Olympus Zuiko Digital 50 mm f/2.0 Macro ED review - Ghosting, flares and transmission

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Olympus Zuiko Digital 50 mm f/2.0 Macro ED

15 January 2010

Arkadiusz Olech

9. Ghosting, flares and transmission

Taking photos against bright light, especially when the Sun is close to one of the frame corners you can expect discolouration in different hues, pale ghosting and an overall contrast decrease. These effects are not very intensive so the work of Olympus’s anti-reflection coatings should be assessed as satisfactory.

Olympus Zuiko Digital 50 mm f/2.0 Macro ED - Ghosting, flares and transmission

The best measure of the coatings performance is an overall lens transmission measurement. The graph below presents that quantity in connection with different wavelengths.

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At the beginning we should praise two things. Firstly, the graph is relatively flat in the 480 to 680 nm range so it guarantees natural colours rendition; secondly, the maximum result, reaching even 92%, is very good. You should remember here that the Olympus consists of 10 groups of elements so it requires coating of 20 air-to-glass surfaces. It means that on one surface we lose just about 0.4% - a very good, although not excellent result because the best coatings can lose as little as 0.2% on one surface.