I agree that the 12mm F2.0 lens is seriously eye-brow raising. Spock would
probably send an eyebrow up so high that even Scotty couldn't beam it back.
We'll need to see if the image-quality and distortion figures match the
hype.
This is a significant lens, and one that deserves serious praise. However,
it also brings up some question. Praises first:
1. F2 is far more usable than F1.4 and any marginal brightness advantage
(which is mitigated by the sensor and lensmount and sensor chamber size) is
sacrificed by loss of contrast and other optical faults. It's better to
design a lens that natively excels at F2 than have a larger, heavier F1.4
lens which needs to be stopped down to F2 to be usable. Olympus perfected
the F2 optics back in the OM days and if anybody knows how to build an F2
optic, it is Olympus. If the lenses were tagged "Leica" instead of "Zuiko",
they'd command thousands of dollars.
2. As a stand-alone lens, the 24mm equivalent focal length is generally
considered to be a bit wide. However, when used along side a short-telephoto
(like the upcoming 45mm F1.8), the pairing is very well matched. The typical
Leica configuration would be a 28mm and 90mm. Depending on a person's
preferences, the wide-angle lens woud vary from 24mm to 35mm most typically.
For the OM system, I use 24mm and 35mm, while I long ago sold my 28mm. With
the shorter frame which 4/3 has over 2:3 sensor/film formats, going a little
wider is a good thing. A 24mm equivalent in FourThirds gives about the same
image width as a 28mm in the more rectangular formats. Again, this is a good
choice for Olympus to make and addresses the fact that the 14mm wide-angle
in our zoom lenses hasn't been quite wide enough.
3. The focus ring setup is seriously applause-worthy! As somebody who lives
and dies by his manually focused lenses, this is welcome and mine will
probably live in this mode indefinitely. Having the DoF markings is so
welcome. Again, I use them all the time. Thank you, Olympus.
4. Build materials and visual appearance. As some of you know, I have a
thing for silver... Yes, this lens is about as attractive as they come.
So, this brings up a question. Why does the 45/1.8 lens lack DoF markings?
Is it because it is still in prototype phase and this one just happened to
lack the laser etchings? Or is the 24/2 a one-off? Without the markings I
question the continuity of design in this series of lenses.
There is a lot of exciting stuff going on in recent months with Micro
FourThirds and there are signs that this system may just evolve enough to
the point where it could be an overall professional-use system. It's not
there yet, but there are signs of it coming.
AG
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