The M.Zuiko 12mm f2

It’s one of the most beautiful lens I’ve seen. I know it’s not something you say to a photographic tool every day. But seeing the lovely metallic sheen, the cool, smooth and sturdy feel in my hands and the very snappy mechanical zone-focus is really a joy to use. Yes, finally Olympus delivered on a High Grade lens for the Micro Four Thirds in the form of the all-metal Olympus M.Zuiko 12mm F2. I had the chance to take this baby in the streets, albeit short, I was able to see how it performs.

The 12mm on hand is small

The M.Zuiko 12mm F2

The lens is very small for a wide angle 12mm lens (24mm in 35mm) yet very solid with its metal build. The ribbings are in the right places for proper contact on the lens and for the manual focus once the focus ring has been pulled back to enable manual focus. A feature I wish future M43rds lenses would have but that would of course raise the cost of the lens.

All-metal vs faux-metal

The M.Zuiko 12mm f2 only weighs 130gm and has a 0.2m close focus distance which I thought was pretty good. The lens really is an eye turner. Side-by-side with the stellar M.Zuiko 45mm f1.8 you could really see the difference from the 45mm f1.8 faux-metal finish.

The Olympus E-P3 with the 12mm lens

Impressions

So I took the 12mm lens with the E-P3 and shot at the streets of Hidalgo. I know the short span of time won’t be enough to really gauge the capabilities of the lens but here are my initial impressions.

• Focus speed is fast and accurate
• The snap manual focus is really responsive making me use the feature once in  awhile even if I’m used to Autofocus
• Noticed some slight distortions but can be corrected on post-process

Man with funny hat (1/160, f4, ISO 200)

Sample Photos

I had the lens for a week but with the lousy weather and lots of things to do I couldn’t take it out on the field. Here are some shots I took on the streets of Quiapo for an hour before I took the lens back. Light condition was gloomy.

The Olympus M.Zuiko 12mm f2 is now available in the Philippines for an SRP of P36,000

Hidalgo Vendors (1/125, f3.2, ISO 200)

Fan Vendor (1/200, f4.5, ISO 200)

Candles (1/250, f 3.5, ISO 200)

Fan Ladies (1/200, f3.5, ISO 200)

Fortune teller (1/200, f4, ISO 200)

Lucky Charms (1/125, f2.5, ISO 200)

Quiapo Church Interior (1/80, f2.2, ISO 1600)

Fruit vendor (1/100, f2.5, ISO 200)

The Olympus 45mm f1.8 lens

I’m loving prime lenses more and more. Lately I find myself using them a lot often when I travel. It started when I got the excellent Panasonic 20mm Lumix pancake and now the Olympus M.Zuiko 45mm f1.8 added another dimension to my shooting style. Spending 3 weeks with the lens on actual travel made me learn more about its quirks, its strengths and handling. From the initial unboxing, I knew this lens was worth the money I spent. Now here’s my assessment of the lens and some real world samples to boot.

Ananda Pagoda Kid (E-PL1, f1.8, 1/160sec, ISO 200, WB Auto)

Ananda Kid 100% crop

Build

I have pictures comparing the lens to the size of the 20mm pancake and attached to the Olympus E-PL1. It’s light and compact. Its plastic build and painted finish made me question the integrity or quality of the lens. It worries me that I may easily scratch or peel the paint after several uses since I’m quite torturous and rugged on my gears but I had no problems so far. It has a small 37mm filter ring which can be challenging to find. I also didn’t notice until I was shooting with it for a few days that it has a detachable ring at the front covering the lens hood attachment. I almost lost that ring as it was easy to loose so throughout the trip I decided to just remove it and place it in a secure pouch. The focus ring is quite fluid as well.

Pyin U Lwin Girl (E-PL1, f2.5, 1/250sec, ISO 200, WB Auto)

Pyi U Lwin Girl 100% crop

Focusing

I think the E-PL1 isn’t the ideal camera to gauge the speed of this lens. While I thought it was a lot faster than the Panasonic 20mm, I found that on rare occasions, the camera doesn’t focus where I want it to be, making me refocus again , especially if the lighting wasn’t as bright. What I would do is just select the focus point I would need for the shot. I’m not sure if it’s the old E-PL1’s focusing fault but I’ll be able to try the lens on the new PENs (E-P3, E-PL3 and E-PM1) soon and give an update.

