I used the Olympus lens for a week, but it saw most of its use on a day we had a Bridal model shoot. I've shown those photos before but I'll show some again as they make a useful comparison. On the day I used the Olympus lens on an E3 and the Canon lens on a 5D mk II. They were the only lenses I used all day. As you can see in the photo above each lens is remarkably similar in size. They also weigh about the same. Neither is image stabilized of course, but Olympus has that in camera, with the Canon you don't get any benefit from stabilization which is unfortunately often the case.
Forgive all the dust on the Canon lens in this photo, I promise I cleaned it after I saw this! As you can see the front lens element on the Olympus is larger without increasing the diameter of the lens. Both lenses by the way are really well constructed and feel like quality pieces of craftsmanship. The Canon lens has been my favourite one of the brand since I bought it, easily beating out my 50mm f1.4 and my 20mm f2.8 (which vignettes like crazy!). I was ready to just assume that the Olympus lens would outperform the Canon lens though as I'm used to perfection from Olympus glass. In practice I do notice slight vignetting on the Canon glass quite often. It's easy to fix in post if I want, but it does add a step to processing images. The image I shot on the day of modelling isn't a great example of it though, so you'll just have to trust me that on repeated use the Canon does suffer from vignetting.
I chose two images to compare. Here they are both unprocessed directly exported as a jpg from Lightroom. Both shot at f8.
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| Canon 5D mk II and 24-70 f2.8 lens |
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| Olympus E3 and 14-35 f2.0 lens |
You see? No bright skies that day so you won't notice the possible dark corners as much. Both lenses are very sharp. They also are both fast to focus. I never struggled with either grabbing focus as needed quickly and accurately. Functionally they are both a pleasure to use.
Here are the same photos, cropped in a corner of the frame:
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| Canon lens bottom right of frame. |
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| Olympus lens bottom left of frame |
There is more detail to be shown in the Canon file because of the location. The Canon lens is impressively sharp in the corners in my opinion. One of the reasons I've always liked the lens. The Olympus is also razor sharp. In fact I'd argue it is almost sharper in the corners than in the middle. A word about distortion here. I didn't notice any distortion at all in the Olympus lens. None. In the Canon lens there is distortion, kind of a pin cushion type where it puffs in the middle and curves in at the sides. The beauty of Lightroom 3 is that this lens is automatically profiled in the software and with one click the distortion is fixed immediately.
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| Canon file in the middle of the frame. Focus was set on the left of this, on the bride. |
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| Olympus file in the middle of the frame. Focus was set directly on the Brides torso. |
As I'm used to, the Canon files are easier to push around in post than the Olympus raw files. You just get more latitude out of the data and they stand up better to being pushed around with a heavy Photoshop hand. Right out of camera though I always prefer the Olympus files for better colour and a near perfect feel for what I was looking for. Here are the final processed images:
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| Canon Final Image |
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| Olympus Final Image |
As you can see, the Olympus file is much closer to the original image. The Canon file needed some work to suit my tastes, but I was able to get a lot of detail out of the sky in post and did some dodging and burning on the Bride and ground to suit what I wanted from the final look.
The Canon lens amazes me really. It is an imperfect lens, but still my absolute favourite from Canon so far in admittedly minimal experience with the brand. The Olympus lens just didn't surprise me. It did exactly what I thought it would. This lens holds together well wide open at f2.0, is sharp right to the corners, does not distort and is fast to focus. I like both lenses a lot. They are both dream lenses of a quality any pro would be happy to own and use.
The Canon lens can be bought for about $1500 Canadian in most stores. The Olympus lens is considerably more expensive at about $2400 Canadian. Both lenses come with lens hoods, bags and are weather sealed, though I expect the Olympus lens would be happier in the rain than the Canon. At least I won't trust my Canon lens in the rain as it doesn't carry the wet pedigree that the Olympus does. Though with Olympus once again letting slip in an interview that they may abandon four thirds, or plan too once micro four thirds cameras catch up in the technology (probably meaning fast focusing) of a traditional DSLR, it is hard to swallow the bill for a lens that may soon be extinct no matter how awesome it is.
The Olympus lens isn't high on my must own lens list as I have that range covered by my full frame camera which is a more natural wide angle system. Of course if I ever saw it on discount somewhere, I'd likely be tempted.
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