I definitely recommend it if you are looking for the smallest and lightest (slow) zoom possible without sacrificing image quality. magnification rating, so it's no macro lens, although that's not too surprising for a telephoto zoom lens. It's the only tele zoom I'm willing to carry almost all the time, I was actually surprised they were able to make it this small tbh.

Sure it wont give me the reach for wildlife photography but it does give good enough reach when you can't get close enough to something. lens features a compact metallic profile with a retractable structure despite having a versatile focal distance.The inner tube can wobble a bit if pressure is applied, but there’s very limited play in general use. An inner focus drive system and stepping motor for smooth, silent operation to work with the camera's high-speed, high-precision Contrast AF system for both photo and video recording.

optical image stabiliser, and has an iris diaphragm with rounded blades which give the aperture a rounded shape. The first thing that came to my mind, was that if this lens delivered good image quality, it would be the perfect carry everywhere short telezoom. Featuring a linear AF motor that drives a faster, smoother and silent autofocus – delivering a brilliant 4K video performance. The extremely small size makes this lens an ideal travel companion, and it fits in very well with lenses such as the Olympus 9-18mm and the Panasonic pancake zoom 12-32mm.The optical layout is decently complex: 12 elements in 9 groups, including 1 aspherical and 2 ED elements, and the lens uses seven curved diaphragm blades to make up the aperture.

What I get the most, however, is that you are a photographer with a unique eye, and more talent than most photographers who lean towards testing ever, have or hope to one day have. Both lenses are very sharp over the fisrt 3/4of their zoom range – but fade in the final 1/4 of the telephoto end (by a little bit of resolution and a more obvious step of contrast). On older Olympus bodies like the original E-M5 (and likely the original E-M10), you can’t use lens based IS at all…it just uses the IBIS. This telephoto zoom lens for Micro Four Thirds (MFT) system cameras sports a collapsible design, to reduce its size when not in use. Stopping down further doesn't provide any noticeable further gains, due to diffraction limiting showing up at ƒ/11.

Seven blades give the aperture a rounded shape that produces an attractively smooth effect in out-of-focus areas when shooting at larger aperture settings. I also tested this lens, and many other M4/3 optics, on an Olympus E-M5 Mark II in its 9216-pixel high-resolution RAW mode, processed with DXO 10.

The operation ensures aperture changes are smooth when recording so there are no unnecessary jumps in exposure and silent operation for optimum audio quality.The are no switches, distance scale or depth-of-field scale on the lens; the only information is the focal length markings.