Customer Reviews

Olympus 25mm f/2.8 Pancake Lens for Olympus Digital SLR Cameras

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I bought this lens from B&H about a week ago. It was the only one I have seen anywhere in stock, and I grabbed it up instantly, and no others have appeared.

Complaining about the lens cap will be common to all reviews. It is a metal screw-on disc, that is hard to work unless the camera is facing up. Order a 43mm pinch lens caps when you order, along with a protective haze filter. Don't plan on a thick filter, such as a polarizing filter or a stack of filters, because you will cut off the corners of the image. Even though this is a standard quality Zuiko (expensive but not REALLY expensive) it has a metal (not plastic) connector linking it to the camera body. If you have lived your entire photographic life with a zoom lens, you may not like a prime. You do your framing by zooming your feet back and forth from the subject--or move the subject. Be careful at the rim of the Grand Canyon!

This lens is thin and light. It won't zoom, of course, but if you have 8 or 10 megapixels, you can crop and still leave respectable resolution. It's great for when your evolt series Olympus DSLR has to serve tourist duty or for holidays with the family. Auto focusing in low light is accurate and, although this is not really a macro, my rose pictures are quite presentable as are those of people.

If you already have one or more of the kit lenses for the 400/500 series, you probably have the 50mm point covered. If you want portability and don't mind the challenges of a prime, this might be for you. I suspect that it will be cheaper a few months down the road.

The 4/3s system sorely lacked a nice normal lens. The Leica is grossly overpriced at nearly or sometimes over $1000. Although this lens is nearly not as fast as the Leica, optically, its brilliant, especially when considering the size. This lens is the perfect walk around lens and is great on the E-xx0 cameras. I tried using it on the E-1, but it felt a little funny, but I almost never take it off my E-500. The lens does very well wide open an dis great for evening/night shots when you're walking around.

However, there are some problems that you will see with this lens, which is why I gave it only 4 stars. One of the most notable problems is the barrel distortion. This is very visible if you take an architectural shots. Also, if you shoot in very bright conditions, the lens does show a fair amount of CA and this can only be corrected in post processing. However, if you shoot B&W this won't be an issue.

Ultimately, for the price and size, this is an excellent lens, although I wouldn't recommend it for any critical work. I recommend this lens highly.

This lens was a catalyst for upgrading to an Olympus system (E-420) as I wanted portability and good IQ at the same time. It is perfect for the E-420 (or E-410) and this combination offers a great balance between portability and IQ -- plus an added bonus is that this combo is so much fun to use!

With this lens being a `prime' lens, you don't have zoom but a fixed range of 25mm (50mm in 35mm terms) which is similar to your own natural eye's view of the world. It makes for great street-photography and keeps you fitter as your legs take over zoom duties! This style of shooting make for more fun and demands more thought in composing your shots which will only improve your skill in photography. Another thing I noticed is that you can capture more natural shots where your subject does not negatively react because it is a very discreet lens; in contrast to sticking a zoom in someone's face. Gone is the problem of being paranoid in looking like a photographic geek, journalist or goofy traveller with a zoom dangling from your neck-- and that can be priceless in itself.

Image Quality wise, I find it great considering how ultra-light and compact it is. Naturally, there are primes which are sharper and can control CA better, but that are three times thicker and heavier, so there are always trade-offs. The key attraction for this lens is extreme portability and I find it easy to choose when to use this lens before I set off. It is a great feeling of freedom knowing you can just slap on this lens and go on a journey without feeling hindered and knowing you will still get some great shots. I don't think any other brands offers anything like this, so it is unique in the marketplace. Even the excellent Pentax Limiteds are quite heavy and not quite as thin.

The popularity of this lens has surprised even Olympus with them not being able to cater for the high-demand when it was first released. Hopefully, there is enough stock for everyone to finally be able to get their dirty mitts on one!

Now, I am waiting patiently for what other delicious pancakes Olympus has in store (and I am sure there will be more), but in the meantime this lens will help me capture shots with ease in places where no others will really allow.

See Customer Images for my samples shots from this lens (and comments for more info).

You do need this lens. If you got an E-something-'er-ether and are thinking you want to try out a small, prime, faster lens and you are on the fence about it; let me knock you off.

