Olympus Zuiko Digital 25mm F/2.8

Today, I picked up a new lens for my Olympus Evolt E520. I’ve been using the kit lenses, 14-42mm F/3.5-5.6 and 40-150mm F/4.0-5.6, along with couple other lenses for Nikon (Zoom-Nikkor 80-200mm F/4.0) and Pentax (Pentax-A 50mm F/2.0) with adaptors. As a set of lenses, they cover most of the needs, except for some indoor shooting.

Olympus uses 3/4 (Four Third) system, and they are known for their weakness under low lighting conditions. They have x2.0 Forcal Length Multiplier, so all the lenses above are equivalent of twice as focal length of 35mm cameras. so I basically covers 28mm to 400mm equivalent. while it’s pretty good coverage when you want to take photo under good lighting conditions, but when you want to take picture inside, my choice is narrowed down to either 14-42mm (=28-84mm on 35mm camera) with only F/3.5-5.6 or 50mm (=100mm on 35mm camera) with brighter F/2.0 lens. while kit lens will provide nice angle, often it’s too dark, and the Pentax F/2.0 is good under low light, but it’s way too closer when you want to use it indoor shooting.

I’ve been looking for faster lens with wide enough angle to use in indoor for portrait or just a snapshot. Olympus Zuiko Digital 25mm f/2.8, so called pancake lens. It’s a very compact lens which is under 1″ thick, and very reasonably priced (for me, who takes picture only every once in a while and rather want to spend the money for the car parts, if wife allows…).
I’ve read the review, and knew the picture quality won’t be the top notch, but for me it will be good enough, and more than anything, I really liked the good balance of its focal length (50mm equivalent = natural field of the view) and decently fast F-stop of F/2.8.

anyways, here are some of the comparison of my lenses (didn’t include the zoom lens as it’s not relevant…)
All are taken with Aperture Priority mode, and tried my best to get the same angle.

Zuiko Digital 25mm F/2.8 Shutter Speed:1/10, ISO400

Zuiko Digital 14-42mm (24mm for this picture) F/3.5-5.6 (F/4.7 for this), Shutter Speed:1/3, ISO400

Pentax-A 50mm F/2.0, Shutter Speed 1/15, ISO400

Here is another set

Zuiko Digital 25mm F/2.8 Shutter Speed:1/13, ISO400

Zuiko Digital 14-42mm (24mm for this picture) F/3.5-5.6 (F/4.7 for this), Shutter Speed:1/4, ISO400

Pentax-A 50mm F/2.0, Shutter Speed 1/13, ISO400

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