Review of Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 7-14mm F2.8 PRO


wonglp

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Jul 20, 2007
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Bukit Batok
Hi all, just gotten 2 lenses from Olympus - the newly announced pre-production set of Olympus mZD ED 7-14mm F2.8 PRO and 8mm F1.8 PRO lenses. This review will cover the rectilinear 7-14mm. Another one on the fisheye

The highly anticipated M.Zuiko Digital ED 7-14mm F2.8 PRO is the ultra-wide lens of the standard ‘professional trio’ of fast Zuiko F2.8 zooms with focal lengths that are most demanded by enthusiasts and professional photographers. This trinity includes the M.Zuiko Digital ED 12-40mm PRO and the M.Zuiko Digital ED 40-150mm PRO lenses that are already available. Their combined focal length range from 14-300mm*.

With a fast F2.8 aperture specification, the new M.Zuiko Digital ED 7-14mm F2.8 PRO zoom has an extremely wide viewing angle of 14-28mm*. It is aimed at the professional and enthusiast, with reportage, sport, landscape, nature and architecture imaging requirements. Its optical design features the highest performance optical materials that include DSA (Dual Super Aspheric), EDA (Extra-Low Dispersion Aspheric) and three Super ED elements, for superb imaging clarity. Distortion is minimal at all zoom settings. High optical quality at wide apertures facilitates handheld photographic freedom when combined with an Olympus camera body that has 5-Axis Image Stabilisation, such as the professional OM-D E-M1 and the E-M5 Mark II.

A light weight of 534g matches the portability of all OM-D system camera bodies. The M.Zuiko Digital ED 7-14mm F2.8 PRO and the M.Zuiko
Digital ED 8mm f1.8 PRO are both environmentally-sealed against dust, water and the freezing cold (to minus ten degrees Celsius) for high operational reliability. Olympus ZERO multicoating (Zuiko Extra-low Reflectance Optical) is applied on all lens surfaces of both lenses to effectively suppress ghosting and flare.
Lens cut
M0714_lenscut.jpg


Manual Focusing clutch mechanism, distance markers, and L-Fn button, metal built.
M0714_stand.jpg


On Silver EM5 Mark II
E-M5MarkII-SLV_right_M0714.jpg


On Black EM5 Mark II
E-M5MarkII-BLK_right_M0714.jpg


Top view on EM1 body
E-M1-BLK_top_M0714.jpg
 

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Some expectations from this preview:
- Limited time with the lens (a week from today), will mainly shoot with loaned Olympus EM5ii, i hope to be able to cover much grounds given my personal schedule is rather tight these few weeks
- Preproduction copy, final factory production may vary
- Mostly out of camera jpeg and some tweaked with Lightroom (will be mentioned whenever possible), RAW files will be using Oly viewer as Adobe hasn't release an update for the camera.
- User rather than technical review
 

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Some key features in short:
1. 14-28mm* ultra-wide angle (35mm format equivalent)
2. Fast F2.8 constant aperture
3. 14 elements in 11 groups
4. 2x EDA, 1x DSA, 3x Super ED high performance elements
5. ZERO high performance multicoating
6. 7.5 cm min. focus distance
7. Reportage, landscape, nature and architecture applications
8. Dust, Freeze and Splashproof
 

take some photos, please. thanks
 


take some photos, please. thanks

work in progress :)

Meantime, a shot with EM5Mark II at F5.6, click on image and press L on flickr. Live composite, no post sharpening done, just a minute of quick tweak with Lightroom on Jpeg. Can't open RAW files on Adobe yet, will open from Oly viewer instead. At F5.6, can see some nice starburst already from the street lights, the 7 blades really helps here.

 

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Before touching on more technicals, will post some walk about shots first. Need some time to manage some of the files. Thank you for the patience :)

All images with EM5MarkII & out of camera jpeg, vivid mode, ISO200, 7mm unless mentioned otherwise. Can click on the image to link to flickr to zoom in.

F6.3, 1/1250s



F6.3, 1/400s



F6.3, 1/1600s (the black dot is not sensor dust but a bird)
 

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Is there a reason why you are not stopping down to f/8 or f/11?

and the date from the photographs suggest that you came from the future :bsmilie::bsmilie::bsmilie:
 

Is there a reason why you are not stopping down to f/8 or f/11?

and the date from the photographs suggest that you came from the future :bsmilie::bsmilie::bsmilie:

F5.6-7.1 is the sweet spot range for m43 and this lens as well, for night shots I do go a bit smaller like f11 to get nicer starburst, will show more when I organized the shots. Diffraction sets in ard f8 and smaller for m43. F6.3 dof is similar to f12.6 on fullframe which is quite sufficient. Hope that helps explain.

Ooh thanks for spotting the date mistake hahaha. Strange my cam date is ok. Hmm I'll check my Mac again :)
 

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Take some F2.8 and F4 shots please. Proof of quality is more impressive at open apertures.
 

Here's some sharpness test.

The tested scene at F2.8. Centre and left edge test done with 100% crop, OOC Jpegs.


@ F2.8 centre


@ F2.8 edge


@ F4 centre


@F4 edge
 

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sharpness test continued

@F5.6 centre


@ F5.6 edge


@ F6.3 centre


@ F6.3 edge
 

sharpness continued

@ F8 centre


@ F8 Edge


@ F11 centre


@ F11 edge
 

sharpness continued

@ F16 centre


@ F16 edge


@ F22 edge


@ F22 centre
 

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A quick look at the starburst from this lens. I have quite a bit more, but here's one tested couple days back. Very decent at F9...if stop down more, you would get more defined edges. More to come.

Here's a shot at 14mm, F9.0, and a crop where there's street lights, OOC jpeg



Cropped 100%
 

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Very nice results. Appreciate ur effort in doing all these test for us. Good job
 

Very nice results. Appreciate ur effort in doing all these test for us. Good job

Thanks for the encouragement, time is not on my side haha. But will try my best...there's still 8mm F1.8 to be posted up, but I'll finish up this first. Stay tuned (tomorrow onwards hopefully)...flare, distortion, starburst, chroma, lowlight handheld...
 

Here's an F8.0 shot with live composite to finish for the night, was a little late for the show yesterday, just caught the last bit. The floating stadium was lit and hence the foreground was bright this time, with some interesting floating leaves in the water.

7mm, 4 sec live composite of about 1 min. Tweaked in lightroom
 

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What a spectacular last shot mod. Way to go!

The starbursts effect have come out well. Any comments about CA?

Thanks for your efforts.
 

What a spectacular last shot mod. Way to go!

The starbursts effect have come out well. Any comments about CA?

Thanks for your efforts.

Welcome and thanks, hope it helps...
CA hasn't seen much so far even on harsh conditions.
More to come :)