#1 Steve

Such a shame about the softness - and throughout the focal and aperture range too. Combine that with f/6.3 and this is lens quite a disappointment, even more so when compared to the excellent 12-60 Oly make.

10:22 am - Wednesday, March 14, 2012

#2 cyleow

Lack luster performance as confirm by DXO lab. The much shorter Panasonic is just as good!

11:44 am - Wednesday, March 14, 2012

#3 Alvin

“it would be hard to name another standard zoom, in any system, whose close-up performance comes close to that of the Olympus 12-50mm”

I think I can, the Sigma 17-70mm f2.8-4 (or the older f2.8-4.5). It focus down to 0.22m (0.2m), at all zoom range, for a magnification of 1:2.7 (1:2.3), similar to the 0.36x of this lens. On my Pentax, it gives me the 35mm eqv of 25.5mm to 105mm, very close to the 24-100 of this Olympus lens, but much brighter.

2:31 pm - Thursday, March 15, 2012

#4 Camaman

While centre sharpness is pretty high throughout most of its focal length range (including 12mm); contrast tends to be on the low side, especially wide open. The corners are a bit soft at the 12mm setting, though they are a better match for the image centre at other focal lengths. Some chromatic aberrations are visible at 12mm.

And the rest of the conclusion goes to name some other faults that they then go to say are pretty much invisible unless you look for them specifically…
And I looked at the samples…

What are these comments about the softness??
I don’t see it.
Lens is perfect for all the roles it needs to fill. Its only faults being a little slow and a bit long.

11:42 pm - Thursday, March 15, 2012

#5 ajda

Kedves Zoltan,

minden elismeresem a photographyblog-nak, de nagyon jol esett volna latni a focal length-eket a sample image-ek alatt. Tovabbi jo munkat kivanva -

12:29 am - Friday, March 16, 2012

#6 Laszlo#13

I second the request to see the focal length of the sample shots.  Great assessment and work otherwise!

3:37 am - Friday, March 16, 2012

#7 Zoltan Arva-Toth

The selected exposure data underneath the thumbnails are culled from the embedded EXIF info by an automated script. With respect to focal length, the script looks at the “FocalLengthIn35mmFilm” EXIF field, which is unfortunately not populated by Olympus’ Micro FourThirds cameras - that’s why you cannot see that bit of info here. However, the full-resolution samples have all of their metadata intact, so if you download them and open them in an image viewer (like ACDSee or IrfanView etc.) you’ll be able to see everything, including the actual focal length used.

10:32 am - Saturday, March 17, 2012

#8 MonFrereFelix

Dear Zoltan,

all due respect to the photographyblog’s, but it was good to see the focal length would be made ??to the sample image files below. Wishing to keep up the good work -

Just so you know…

8:49 pm - Wednesday, March 21, 2012

#9 Rado

Everyone else keeps to international standards and tries hard to use English in their comments - but for a bunch of Hungarian paraszts (!) Otherwise I haven’t got much to say about the very lens as I have just started looking into the m3/4 system. However, I guess I would still prefer the Olympus 12-60.

8:45 pm - Monday, April 30, 2012