User review of the Olympus mZD 30mm macro ED

[spidey89]

In short, a reasonably priced lens with surprisingly good performance. The newly released Olympus mZD 30mm macro ED lens is a great alternative to the premium priced 60mm macro lens. I honestly was quite surprised to see the ED elements in this lens. And ike it’s older and bigger brother, this lens is capable of reproducing subjects at a 1:1 scale. With a minimum focusing distance of 0.095m, shooting subjects proved to be quite the challenge and this lens, in my opinion would be better suited for subjects like product and food photography rather than insects, though I won't say it isn't possible.

Though the lens was meant to be a macro lens, it performed reasonably well as a day to day lens. Using it for street photography or portrait, this lens performed liked any other in the lens line up offered by Olympus. This lens looks like a smaller version of the Olympus mZD 45mm f1.8 lens and it’s very light at a 128g. Even on my old E-P1, it looked good and performed reasonably well.

I'll post more pictures when I can

Getting up close with the Comicave Iron man MKXVIII thigh armor to see the intricate metallic details of the figure

If you've seen this flowers before, you'd know they're like the size of a 50 cent coin and the ants are a lot smaller! When I zoomed in digitally, I could see details in the ant!

As expected of a macro lens, shallow DOF can be achieved, the details rendered by this lens is surprising!

 

[spidey89]

The dof for f3.5, f5.6, f8, f11 and f16 and the sharpness at different apertures. Focus was on the diamond in the watch, 100% crop. Manual focusing using live view, it could be me or the glass on the watch, it doesn't seem as sharp here, but in my other photos, I found it to be pretty sharp

 

[spidey89]

I tried to see how close I could go with this lens, and favorite subject is that teeny tiny little line on our currency, and it is sharp here!

Since I don't have a dedicated macro lens, I've been considering getting the 60mm, but then I've got the 12-40, so I compared the 2 to see how close I could get

It is clear which one can focus much closer. I like shooting my figurines and they're 1/12 scale versions so sometimes it can be challenging to get a good magnification, with the 30mm macro, the only problem I faced was lighting when I got too close!

although it's only 3.5, it is pretty shallow IMO

The lock on the belt is probably a couple cm tall and this is the first time I actually see the paint job on the plastic and the materials used for the molding of the plastic

 

[spidey89]

The close focusing and DOF as a macro lens should be

Handheld available light, it's pretty sharp, I'm sure it'll be a lot sharper with flash

No need for a macro lens, but just wanted to see how it works

Decent street photography lens

 

[spidey89]

My grandma likes to say in Cantonese, "Got money also cannot buy!", but I think this is a little much