Monk's Robe Weaver (E-PL1, f1.8, 1/160sec, ISO 800, WB Auto)

When shooting portraits, I found that enabling face detection does help in making the focus precisely even if all the focus points on the E-PL1 are active. When shooting objects, its best to direct the focus point on where to focus, especially when shooting wide open where it’s easy to miss the correct focus having too shallow a dept-of-field.

Caysaysay Kid (E-PL1, F2, 1/320, ISO 200, WB Auto)

The 45mm isn’t a Macro lens though and the closest focusing distance is .5m (which is actually better than other lenses of same focal length). Though I wish it was able to do macro but that would surely shoot the price up on this already affordable lens.

Applying Thanaka (E-PL1, f2, 1/320sec, ISO 200, WB Auto)

Applying Thanaka Crop 100%

Handling

For my shooting style, I find the mid-telephoto range of 90mm appropriate when shooting on the streets as I just need a moderate distance from my subject. Not too close for comfort nor too far like a paparazzi, just enough to get involved with the subject for some friendly chitchat. I also find that its size as an advantage as it’s less obtrusive and intimidating with people.

Umbrella Offering (E-PL1, f3.2, ISO 200, WB Auto)

Umbrella offering 100% crop

Image Quality

Don’t expect this to be a technical review but I’ll let you judge for yourself by the photos I post here, 100% crops with no sharpening and accompanying data. But what I do know personally is that even shooting wide open at the largest aperture of f1.8, it produces sharp images and good overall details at the centre and it just gets better as I stop down even up to f2.5. Color rendition and contrast looks excellent from my eyes and has that natural look. I found I don’t have to adjust as much on my RAW images. Bokeh is simply stunning and it definitely produces the sharp isolation between subject and the background (even foreground). Something a lot of photographers look for portrait shots.

Monastery Monks (E-PL1, f1.8, 1/100sec, ISO 320, WB Auto)

High ISO shots up to 1600 still has a lot of details to show and the large aperture plus in-body image stabilization of the pen is an ideal combination when shooting lowlight handheld.

Myazedi Bathing Buddha (E-PL1, f3.5, 1/400sec, ISO 200, WB Auto)

Myazedi Bathing Buddha 100% Crop

Conclusion

The Olympus 45mm f1.8 is something to celebrate about since it is the first lens from Olympus 43/m43 system to go below f2. And for a large aperture lens, its diminutive size packs in a performer that produces excellent output straight out of the camera. But is everything bright and shiny with this lens? Not really. The build could be better and adding macro capability would be a welcome addition, but that’s asking too much already for its $400 price tag. Besides, its plastic built doesn’t hinder from producing images with tack sharp images with creamy bokeh and swift focusing speed.

Shwedagon Candle Lighting (E-PL1, f1.8, 1/60sec, ISO 800)

Olympus PEN E-PL2 now in the Philippines

Now on its 4th PEN, Olympus displayed evolution on this new M43rds model. The Olympus PEN E-PL2 is their most recent release which is by naming convention is a successor to their E-PL1 which proved successful at launch. As a user of the Olympus PEN E-PL1 for more than a year now, E-PL2 is more like a beefed up version of the E-PL1. It has the same sensor with a few tweaks so Image Quality is more or less the same. What significantly changed is the body. So here are a few things I liked from the new E-PL2. Also you can see a few hi-resolution out-of-the-camera real-world sample shots which you can access at my flickr account.

Olympus E-PL2 (left) vs E-PL2 (right)

Sleeker Look and Better Handgrip. I always thought the E-PL1 was too boxy. Most of the time I’d like to dress it up with its leather case to make it look attractive. The E-PL2 was a lot sleeker with its more rangefinder-like body. It’s like a cross between the E-PL1 and the E-Px line. The grip now is wider and more comfortable to hold than the E-PL1. The silver, white and red colors look more attractive to me than the black one.