It is "that much faster". In a room at 9am with 2 big windows, F2.8 it shoots at 320. This is a feat the kit F4 would have to struggle with at 25. In the sun, 11am, f2.8 I found it to shoot at 3200-4000 until with good white brick reflections it was overexposed and I had to pull it down to f16 (at which point it still shot in the 200 range. The sharpness is suburb throughout.

If you have had difficulties with the kit lens's manual focus you will be impressed with this. The focusing is smooth and firm and the subject can be pulled into frame in split seconds. The action feels comfortable and natural with the left thumb as you clamp the top with the remaining fingers.

It has a metal gasket that makes a tight fit. I'm not planing on putting mine to the test on purpose soon, but I would imagine it could stand up to some good wind blown dust and sprinkler mist that plagues us so. It seams to be built of a metal shell with plastic or resin coverings and the feel of it in your hands is like a little stone to skim across the pond.

The kit lenses have a small skip at times when powering down, that of which I have not experienced at all with this.

But it's not all great. The cap has been demeaned with all sorts of profanities and I completely know why. I managed to drop it twice on the first run! You may imagine it's raised but it is actually recessed with the exception of a small serrated ring. You have to push down and spin, there is nothing to pinch or pull.

I can guarantee you will be happy with it. You will also be sure to find me with this lens on 95% of the time from now on. The kit lenses are only coming out for wide or tight occasions. I have found myself frustrated with the fact there are so few options in the 4/3 mount but I am no longer. Zuiko has proven themselves to me with this low end standard, I can only dare imagine what the high end (and the 45 years I'll have to work to pay them off) will hold.

I am using this lens on a Panasonic Lumix L1 and took it to a large party/rehearsal dinner where people were frantically milling and mingling around and I really enjoyed weaving in and out of the crowd snapping candids with this lens. It was so refreshing not having to worry about fiddling with a zoom ring and allowed for rapid point and shoot style shooting that gave me a great advantage in capturing the flurry of the moment and great candids.

I only gave it 4 stars because of the following: 1) as others have stated in photo forums, this lens, after you screw it on about 2/3's the way, the last 1/3 of the twist is very hard to do because it is a extremely tight fit so much so that it feels wrong. None of my other Olympus lens' fit like this -- they all twist on firmly with ease. 2) this is the first Olympus lens I've purchased that is made in China (all my other ones are made in Japan) 3) I feel this lens in over-priced for a fixed lens, especially a pancake that has very little glass in it and is also made in China -- this lens should cost around $150. (Because of the bad fit, I may send this back and try another one to see if it fits better)

For those of you who own a Lumix L1, I can tell you this is the lens that should have been supplied with the camera as a kit lens -- it changes the whole attitude and functionality of the camera, and finally, the L1 has a lens that matches its range-finder body style. This lens just encourages the joy of shooting by enabling you to concentrate on your subjects.

The only two lenses I owned before this were the 14-42 f/3.5-5.6 kit and the 40-150 f/3.5-4.5 (which is a real diamond in the rough), and I mainly stuck to sports shooting. I got a bonus from work and a couple friends had been pressuring me pretty hard to finally get a prime lens. For under $250, I had to wonder just how good this little guy really could be.

Short answer: Very good.

Long answer: Nobody is kidding when they talk about how small this is. Even with both caps on it's no bigger than a hockey puck. Attached to my E-410, it will fit in a jacket problem and even some pants pockets! I didn't pay a lot of attention to aperture since sports shooting centers more on shutter speed, and wondered what the difference was between shooting f/3.5 and f/2.8 and it is a striking difference. Some have mentioned issues with chromatic aberration but I haven't noticed that problem. The AF is quick and doesn't make a ton of noise, although it can hunt a little in lower light, but not so much that I've really noticed. Keep in mind that Olympus bodies have a 2x crop factor so this is a 50mm equivalent.

Yes the metal (nice touch!) lens cap screws on, but it's pretty easy to get used to and if you have to deal with that in order to get this small of a lens, I'm happy with that trade. The cap is VERY thin though (like a coin), so make sure you keep it in a pocket. Fits perfectly in that small pocket of your jeans!

For the price, it's a phenomenal way to get into prime shooting. I'm thinking more about the composition of my shots before I fire the shutter, and that in and of itself is already helping me shoot better. This isn't the best prime lens on the planet, but you'd be very hard-pressed to find anything better for the price, and the size makes it a fantastic walk-around.

