but the Olympus seems sharper in the central area and obviously goes to f/2.8). I don't remember having to correct much for field curvature on the Panasonic; it was obvious I have to on the Olympus. But my Panasonic lens was a bit out of alignment (one edge was softer than the other), so it's difficult to make any further comparisons. Flare control on the Panasonic is worse than on the Olympus.

Panasonic’s so-called Dual IS technology exploits both optical stabilisation in the lens with body-based stabilisation in the camera to deliver improved results, especially for filming video or shooting at longer focal lengths; now most of its lenses support Dual IS when mounted on recent bodies, although they may need a firmware update. Olympus also has a similar technology called Sync IS, but it’s only exploited on a handful of lenses; that said, the Olympus built-in stabilisation is so good, it rarely needs further enhancement. If you’re after a new lens to extend your reach, then there’s no shortage of telephoto zooms available. At the budget-end and designed to complement a kit zoom, I’d suggest either the Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 40-150mm f4-5.6 or the Panasonic Lumix G 45-150mm f4-5.6 OIS. These are two of the most affordable lenses in the catalogue and ideal partners for a basic kit zoom on a budget body; if you have a Panasonic body without stabilisation, go for the Lumix G 45-150mm model which has optical stabilisation. If you’d like even longer reach without breaking the bank, I’d recommend the Panasonic Lumix G 100-300mm f4-5.6 II OIS that takes you to 600mm equivalent coverage at a relatively affordable price. I took a few comparison shots downtown using the OM-D E-M5 mark II. Please note that I didn’t have time to perform an in-depth test so I concentrated on finding the most relevant differences in terms of distortion, sharpness and flare. Next we have the various external controls on the barrel. Both lenses come with ribbed zoom and fly-by-wire focus rings that are smooth in operation and well-damped. Along the base of the focus ring, you’ll find all the most important focal lengths clearly and accurately marked.With the launch of the much-anticipated and long awaited Olympus OM-D E-M1 mark 2, you’re now able to find lots of offers and bundles on Olympus PRO lenses too. Most notably a few of the larger and well known camera stores here in the U.K are promoting the E-M1 mark ii bundled with the 12-40mm f/2.8 PRO for example. But today, I want to emplore and encourage you to take a serious look at the wonderful Olympus 7-14mm f/2.8 PRO lens. The manual focus experience is good on both lenses as well, though you probably won’t feel the need to switch over to MF all that often unless you are doing astrophotography. Both rings offer a good resistance and the ribbed design makes them easy to grab onto. Feels great, looks great, works great – all in a lens that is reasonably priced. Well done Olympus yet again! When the Panasonic Leica 8-18mm f/2.8-4.0 was announced at Photokina 2016, Micro Four Thirds users soon began wondering how it would compare to the other premium wide-angle zoom for the system, the Olympus M.Zuiko 7-14mm f/2.8 PRO. Though they don’t share an identical zoom range, they are both intended for the same genres: namely landscapes, architecture, and interiors. When using the shortest focal lengths like 7mm and 8mm, the amount of perspective distortion will of course be more pronounced depending on the composition and your distance from the geometrical lines. For example if you keep the sensor and the lens as parallel as possible to the vertical and horizontal lines in the scene you are are photographing, distortion is almost absent even in the case of vertical lines that are on the left or right edges of the frame. E-M5 II, 1/50, f/ 5.6, ISO 200 – 7mm (keeping vertical lines as parallel as possible to the sensor) E-M5 II., 1/60, f/ 5.6, ISO 200 – 7mm (tilting up to reveal more of the buildings)

Finally at 14mm, the Leica has a slight advantage at the fastest aperture (f/3.6 vs f/2.8) and the performance becomes the same from f/5.6 once again.As in all Pro lenses the manual focus ring is great but in autofocus I have had it wandering a bit. Easily fixed with bbf

We’ve become used to seeing excellent lenses from Olympus over the years, with both the 12-40mm f/2.8 and 40-150mm f/2.8 delivering exemplary results. But wideangle lenses are infamously more difficult to design, and this shows up when we examine images from the 7-14mm. That’s not to say that the lens is bad, but typically for its type, it doesn’t deliver quite the same corner-to-corner sharpness as its siblings. At 14mm f/2.8 the lens maintains strong performance. It scores 2,266 lines, with edges that show about 1,800 lines. At f/4 the average score improves to 2,482 lines, and edges hit 2,200 lines. It hovers around 2,500 lines through f/8, and shows just a slight drop at f/11 (2,435 lines). At f/16 and f/22 diffraction takes its toll; at those very narrow apertures images show 2,014 lines and 1,483 lines respectively.Shot with the Olympus M.Zuiko 7-14mm f/2.8 PRO, processed with Adobe Lightroom and Silver Efex PRO 2 Lloyds of London Iconic Shot Chromatic aberrations, typically seen as purple or green fringes along contrasty edges, are not too much of a problem with this lens, as shown in the example below. Neither the Pana-Leica nor the Olympus lens has been designed to produce a stunning bokeh but by focusing close and using the fastest aperture available, you can achieve some interesting results. GX85, 1/4000, f/2.8, ISO 200 – Pana-Leica 8-18mm at 8mm E-M5 II, 1/320, f/4, ISO 200 – M.Zuiko 7-14mm at 14mm The lens hood is physically part of the lens and cannot be removed. As with many wide angles the front element is very concave and protrudes outwards. As such use without a lens hood wouldn’t be advised anyway. The lens hood offers physical protection to the front element and is there not only for reducing flare and ghosting. Then the PL 8-18mm was announced. I sold my 7-14 PRO and bought the 8-18mm. I never missed the the 1 mm at the wide end, and having 18mm on the long end meant better overlap with my most-used focal length range (about 17 to 18mm) and fewer lens changes in the field.

Both lenses employ seven rounded aperture blades, and closing either down to their minimum apertures of f22 will deliver 14 diffraction spikes. I’ve illustrated this below with photos from each lens, and while the spikes on the Olympus look a little better-defined in this example, the most important aspect to achieving the best result with an ultra wide at a tiny aperture is to keep the front element meticulously clean. The end result though is you’ll need to choose lenses with very small f-numbers if you want to achieve very shallow depth-of-field effects with Micro Four Thirds. Conversely, with a larger inherent depth-of-field, you won’t need to close the aperture as much if you want to get more in focus.Used MPB to swap the Pana for the Oly. Excellent service and I get the Oly for less than half price. It looks like new The Olympus 7-14mm lens does a decent job overall at controlling chromatic aberration, particularly towards the center of the frame. Being such a wide lens, it's not all that surprising to find some CA present in the corners of the frame, and we do see some bright magenta fringing on high contrast edges in the far corners of our VFA test images. It's mostly noticeable at the wider focal lengths, but some CA is still visible in the corners at all focal lengths, both at ƒ/2.8 and stopped down. The center, on the other hand, looks great at all focal lengths and apertures in terms of CA control with very little to no visible CA. Olympus’s ZERO (Zuiko Extra-low Reflection Optical) coating is applied to minimize ghosting and flare, which can be particularly problematic with ultra-wide-angle lenses. Further defense comes from the integral petal-shaped hood, which also gives physical protection to the protruding front element. A typical downside of this configuration is that there’s no attachment thread for adding filters, which are often useful in landscape photography to which the lens is well suited. The 7-14mm f/2.8 is a pro-caliber, very wide angle, zoom lens, equivalent to a 14-28mm lens on a full frame camera. This provides a 75-115° angle of view across the diagonal, which is about as wide as a non-fisheye lens gets these days.