Larger 3" 430k dots screen

Shutter Speed Reaching up to 1/4000. I think this is the most significant of the changes. The E-PL1 can only go as high as 1/2000 which poses a problem when your shooting with an aperture wide open with a lens like the Panasonic 20mm f1.7 on broad daylight.

Control wheel is better than the E-PL1 buttons

ISO up to 6400. While I’m not really a High ISO shooter, it’s comforting to know that the feature is there. I had a situation before where I had to boost my ISO to 6400 when I was inside a bus to shoot this little girl across the row. It proved useful and handy especially with Olympus having in-body Image Stabilization.

Bigger shutter button and different on/off button

Rear Control Wheel. I really didn’t like the button pushing on the E-PL1 but I got used to it again but each time I use it, I always thought the controls on the E-P1/2 were more convenient and faster to use when changing settings. Well it’s a good thing they brought back even one of the dials. While it still poses the same problem I had with the E-P1 like accidentally changing the settings, it’s still a welcome development. And now we have an option to even lock the wheel through the menu.

Faster, slimmer, taller and MSC compatible 14-42mm II Kit lens (right)

New Faster and Silent MSC kit lens. The new 14-42mm f3.5-5.6 kit lens is still collapsible but smaller, slimmer, slightly taller and only has one protruding barrel in front. While I think the quality didn’t change much, the speed on this new lens spells the difference. It now has an MSC (Movie and Stills Compatible) design that makes the AutoFocus a lot smoother and also quiet which is ideal when shooting videos on continuous autofocus.

Higher capacity battery with the new BLS-5

Better LCD Screen. It’s about time Olympus upped their resolution to 430k dots, it helps a lot when manual focusing especially on a large 3inch screen. It’s also a lot appealing when reviewing photos

The excellent VF-2 EVF (Electronic Viewfinder) and other accessories can be attached

Better Battery. The new gray BLS-5 still has the same size as the previous PEN battery BLS-1 but with an added contact which is a new japan specification for improved efficiency when charging batteries. The E-PL2 is still compatible with the BLS-1 but the chargers are not interchangeable. I also noticed when I was shooting a festival that the new BLS-5 can shoot more images. With a fully charged BLS-5 I was able to shoot up to 500 jpg images while with the BLS-1 I reached only up to 300 jpg images.

Using the Dramatic Tone Art Filter of the E-PL2

New Art Filters. The E-PL2 also has the Dramatic Tone Filter as the Olympus E-5. I thought this was really attractive to use for that similar HDR effect but of course it has to be used appropriately.

Was able to shoot him at f2.8 ,1/4000s at broad daylight

Copyright Embedding Options. Now I appreciate little things like this. I was always envious of other camera brands when they can embed their signatures on the EXIF file via a copyright option in the menu. I first saw this on the Olympus E-5 and I was glad the E-PL2 has it. Olympus should have it as a staple option on their cameras from now on.

Shooting ISO 6400 with the 40-150mm M.Zuiko

To Upgrade? If you think the improvements I highlighted where important enough to help ease your shooting, by all means upgrade.

A cup of hot choco using the 14-42mm II kit lens

For New/Potential Buyers, if you are looking to jumping into the mirrorless camera world or just want to have a camera with the same quality as DSLRs but not the bulk, the Olympus E-PL2 would be a good choice as its a very well rounded camera especially for its price. Recently, competitors churned out a good number of mirrorless options as well but the advantage with Micro Four Thirds is that they already have a good lens system available. Not to dismiss the E-PL1 as well as it had a big drop in prices making it as the same level as some advanced compact cameras making it a good option too.

E-PL2 with 40-150mm M.Zuiko

I didn’t say much about the image quality as like I said it’s very close to the Olympus E-PL1 which I thought was a really good camera by itself. But having tried shooting with the E-PL2 for almost a month I found it a lot more enjoyable with this improvements.

E-PL2 with 40-150mm M.Zuiko

The Olympus PEN E-PL2 is now available in the Philippines at major camera store outlets. The single lens kit with the version 2 of the 14-42mm kit lens has an SRP of P33995 while the two lens kit with the 14-42mm and the new M.Zuiko version of the 40-150mm kit has an SRP of P39995. It comes in colors of black, white, silver and red.

