Sharpness

Sharpness at 12mm

For this test, the M.Zuiko Digital 12mm f/2 lens was attached to an Olympus E-P3 camera, which in turn was mounted on a sturdy tripod. The self-timer was used in order to avoid any vibrations that may result from tripping the shutter. Slight tonal changes are due to slight changes in natural light during the session. The crops below represent 1/300th of the total frame area.

The full frame

In the frame centre, the lens is commendably sharp wide open, and reaches excellent levels of sharpness at f/2.8. Peak performance is achieved in the f/4-f/8 range. At the f11 setting the lens is still very sharp but f16, while usable, is starting to show the effects of diffraction rather obviously. The f22 setting is best avoided. The corners suffer from light fall-off wide open but are otherwise quite sharp – very sharp for an ultra-wideangle lens –, and follow a similar pattern to the central area as we go through the aperture range.

Aperture	Centre Crop	Edge Crop
f/2
f/2.8
f/4
f/5.6
f/8
f/11
f/16
f/22