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The Olympus 7-14mm f2.8 Pro is a substantial lens which continues the smart styling of the 12-40mm and 40-150mm Pro lenses before it. The Pro line-up now looks and feels like a family with a consistent design. 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. Linear Distortion: As is becoming common in m4/3, there's a huge difference between whether you look at this lens with the Olympus supplied corrections (in-camera JPEGs and many raw converters), or you look at the bare raw data. The Lumix 7-14mm has a lighter construction (metal and plastic) and is not weather-sealed. Its size makes it more suitable for small Micro Four Thirds cameras including the Olympus Pen series or the Lumix GM series. MPB puts photo and video kit into more hands, more sustainably. Every month, visual storytellers sell more than 20,000 cameras and lenses to MPB. Choose used and get affordable access to kit that doesn’t cost the earth.
I had used the Lumix lens in the past for a couple of photo assignments (architecture and events) and also found it handy for video work when I was shooting with the old Panasonic AF101. At the time of its release, which was now almost 7 years ago, the Lumix lens was the only native extreme wide-angle zoom with a constant aperture available for the system until Olympus released its 2.8 version in May 2015. The " small DOF " at 14mm is huge It is more about the total light gathering . The 14-24 and 14-30mm allow one to stop the lens down should one wish to do so. The 14-30mm mirrorless still allows for better DOF control and total light gathering whilst being smaller and lighter . With the bonus of taking filters natively When compared to other micro 4/3 lenses, the 7-14mm f/2.8 PRO is a hefty beast. It’s significantly larger than any other ultra-wide for the system, and has a substantial and bulbous front element. However, you’ll find it’s similar in size to many other ultra-wide lenses for other mirrorless systems, such as the Fuji 10-24mm f/4 and the Sony FE 16-35mm f/4. The lens is made for the serious shooter, and is really intended for use on the cameras with more substantial grips, such as the Panasonic GH4, Olympus OM-D E-M1 and so on. The 7-14mm f/2.8 is a large lens for Micro 4/3, but isn’t overly large compared to many wide-angle zooms. The Olympus 7-14mm f2.8 isn’t however the only ultra-wide zoom available for the Micro Four Thirds format. Early in the Micro Four Thirds story, Panasonic launched the Lumix G 7-14mm f4, a lens which shares the same coverage as the new Olympus, albeit with a constant focal ration that’s one stop slower. I own this lens, so was keen to see how it compares against the new Olympus and you can find out as my review-in-progress unfolds! Note Olympus also produced a 7-14mm f4 lens for its earlier Four Thirds DSLR system which can be adapted for Micro Four Thirds use, but the M Zuiko Digital is smaller, lighter, optically brighter and most importantly, native to Micro Four Thirds. Find out if it’s the ultra-wide lens for you! 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 lens is constructed predominantly of metal, and the overall build quality is very good. The large permanent lens hood is made of plastic, and feels a bit cheaper than the rest of the lens, but the overall impression is one of quality. The zoom and focus rings move smoothly, with nice damping, though the zoom ring sort of ‘snaps’ into the 7mm setting. It’s a minor thing to note, but it did take away slightly from the otherwise excellent haptics. The lens has an L-Fn button, but does not have IS. Surprisingly, the aperture diaphragm is only 7 blades. I didn’t find any relevant traces of chromatic aberration, apart from at the shortest focusing distances when using the fastest aperture. Vignetting is almost completely absent. The only real limit to be aware of is flare. Most of the time they are small but very much present when using the lens at 7mm. The reason is that at this focal length, the front element is very much exposed and the hood doesn’t protect it that much. Even when the sun or other strong sources of lights aren’t in the frame, you can end up with flares quite easily even when the light is coming from the left or the right like in the example below. I was concentrating on the bridge in my composition and the sun was on the left. I didn’t notice the flares in the middle until I saw the image on the computer. E-M1, 1/250, f/ 8, ISO 200 – 7mm I really like super wide-angle lenses. You can play a lot with perspective and geometry to create an interesting composition. They are the perfect companion for landscapes, architecture and astrophotography when you have a fast aperture like this Olympus lens. I admit that most of the time I was more inspired to shoot at 7mm more than any other focal length and I think this very wide value is one of the main reasons to consider it. The big problem with the flare on the Lumix G 7-14mm is it’s often hard to retouch-out and won’t go away when you stop the lens down either. So one of the biggest questions regarding the newer Olympus 7-14mm f2.8 lens is whether it suffers from the same flare issues.
An interesting feature that this lens shares with other M.Zuiko Pro lenses is the programmable "L-Fn" button near the lens mount along the upper left side. Standing for "Lens Function", the L-Fn button can be configured using compatible Olympus cameras to set various options -- and options not even related to the lens itself. You can program it to toggle adjustments such as white balance or RAW, but it can also be set as an AF-stop button. The placement is convenient as it's right near or under your thumb when using the proper camera holding technique to support the lens in your hand. (Note: Despite being part of the Micro Four Thirds system, the L-Fn button won't function with Panasonic cameras, although you can mount this lens on those cameras.) 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.
Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 7-14mm – Image quality
Sharpness: I was very surprised at the central sharpness of this lens. Very surprised. Wide open it may be my sharpest m4/3 zoom I've tested in the central region, and that's at 7mm and out to about 10mm. Exceptional performance. At 14mm wide open, the center sharpness falls off just a bit wide open and f/4 is the best aperture. Still excellent performance in the middle of the frame, though. This is going to look familiar to some of you, mainly because it's virtually the same words I used for handling on my review of the 12-100mm f/4 Pro lens! Yes, Olympus is making the Pro lenses so much the same, that sometimes handling turns out to be identical. Falloff of illumination towards the corners is also well controlled. At 7mm and f/2.8 the comers are 1.52 stops darker than the centre of the image and at 14mm the corners are only 1.27 stops darker than the image centre. Stopping down to f/5.6 results in visually uniform illumination across the frame throughout the zoom range.
The Olympus M.ZUIKO Digital ED 7-14mm f/2.8 PRO lens attached to an Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mk II body, zoomed to 7mmThe 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. Another interesting characteristic of this lens is the minimum focus distance of 7.5cm (measured from the sensor) that remains constant throughout the entire zoom range and gives you excellent macro capabilities. Of course we aren’t anywhere near a 1:1 ratio but the lens can focus close enough to capture interesting details or to create original compositions. The sharpness remains fine at close distances even at f/2.8. The Olympus 7-14mm has a constant focal ratio of f2.8, making it a stop faster than the Lumix G 7-14mm across the entire focal range. This allows you to shoot at half the sensitivity or double the shutter speed under the same lighting conditions. It also allows you to achieve slightly shallower depth of field effects, although at ultra wide focal lengths, this will always be a minimal effect unless you’re shooting at very close range. Speaking of which, the closest focusing distance on the Olympus 7-14mm f2.8 is 20cm for a maximum magnification of 0.12x versus 25cm on the Lumix G 7-14mm, which in turn can deliver 0.08x magnification; so the Olympus lets you focus a little closer and reproduce subjects a little larger. Chromatic aberration is the lens' inability to focus on the sensor or film all colours of visible light at the same point. Severe chromatic aberration gives a noticeable fringing or a halo effect around sharp edges within the picture. It can be cured in software.
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