E-PL2 with the 14-42mm II Kit Lens

E-PL2 with 9-18mm Zuiko via adaptor

E-PL2 with Lumix 20mm f1.7 pancake lens

Cubao X Wall collage and Electric Guitar (Pin Hole)

“Seems like another gimmick to me” is my first thought when I heard about what seems to be a regular feature among the new Olympus line of DSLR cameras – the Art Filters. Honestly, it made me scratch my head. There are 6 preset creative effects found in the camera, namely Pop Art, Soft Focus, Pale and Light, Light Tone, Grainy Film and Pin Hole. I had the chance to play around with their relatively new mid-range DSLR Olympus E-30, which is the first Olympus DSLR to incorporate the feature and see what these filters can do. I need not travel that far to try out the Art Filters. Here are some shots taken along the streets of Binondo, Graffiti in Intramuros, some shops in Cubao X and also a few high rise from Makati.

Smoke and Incense China Town (Pin Hole)

I love shooting in Binondo. It’s a perfect place to practice street photography and also food shots. The temples there just had so many details and food are really sumptuous. It’s one of my favorite spots in Manila. I found myself shooting a lot of Pin Hole here and some Grainy Film BW effects.

Cubao X Photos and Cameras (Pop Art)

Cubao X has many interesting shops that have very eccentric designs and items. It’s hip, it’s young and it’s artsy. I dropped by one of the shops and just enjoyed the wall and ceiling collages along with vintage items. Pop Art and Pin Hole does wonders for me here.

Self Portrait at the Graffiti wall in Intramuros (Pop Art 16:9 Aspect Ratio)

Intramuros near the clamshell has very impressive and colorful graffiti walls. I’m sure people would really enjoy their time here getting self portraits by the artworks. I find Pop Art really brings out the colors here.

Makati Window and Fire Escape Patterns (Grainy Film BW)

Makati high rises has a pretty interesting architecture if you get a chance to shoot along the streets. I tried using some Pale Light and Grainy Film BW Filters here.

In the span of shooting with Olympus E-30 and using the Art Filters, I found the feature not as gimmicky as I thought. I actually found it fun to use on some situations. I think Olymus was looking into the market of those users of Toy Cameras like Holgas and Dianas who likes those lomographic “art” effects into their photographs. It has basically the same output except that it is done digitally.

Makati de la rosa buildings (Pale Light)

Some people may argue that you can mimic those effects on some photo editing software. That is true but the advantage of doing this in camera is that it applies the effects in relation to the current exposure, making it more real and natural as if you are using one of those toy cameras.

The Art Filters can be fun but there are some caveats when using them. Like a couple of my favorite filters like the Pin Hole and Grainy Film BW takes some time to process. Roughly more than 10 seconds and at that time, I found myself just staring at the LCD screen which can be a disadvantage when there is a sudden opportunity to shoot.

Cubao X Art Wall (Pin Hole)

Another disadvantage is that the filters are not that configurable making the effects  look monotonous when used on a number of shots. Also, using the filters puts you into a Program mode of shooting and you are not allowed to change aperture and shutter speeds except for the exposure compensation, ISO, and metering mode. It would be a lot better if we can configure the exposure, depth-of-field and also the degree on applying the effects.

Paper Offerings in China Town (Grainy Film BW)

Suffice it to say that the Olympus Art Filters found in the new Olympus Cameras like the Olympus E-30, E-620, e-450 and E-P1 (includes art filters for video as well) is a nice creative addition to the camera but would have been better if there’s a degree of customization available and faster processing time. I’m sure it will appeal to lomographers a lot and those who are not really photoshop-savvy.

My Dog Portraits (Light Tone, Soft Focus, Pinhole 6:6 Aspect Ratio)

Personally I enjoy using the Art Filters. Though a bit slow, I find I use the Pin Hole and Grainy Film BW more followed by the Pop Art and Soft Focus which thankfully are pretty fast to apply. When used correctly these Art Filters can create dramatic photos straight out of your cam.

More sample Photos here at my Flickr.