Olympus Zuiko Digital ED 50mm F2.0 Macro Pro Reviews

Overall, the Olympus Zuiko Digital ED 50mm 1:2.0 Macro is a good performer, but one with room for improvement. At this price many would no doubt trade its weatherproofing for a more refined focusing motor. Nevertheless, once it's stopped down towards its middle apertures, its sharpness equals that of similar lenses, and its control over chromatic aberrations is just as admirable.

This 50mm macro optic from Olympus is an interesting choice for Four Thirds format cameras due to its compact dimensions and bright maximum aperture. Although the performance wide open may not be of the highest order, it is well-suited to portraiture, and stopping the lens down can produce excellent results. At £580 it isn't a cheap option although I believe it is priced just about right for the features and performance it offers.

The optic has a multilayer film coating, and minimum focusing is 24cm with a 1:2 magnification ratio. Unlike on some others, there is no size ratio guide on the lens, which is a disappointment. Performance is good, particularly in JPEG shooting rather than unsharpened RAW. The MTF charts show very high performance with natural camera sharpening in JPEG, but performance is more on a par with the Pentax lenses in unsharpened RAW mode. It's a high quality and fast lens that produces the goods.

The question for many macro enthusiasts could be whether to buy this lens or the 35mm ƒ/3.5. Optically, the 50mm ƒ/2 is a real treat: images are tack-sharp all the way to ƒ/16, there's terrific resistance to chromatic aberration, distortion and vignetting, and you get a well-designed, hardy lens made with metal components where you'd need them. The fit and finish, as well as the excellent optical characteristics justify the price, but if you don't specifically need the 50mm focal length, the 35mm has a higher magnification rating and is just as good optically, so it is a much better value. That said, anyone who buys the 50mm won't be disappointed.

The Olympus Zuiko Digital ED 50mm 1:2.0 Macro was one of the very first Four Thirds system lenses, announced along with the launch of the E-1 back in June 2003. With an unusually fast maximum aperture for a macro lens, it's described as a dual purpose optic also suitable for portraits; indeed it's the closest to a classic portrait prime Olympus currently produces. The optical design is suitably complex for a macro lens, with 11 elements in 10 groups including 1 ED glass element, and includes a floating focus system for optimum correction across the entire distance range. This enables a minimum focus distance of 0.2m, giving a 1:2 (0.5x) maximum magnification, which translates to an image area similar to that obtained using a 1:1 macro lens on the 35mm full-frame format. The lens incorporates Olympus's 'focus-by-wire' system, whereby the manual focus ring is used to drive the lens's AF motor electronically...