Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 12-50mm f/3.5-6.3 EZ

Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 12-50mm f/3.5-6.3 EZ Handling and features

The metal-like finish of the silver lens supplied for testing has an excellent high quality feel to it, which is complimented by the splash-proof build. The lens mount is constructed from metal and the lens balances well on the Panasonic G1 used for testing.

As focusing and zoom are performed internally the 52mm filter thread does not rotate during use, making this lens ideal for use with graduated and polarising filters. Focus speeds are fairly quick, although in low light conditions the lens can sometimes struggle to find a lock, especially at the telephoto end of the range. The thin manual focus ring is fairly loose, which can make applying fine adjustments a little more tricky then with better damped lenses. A dedicated focus lock button on the side of the lens allows focus to be held quickly and easily.

The novel design of the zoom mechanism is unique. The zoom ring can be set to three positions, by moving it back and forth. The first position uses the electromagnetic zoom motor, which is great for smooth zooming during video recording. Sliding the zoom ring forward engages the zoom mechanism manually, which may be preferred for composing quickly whilst shooting still images. Finally if the macro button on the side of the lens is depressed, the zoom ring can be moved forward again. This reduces the minimum focus distance to 20cm and sets the focal length of the lens around 43mm (although it can vary slightly depending on the position of the zoom in the first place). Using this feature allows the lens allows a magnification of 0.36x to be realised, which is quite impressive when the 2x crop factor of the system is taken into account.

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