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I've read good reviews about oly's 45mm 1.8...

momo

Member
Just started playing with my first m4/3 camera. A friend gave me her e-pl3 because she wasn't using it anymore.

She also loaned me her sigma 30mm lens. I like the lens, but thinking I might go a bit longer/faster and buy myself a used 45mm 1.8 so I can send my friend her sigma back. The guy wants 195 euros for the lens in like new condition.

I'm pairing this combo with a ricoh gr. Want the 28mm/90mm combo.

Would this lens be good for street work and some landscape stopped down a bit? I'm thinking maybe 5.6 or a bit more for some landscape work in relatively good light. Lately my landscape work has gone to b&w.

The street work can be day or night. Color and b&w. Sometimes I'd be at 1.8, others more closed down but I'm kind of liking 4-5.6 with the sigma.

In the end I'm thinking to buy either the e-pl7 or the e-m10 ll to use with the 45mm.

Just wanted to get feet wet to see image quality for myself and up to 800 for color and about 1600 for b&w this older 12mp oly is pretty good.

Thanks for any advice on the oly 45 f1.8.

Major thank you to my friend for gifting me the body.
 

xvvvz

New member
>> The guy wants 195 euros for the lens in like new condition.<<

Seems like a decent price for a like new one. Buying used is the way to go and euro for euro it is one of the best performance values out there in m43.

>>Would this lens be good for street work and some landscape stopped down a bit? I'm thinking maybe 5.6 or a bit more for some landscape work in relatively good light.<<

I like it for street because it is small and also gives you a bit of reach compared to the 25 mm so you don't have to be so close/in people's face. If you are in a crowd, bar, restaurant, etc., where you are in close to people, sometimes it can be too much. You just learn to work with the lens. It is great for portrait work. It is fine for landscape if you stop down AND if the field of view fits your working style/needs. You aren't going to be capturing wide vistas.

The lens is decent at 1.8 but starts to sharpen up pretty fast clear across the field of view as you stop down. 5.6 is sharpest in my experience and you start to see diffraction setting in as you stop down farther, especially starting at f8.

I wish this lens had better sealing. It is quite common to find dust on the internal elements with these lenses but usually it doesn't affect the final image. There is definite copy to copy variation. If you get a good one, it is a very nice performer. Some have decentering issues though. Look up the JJC lens hood for this lens on ebay. It is nice to have and reasonably priced. I rely on it for protection as much as shading light and thus skip using a protective UV filter. The official Oly hood costs way too much money.

At 195 euro, this lens is probably a no-brainer. As long as it is in good condition like described, if you take care of it you should be able to sell it for close to what you paid for it if you decide you don't like it.

My $.02.
Doug
 

momo

Member
>> The guy wants 195 euros for the lens in like new condition.<<

Seems like a decent price for a like new one. Buying used is the way to go and euro for euro it is one of the best performance values out there in m43.

>>Would this lens be good for street work and some landscape stopped down a bit? I'm thinking maybe 5.6 or a bit more for some landscape work in relatively good light.<<

I like it for street because it is small and also gives you a bit of reach compared to the 25 mm so you don't have to be so close/in people's face. If you are in a crowd, bar, restaurant, etc., where you are in close to people, sometimes it can be too much. You just learn to work with the lens. It is great for portrait work. It is fine for landscape if you stop down AND if the field of view fits your working style/needs. You aren't going to be capturing wide vistas.

The lens is decent at 1.8 but starts to sharpen up pretty fast clear across the field of view as you stop down. 5.6 is sharpest in my experience and you start to see diffraction setting in as you stop down farther, especially starting at f8.

I wish this lens had better sealing. It is quite common to find dust on the internal elements with these lenses but usually it doesn't affect the final image. There is definite copy to copy variation. If you get a good one, it is a very nice performer. Some have decentering issues though. Look up the JJC lens hood for this lens on ebay. It is nice to have and reasonably priced. I rely on it for protection as much as shading light and thus skip using a protective UV filter. The official Oly hood costs way too much money.

At 195 euro, this lens is probably a no-brainer. As long as it is in good condition like described, if you take care of it you should be able to sell it for close to what you paid for it if you decide you don't like it.

My $.02.
Doug
Doug, wanted to thank you for this explanation. It helped. Picked up the lightly used 45mm this afternoon. Will pick up the jcc version of the lens hood. About 20 euros at amazon.fr

Did some quick shots at various iso's and apertures. Looks good. Is there an easy way to check for decentering? I've never done that.

Ok. The adventure continues :cool:
 

emmef2

New member
I have just bought it new last week!
I have been surprised by how sharp and usable is even at f1.8 on my E-P5
I can roughly summarize my findings about its sharpness:

f/1.8
center to 1/3: very good
1/3 to 2/3 from the centre: good
2/3 to corner: soft

f/2.8
center to 1/3: excellent
1/3 to 2/3 from the centre: very good
2/3 to corner: decent

f/4
center to 1/3: excellent
1/3 to 2/3 from the centre: excellent
2/3 to corner: very good

f/5.6
center to 1/3: excellent
1/3 to 2/3 from the centre: excellent
2/3 to corner: very good

Unfortunately mine has a bit too much uneveness at the edge and corners, and I am probably going to ask for a replacement, but for the price and the size this lens is excellent
 

mediumcool

Active member
Lumix 42.5/1.8 is also worth considering - good performer.
Agree with Lars, except for the aperture (it’s f/1.7). :p

And the Panasonic lens is reputedly sharper at full aperture than the Olympus lens. A 42.5 is next on my list for m43.
 

xvvvz

New member
Agree with Lars, except for the aperture (it’s f/1.7). :p

And the Panasonic lens is reputedly sharper at full aperture than the Olympus lens. A 42.5 is next on my list for m43.
I bought the Oly 45 first and then later struggled whether to buy the 42.5 1.7 when it came out. When the 42.5 subsequently went on sale, I pulled the trigger and bought it. Wow. What a disappointment. I wanted to like it so much but my example was clearly inferior to my 45 so I kept my 45. What I learned from testing was that you can't put too much faith in the results from a single review that uses a single sample and that there can be (is) serious unit to unit performance variation.

Doug
 

momo

Member
Seems I have a good version of this 45mm 1.8

Lots of test images yesterday. Out shooting on the street. I don't do brick walls or charts. But it seems crisp right across the frame at 1.8 and 7.1. I'm liking the color from the lens/sensor combo too. Also easily changed in Lightroom.

Two things to get used to : the 90mm fov. I've been shooting almost exclusively for two years with my gr and it's 28mm lens.

The other thing is the m4/3 crop. A bit taller. A bit less wide. Kinda feels like the 6x7 film crop. Something that will take a while I suspect to come to terms with. How to compose in this slightly different space.

But I'm feeling it's all good for now. Will wait till end of year. I'm broke. See about an upgrade to an m10 v 2 or an epl7 on discount. Maybe even the pen f if it comes down in price and I can play with one in a store. See how it feels in hand.

The other thing I'm kinda curious about. All sorts of rumors about nikon and canon and new mirrorless stuff by the end of 2016. Just want to see what the options will be, but i sense for size, weight, image quality, i'll be sticking with olympus.

So I wait. See what the road will bring us. In the meantime this 28mm 90mm combo works for me. And I still have my old but trusty D700 if I want/need to change up the fov for specific things. I've got some older af lenses I like at 50mm for the nikon. And a recently purchased 135 f2.8 ai lens that's sweet. It's what made me look for the longer focal length with the pl3.

thanks for all the advice/user experience. it helps...
M
 
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