Looking back at the M.Zuiko Digital 17mm 1:2.8, a vintage wide-angle from 2009, the first prime lens for the Micro 4/3 camera system.
<< Click on image for enlarged Lightbox display >>
The Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 17mm 1:2.8 Pancake, as awesome today as it was first launched, was the first prime lens from Olympus for its Micro 4/3 camera system when it was launched with the PEN E-P1 in 2009. The lens, with 6 elements in 4 groups including 1 aspherical element, has 5 circular blades, a closest focusing distance of 0.2 meters, measures only 22mm in length, weighs 71 grams, and takes 37mm filters. Autofocus is fast and quiet for its day, while image quality, as commented on, is high at the center of the frame is high, it's less impressive towards the edges. The lens is equivalent to a 34mm focal length on a full-frame camera. Aside from the manual 'fly-by-wire' focus ring, the lens is a simple and plain fare with no distance scale or DOF markings.
With its compact size and bright 1:2.8 maximum aperture, the wide-angle lens is well suited for portraitures, travel, street and documentary, close-ups, and evening or indoor photography when lighting is limited. The 34mm focal length, which sits between the wider 28mm and the standard normal 50mm lenses, also a favorite for environmental portraits, allows for a wider context around the subject while maintaining intimacy, particularly where background elements are included in the visuals for the story.
A feature advantageous to the user is when the lens is set to manual focus (via the camera's menu system), the camera is set to automatically display a magnified view of the subject when the manual focus ring is activated.
Image Album
Images posted were shot with the M.Zuiko Digital 17mm 1:2.8 mounted on an Olympus E-PM2 and an Olympus E-P5, mostly in RAW. Image crops and post-editing are done on the desktop image editor.
No comments:
Post a Comment