I've used this lens extensively for professional assignments and private commissions, and it has come through every time. Obviously it's designed as a portrait lens, but I also find it great for street photography and reportage (which are typically the realm of 35mm equivalents).

Beyond this, prices increase significantly as you enter the realm of professional zooms with higher quality, tougher build and brighter apertures. My favourite pair are the Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 40-150mm f2.8 PRO (boasting a constant f2.8 aperture but without optical stabilisation), and the Panasonic Leica DG 50-200mm f2.8-4 (which sacrifices the constant aperture for a slightly longer range and a much smaller body for greater portability, and also includes optical stabilisation). Both lenses also make ideal pairings with the Olympus 12-40mm f2.8 and Panasonic Leica DG 12-60mm f2.8-4 respectively. Plus, the lenses were a joy to use and hold thanks to their compact size and metal feel – quite a contrast to the larger, high-quality plastic full-frame lenses I’m used to. While photographing the Cor Meibion Bro Dysynni‘s 50th Anniversary Party, for example, I used the 45mm PRO at f/1.2 for most of the evening, which allowed me to maintain a shutter speed of 1/100 to reduce motion blur and set the Auto ISO to a maximum of 1600. The optimal sharpness wide open makes it the perfect choice for an entire evening of shooting at f/1.2 and the extra stop also helps you isolate your subject better when shooting at a longer distance. E-M1, 1/100, f/1.2, ISO 800 – M.Zuiko 45mm PRO E-M1, 1/100, f/1.2, ISO 640 – M.Zuiko 45mm PRO E-M1, 1/100, f/1.2, ISO 250 – M.Zuiko 45mm PRO It's not a matter of "need". It's a matter of compromise. FF makes some things easier/more convenient. Same with mFT." When it comes to resolution records, you get the biggest chance of breaking them with a very fast lenses because they get more space for limiting effectively optical aberrations as you stop them down. Most aberrations disappear after stopping down the aperture by even 3 EV and you still find yourself far from a significant diffraction limit. What’s more, lenses with angles of view of just more than several dozen degrees have big chances to reach record-breaking values. You don’t have to employ big elements in them so there are no significant curvatures like in wide angle lenses or big optical element like in a case of long tele photo lenses of good aperture fastness. As a result these are quite simple constructions to produce and to correct properly.

For many years our Micro 4/3 optics tests were based on the Olympus E-PL1. Some time ago we’ve also started to test lenses using the Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II as we felt the time has come for changes. That’s how we found out that between sensors of those two bodies there is a very small difference, amounting to 5-7 lpmm at most, to the advantage of the newer one with a higher pixel count. Mind you that difference is possible to notice only in the wide area of the maximum relative aperture and it decreases when you employ apertures limited strongly by diffraction.

Micro Four Thirds cameras use a different image sensor format than full-frame and APS-C cameras, so you need to do some math to match up focal lengths between the systems. Micro Four Thirds uses a 4:3 aspect ratio. Compared with the 3:2 aspect sensors of competing systems, these sensors don't translate as nicely to wide screens and are smaller in surface area. Olympus E-M5 Mark III With 12-200mm Lens Panasonic’s so-called Dual IS technology exploits both optical stabilisation in the lens with body-based stabilisation in the camera to deliver improved results, especially for filming video or shooting at longer focal lengths; now most of its lenses support Dual IS when mounted on recent bodies, although they may need a firmware update. Olympus also has a similar technology called Sync IS, but it’s only exploited on a handful of lenses; that said, the Olympus built-in stabilisation is so good, it rarely needs further enhancement. However, my favorite cheap lens is the Olympus 45mm F1.8, a truly outstanding portrait lens and one of the few lenses I’ll never leave at home. Likewise, the Olympus 14-150mm F4-5.6 II is absurdly overpowered for its low price tag and compact size, making it an extremely likable travel companion. You do need to make sure you're getting the right type of lens for your camera. In this guide, we cover lenses for the Micro Four Thirds system. It's the oldest modern mirrorless system and one that multiple camera and lens makers support.At the end of this part of the test traditionally we present crops taken from photos of our resolution testing chart, saved in JPEG format along RAW files we used for the analysis above. While it has an effective focal length of 90mm, this is still a 45mm optic –so you get the same depth of field as you would with a 45mm f/1.8 lens on a full frame camera (or, alternatively, you get the same effective depth as you would at 90mm f/3.6 –but note that this phenomenon only extends to depth of field; the lens still gathers f/1.8 of light, so you don't lose any transmission).