Skip to content

5 Comments

  1. Olympus1974
    February 13, 2017 @ 15:05

    Nice review. I do enjoy the lens and its quality. My biggest concerns are weight, flare and spotting on the front element. It’s 40% heavier than the 12-40mm which is significant when choosing which lenses to carry. When I point it towards the sun or a bright light source, even one just outside the frame, I get noticeable light streaks and ghosting. Although the lens is weather sealed, the huge front element will easily pick up spray or rain drops. So, I have to be very careful with where I point this lens and always carry a cleaning cloth.

    Reply

    • Jan Steinman
      May 9, 2017 @ 07:32

      An old super-wide enthusiast trick: if you see flare, but the light source is not in the field of view, move a hat (or perhaps only a hand) in front until the flare suddenly goes away. If the sun was not in the viewfinder, your hand will not be in the final image, which will now be flare-free.

      Reply

  2. David Thompson
    February 13, 2017 @ 16:55

    A very well written review with some excellent photos showing what this lens can do. I did own this beauty and I totally agree with where your coming from. Keep up the good work.

    Reply

  3. Jon Rolf
    March 2, 2017 @ 13:51

    I have used the Olympus 7-14mm extensively, and I find it to be excellent and quite rectilinear. I use it mostly for architectural and travel photography, and it’s f/2.8 makes it great for dim indoor shots. I sold my Pany 7-14mm because the CA was always present and purple flare blobs were too frequent when used with Olympus bodies. In my experience, CA and purple blobs have never been a problem with the Olympus 7-14mm. One final note. I was surprised to see your photos had definite keystone effects from pointing the lens upward. If you keep the lens level, this is not an issue at all. (I consider keystone effects operator effects, not lens defects.)

    Reply

  4. John Pendleton
    March 2, 2017 @ 22:12

    The 7-14mm PRO has proven to just be an indispensable travel lens for me, as no lens gives you that sense-of-place “establishing shot” like a superb wide-angle. I have the 8mm Fisheye PRO as well, and while the wider aperture gives you more low-light elbow room, the rectilinear 7-14mm provides a much more practical image, which can be corrected with keystoning/prespective tools in postproduction if angles are too extreme. I also have the other two lenses in the “holy trinity,” but the 7-14 excels in two situations: extreme outdoor vistas and extreme close quarters. In both shots, you get a beautiful, edge-to-edge clarity that is more than the eye actually sees, but may conform more to what the mind is THINKING it sees. If you want what the eye is really picking up, pop a 25mm prime on that M4/3 body and hit the street, my son. As for lens flare, yeah, of course, it’s just physics that you’ll be dealing with that in a bulbous front lens — so it’s just part of the shot. And on my recent rainy trip to Iceland, I just kept a clean microfiber towel with me at all times to dab off the lens as often as I could. The built-in lens hood seems to protect the front glass better on the 7-14 than on the 8mm Fisheye, primarily because the latter lens is in a fixed position to the hood. But boy, did I feel smug as I shot next to countless other tourists desperately trying to operate their cameras with plastic wrapped around them to protect against the elements. The one thing the EM1 II and the PRO lenses have over ALL the other mirrorless cameras is superior weathersealing. And I can attest it lives up to the hype.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

The maximum upload file size: 96 MB. You can upload: image, audio, video, document, spreadsheet, interactive, text, archive, code, other. Links to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other services inserted in the comment text will be automatically embedded. Drop file here