Olympus M. Zuiko Premium 30mm f/3.5 Macro ED Lens Review

Olympus M. Zuiko Premium 30mm f/3.5 Macro ED Performance

Sharpness at the centre is excellent from f/3.5 through to f/11. Diffraction reduces this to very good at f/16 and just fair at f/22. The edges do not quite match this, but are very good from f/3.5 to f/16, again dropping to just fair at f/22 as diffraction takes hold.

CA (Chromatic Aberration) is approaching zero at the centre of the image and is still well controlled at less than 1 pixel at the edges. It is difficult to be sure how corrections are affected by the MFT bodies themselves, but in any event, the end result here is excellent. If necessary, further correction can be applied using software.

Short telephoto lenses usually display some distortion, and some can be measured here, but at -0.01% barrel it is as near to zero and perfect drawing as could be wished for. Being the MFT system, we cannot be sure that some correction is not happening in camera, even on the RAW output, but whatever the case the end result is very impressive.

Flare performance is excellent and even quite bright backlighting does not cause much discomfort in terms of loss of contrast or unwanted artefacts. This is despite the lack of provision of a hood. A hood would still be a good idea as it offers physical protection against knocks as well as shielding the lens.

Bokeh is very pleasant indeed and the smoothness of the out of focus background detail is commendable.  

Value For Money

The Olympus M. Zuiko Premium 30mm f/3.5 Macro ED is priced at £249, really quite a modest amount for a premium macro lens.

The nearest equivalent would be the Panasonic Lumix G 30mm f/2.8 Macro Asph. Mega OIS at £269. Although this does offer the image stabilisation and a slightly wider maximum aperture, it doesn't have quite the same magnification. It only focuses down to 1:1, life-size.

Other mirrorless camera ranges have their own compact macro lenses, and for the sake of comparison there are the Canon EF-M 28mm f/3.5 Macro IS STM (£277), the Sony E 30mm f/3.5 Macro (£199), the Zeiss Touit 50mm f/2.8 E Macro (£749) and the Fuji 60mm f/2.4R Macro (£579).

The new Olympus lens is definitely excellent value when considered against this general backdrop.

For more options have a look at our Top Macro Lens suggestions.

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