I got this lens as part of the Komachi Outfit, a special limited edition package from Olympus that is allegedly only available at brick and mortar camera retailers, and I'm very glad that I did. If the optical quality were just a tiny bit higher I'd feel comfortable giving it five stars, but as it is it's a terrific little lens and definitely worth owning if you've got the E-420 and are placing a premium on size.

Since this was the only lens that came with my camera, I shot a lot with it at first and found that there were some definite issues with distortion. These can often be gotten around with framing, and since part of the reason I wanted a prime lens was that I wanted to have to THINK about composition and MOVE rather than just standing there and zooming, it hasn't really diminished my enjoyment of the lens. When you're really flowing, shooting streetscapes and actively moving yourself, shooting with your whole body and framing people and objects in that 50mm equivalent f.o.v. you remember from your first slr, the lens makes you feel like a jazz musician building something totally unexpected and complex out of one very simple figure.

That said, there are limitations. F/2.8 is fast, but just a little bit faster (2.0? 1.8?) would render the lens a whole lot more useful, especially for E-420 users who haven't got in-camera image stabilization (the Olympus rep at my local camera store has the same feeling, although he claimed that a 25mm f/2.0 prototype was abandoned because the design just couldn't be made small enough). Manual focus is difficult to use properly, a recurring complaint with Olympus' "focus-by-wire" system and particularly noticeable with the very small size of this lens. And while sharp, I've recently purchased the Olympus 14-54 f/2.8-3.5, which (at least to my semi-trained eye) gives noticeably sharper results at 25mm. As well, the 50mm equivalent f.o.v. isn't going to be useful for all shooting situations, but part of what I love about this lens is that it's so small I literally never leave home without it, so I'm never without a backup.

The bottom line: technically, this lens is about what you'd expect it to be for around $200, which means it's not without issues. And yes, most standard zooms cover this range. But as a tool to help you think about photography in a different way, and given that it makes the E-420 (and even the E-520, really) a VERY compact package that you may be more likely to carry and capture those moments when you'd otherwise be wishing you had your camera, it's well worth the price.

I bought this lens a few weeks ago and it is a fun little lens. It makes sense if you want a really small lens for the smaller Oly bodies. I use it on my 620. The lens really is itty bitty.

Is it a phenomenal cosmic performer? Look at the size. It's a pancake! So, no, it is not. I do find it quite sharp, though, and haven't seen a lot of CA nor flare. I may not take a lot of shots that would induce those, though. I have noticed some distortion.

The point of a lens like this, though, is 'small as possible' and being a 'normal' lens, it has a lot of uses. And, it is fairly close focusing too. Decently fast and not very expensive. And small. And lite. And did I mention small?

If you want to turn your small Oly into something even smaller and with a useful, albeit fixed, focal length, this is a good lens. But don't expect Super High Grade lens performance when you are not paying Super High Grade lens price or feeling Super High Grade lens size and weight.

I bought this lens primarily to have a prime that would force me to think about composition rather than relying on zoom. That's still an ongoing project, but it has become very apparent to me that this lens can transform the way you handle an SLR: one handed operation becomes completely natural. This lens is so small and light that my E-620 becomes almost as easy to handle one handed as my point and shoot. It's wonderful for crawling around on the floor taking pictures of the baby. My wife, who is uncomfortable with the size and weight of the camera with the 14-54mm II, now will use the SLR instead of the point and shoot. She was initially cross with me for buying the lens, but she's now warmed up to it after using it herself.

Obviously this is an inexpensive lens and image quality was compromised in favor of size an weight. It can't compare to the 14-54 II, but that's to be expected. The only nuisance I've encountered is pronounced barrel distortion when taking pictures of architecture and other geometrical objects. It is correctable on the computer but that's an added hassle.

If I could only have one lens for my Olympus DSLR, it would be this 25mm (50mm equiv) lens. I like the versatility and perspective of a normal lens, a carryover from my many years shooting film. I use this lens most of the time and zoom lenses only when necessary. This lens is very small and almost weightless; a pleasure to use inside with flash or outside. Low light shooting situations where you are not allowed to or don't want to use a flash are a challenge for any DSLR system. This is where all that experience you have pays off. In the right hands, this little lens will perform well in very little light.