Lens review

Olympus Zuiko Digital 9-18 mm f/4-5.6 ED

11. Summary

Pros:

• compact, light, solid instrument,
• very good quality of frame center picture,
• very good quality of frame corner picture,
• chromatic aberration well corrected,
• slight astigmatism,
• slight vignetting/ falloff,
• fabulous against bright light,
• autofocus efficient and quick.

• chromatic aberration a bit too big for 9mm / wide open combination,
• noticeable coma for longer focal lengths.

The fact, that I really had a lot of troubles to find any disadvantages for the final list is the best recommendation for this lens. I wrote these two points almost by force, these are no serious flaws, quite understandable with such a wideangle instrument.

Every amateur photographer, who works with the Four Thirds system and is interested in a landscape or journalistic wideangle lens which does the job asked of it extremely competently with the minimum of fuss, has its choice before him.

All we have to do now is to wait for a premiere of a ultra-wideangle zoom f/2.8. I am very curious how Olympus will meet this challenge.

Sample shots:

Camera: Olympus E-3 Parameters: 18 mm, f/5.6, exp. 1/100 sek., ISO 100 File: JPG, 3648x2736 pix, 4.4 MB	Camera: Olympus E-3 Parameters: 18 mm, f/8.0, exp. 1/400 sek., ISO 100 File: JPG, 3648x2736 pix, 4.7 MB	Camera: Olympus E-3 Parameters: 14 mm, f/4.8, exp. 1/1000 sek., ISO 100 File: JPG, 3648x2736 pix, 4.9 MB
Camera: Olympus E-3 Parameters: 11 mm, f/4.2, exp. 1/1000 sek., ISO 100 File: JPG, 3648x2736 pix, 4.9 MB	Camera: Olympus E-3 Parameters: 9 mm, f/5.6, exp. 1/800 sek., ISO 100 File: JPG, 3648x2736 pix, 4.3 MB	Camera: Olympus E-3 Parameters: 9 mm, f/4.0, exp. 1/320 sek., ISO 100 File: JPG, 3648x2736 pix, 4.7 MB
Camera: Olympus E-3 Parameters: 18 mm, f/5.6, exp. 1/250 sek., ISO 100 File: JPG, 3648x2736 pix, 4.5 MB	Camera: Olympus E-3 Parameters: 12 mm, f/5.6, exp. 1/250 sek., ISO 100 File: JPG, 3648x2736 pix, 4.4 MB	Camera: Olympus E-3 Parameters: 13 mm, f/4.6, exp. 1/250 sek., ISO 100 File: JPG, 3648x2736 pix, 4.4 MB
Camera: Olympus E-3 Parameters: 9 mm, f/7.1, exp. 1/100 sek., ISO 100 File: JPG, 3648x2736 pix, 4.1 MB	Camera: Olympus E-3 Parameters: 15 mm, f/4.9, exp. 1/150 sek., ISO 100 File: JPG, 3648x2736 pix, 4.4 MB	Camera: Olympus E-3 Parameters: 11 mm, f/6.3, exp. 1/80 sek., ISO 100 File: JPG, 3648x2736 pix, 4.0 MB
Camera: Olympus E-3 Parameters: 14 mm, f/4.8, exp. 1/160 sek., ISO 100 File: JPG, 3648x2736 pix, 5.1 MB	Camera: Olympus E-3 Parameters: 10 mm, f/5.6, exp. 1/160 sek., ISO 100 File: JPG, 3648x2736 pix, 4.3 MB	Camera: Olympus E-3 Parameters: 16 mm, f/5.3, exp. 1/160 sek., ISO 100 File: JPG, 3648x2736 pix, 4.8 MB