Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 9-18 mm F4.0-5.6 Lens, Wide Angle Zoom, Suitable for All MFT Cameras (Olympus OM-D & PEN Models, Panasonic G-Series), Black

Product Information

At 9mm, this lens is capable of producing images with excellent resolution at moderate apertures. Wide open, the lens performs acceptably, but stopping down to f/8 produces images with excellent centre sharpness. Unfortunately the resolution towards the edge of the frame never exceeds good on our scale, and it just reaches this level at f/8.

Olympus 8–25 after the dust has settled: Micro Four Thirds Olympus 8–25 after the dust has settled: Micro Four Thirds

At all focal lengths and apertures makes the Panasonic in combination with the Olympus OM-D jpg files with a high center sharpness. With focal lengths from 9 to 12 millimeters is the sharpness at the edges slightly behind the center, above the sharpness in the center and corners practically equal. Nowhere does the resolution below 1000 LW / PH and thus, many lenses, including fixed focal length, trumped by the Olympus 9-18 mm. A wide-angle lens will always be susceptible to flare - especially when used without a hood - , and the Olympus M:ZUIKO Digital 9-18mm f/4-5.6 is no exception. If you include the sun - or any other strong light source - in the frame, you will likely see a number of ghosts as well as a bit of veiling. Why you can trust Digital Camera World Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out how we test.I use the 8-25 lens when covering outdoor large crowd events like a Veteran's Day memorial commemoration on Thursday of last week, or a local outdoor car show. I thought it was perfect for those and I enjoyed having the additional 8-11 mm focal length range that I have never had before. The most natural point of comparison for the recently released Panasonic Leica 8-18mm f/2.8-4.0 is the only other high-end wide angle zoom for Micro Four Thirds, the Olympus M.Zuiko 7-14mm f/2.8 PRO. (In fact, it was the very first comparison we published after receiving the Panasonic zoom to test.)

Olympus M. Zuiko Digital ED 9-18mm 1:4-5.6 review

The large, bulbous front element of the Panasonic lens creates distracting purple flare, despite the built-in petal lens hood. For an ultra-wide lens, the Olympus 9-18mm displays good peripheral illumination. At 9mm the far corners are only 1.4stops darker than the image centre and stopping down the f/5.6 results in pretty much even illumination. At 18mm, any sign of vignetting has decreased further, with the corners only 0.4 stops darker than the image centre at f/5.6. The Leica was primarily conceived with advanced amateurs and professional users in mind, which is more than amply reflected in its premium weather-proof construction, faster aperture range of 2.8 to 4.0, and superior optical quality across the frame. Because it is a professional product, it also makes more sense to pair it with larger professional bodies such as the Olympus OM-D E-M1 II or the Panasonic Lumix GH5 – though we did use it without issue on the mid-sized Lumix GX85. When I'm in manual focus I get no error message but trying to focus manually will give it to me as well.

I used the M.Zuiko 9-18 with a polarizer filter attached most of the time, but in the few situations where I did not use it, my impression was that the lens renders colors slightly muted and a tad to the coolish side. Of course, this is all relative when you shoot raw files and tweak the colors during post-processing. In general, less saturated colors give more leeway for post-processing. Conclusions When set to 9mm and their respective maximum apertures (f/3.1 on the Leica and f/4 on the Olympus), it appears that the Olympus is ever so slightly sharper than the Leica but the differences are almost non-existent. I don't own both so feel free to discount this opinion, but I've seen enough images created with both to suggest that the difference in IQ is nothing you're going to see except during extreme pixel peeping - not when actually looking at photographs. So, I'd discount IQ as a factor - both are great lenses. The lens feels good on the Olympus PEN cameras. Although a telescoping lens, there is only minimal play when extended.