Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 60mm f/2.8 Macro Lens

OK - let's fess up - I'm not a photographer. In fact my recently purchased Panasonic GX-80 is my first ever 'real' camera and I'm still fighting the steep learning curve.But my interest is in flower photography and although the kit lenses were OK I wanted to get close up. Hence this lens.For macro work it is superb, it's 60mm focal length (equivalent to a 120mm DSLR lens) allows a reasonable distance between lens and subject when shooting macro. It is pin-point sharp and f2.8 can give just a mm or two depth of field. Until a few weeks ago I didn't know what "bokeh" was - now I know enough to say it is good from this lens.60mm is also a pretty decent m43 length for everyday landscape use and I've proven that with several nice non-macro shots. Ideal versatility ... MoreOK - let's fess up - I'm not a photographer. In fact my recently purchased Panasonic GX-80 is my first ever 'real' camera and I'm still fighting the steep learning curve.But my interest is in flower photography and although the kit lenses were OK I wanted to get close up. Hence this lens.For macro work it is superb, it's 60mm focal length (equivalent to a 120mm DSLR lens) allows a reasonable distance between lens and subject when shooting macro. It is pin-point sharp and f2.8 can give just a mm or two depth of field. Until a few weeks ago I didn't know what "bokeh" was - now I know enough to say it is good from this lens.60mm is also a pretty decent m43 length for everyday landscape use and I've proven that with several nice non-macro shots. Ideal versatility when going for a walk in the country.Indeed my plan is to leave the kit zoom lenses at home and travel with just 2 lenses - this for out in the country where landscapes and flowers dominate my shots and the Panasonic 25mm f1.7 for in towns to capture street scenes and people.Downsides? Auto-focus can overshoot and then come back before it locks. Might be a pain trying to catch fast moving insects but then again I believe real macro photographers prefer to shoot with manual focus. The little dial on the lens to adjust the ranges which it will search for focus is a bit fiddly but not too bad and essential to use to get reasonably quick auto-focus.I think this is a great lens. As a total beginner I baulked at the price-tag but it's excellent value as I've already taken a few shots I'm proud of and might even be 'professional' standard.This will probably be my most used lens!

This is such an incredible lens. The 1:1 mode gives crystal clear images. I really like the focus limiter settings to make autofocusing easier when you want to go a bit further because it does hunt a bit as it is so being able to limit its range of focusing to disregard anything outside that is a good option. Its super light too. Definitely a great buy. I use mine on a Pen-F but would definitely like to get an OM camera with focus stacking so I can utilise this lenss full capabilities to render terrific macro shots. The sample shots Ive given here were handheld.

This lens is very well thought of, it produces very good quality images but I it has some issues I'd like to see modified in a future version. The limiter-1:1 button is a fantastic feature it significantly reduces post focus hunting traumatic stress specially when you are shooting 1:1 in low light. The image quality is good, but it could be better. At the moment we have very high standards to compare macro lenses, but it was quite frustrating for me to confirm that the Olympus XZ-1 macro mode delivers better IQ than this lens. It has by far better sharpness and micro contrast. It is a shame for a macro dedicated lens to be beatten by compact camera macro mode in essencial parameters for macro photography. Of course the XZ-1/2 Olympus has the best optics of the ... MoreThis lens is very well thought of, it produces very good quality images but I it has some issues I'd like to see modified in a future version. The limiter-1:1 button is a fantastic feature it significantly reduces post focus hunting traumatic stress specially when you are shooting 1:1 in low light. The image quality is good, but it could be better. At the moment we have very high standards to compare macro lenses, but it was quite frustrating for me to confirm that the Olympus XZ-1 macro mode delivers better IQ than this lens. It has by far better sharpness and micro contrast. It is a shame for a macro dedicated lens to be beatten by compact camera macro mode in essencial parameters for macro photography. Of course the XZ-1/2 Olympus has the best optics of the compact point-and-shoot camera's world, but I'd expect that a dedicated macro lens would be at least as sharp, and the 60mm f2.8 isn't... I hope that olympus produces a MKII version of this lens with better sharpness, or a sharper model in the 75-80mm range. After Reading a lot of Panasonic 45mm f2.8 macro vs Olympus 60mm f2.8 macro reviews I decided to compare them for myself. After a few dives with the Panasonic I bought one. It is sharper, has better contrast and the difraction is less destructive in small apertures. The larger DOF of the 45mm also helped when shooting 1:1 and the smaller hiperfocal distance makes it a little more usable in close subject conditions. Another feature I'd like to see adressed is the manual focus... Although a speed sensitive rotating focus may apear a good idea it is not. It actually renders the manual focus completely unusable. On the other hand the manual focus in Panasonic is very usable. My final word is: this lens is very capable and produces very good images, better than Sigma 70mm f2.8 (I've been using it intensivelly for a vey long time in Nikon bodies), which is a very capable lens, but the problem is the competition (Panasonic) raised the bar one notch in parameters that are significant for macrophotography. What realy annoyed me with this lens was to confirm that the optics of a compact camera from the same brand performs better in macrofotography. Of course there are more optical chalenges associated to the bigger micro 4/3 sensor size, but, if Olympus manages to surpass these they will turn one average very good lens to a near perfect one. I still feel divided and I'd recomend this lens to a friend, because it is very good, but if the main purpose photo scope would be completelly within the 45mm capabilities, and the price woudn't matter, I recommended the Panasonic lens instead.