Olympus 12-60mm

[Joe Lawry]

Did a search but found very little info on this lens. Finally jumped into the AF100 game on friday and am very happy with my purchase.

Currently have Primes for Africa (Cinemodded ZF set) but im in need of a zoom that'll cover a decent range. I can totally deal with the Speed of this lens, and a lens with a FF equivalent FOV of 24-120mm sounds great.

However, like i said, i haven't found any reports on this lens, and it leads me to believe that its not suited to video for some reason?

Can anyone shed some light?

Cheers.

 

[tacotim]

as long as you don't need to zoom during a shot it's fine. when you zoom, the aperture audibly and visually clicks throughout the range. That for me was a deal breaker. It was also a heart breaker as I believe that to be the PERFECT range for a hand held zoom on the af100. I eagerly wait for a lens company to fill that gap. In the mean time i'm pretty happy with my pentax 16-50 2.8. It of course feels not quite wide enough at times though.

 

[ScottNelson]

Can anyone shed some light? Cheers.

Had a Oly 12-60, sold it after 2 months for the same reasons TacoTim mentioned - drove me crazy.

Then bought a Oly 14-54, sold that after 2 months for the same reasons plus not parafocal - drove me crazy.

Great lenses as long as they're on an Olympus still camera and I don't have one of those nor plan to get one.

Right now I'm using a simple Lumix 14-45 and quite pleased with OIS, push/auto focus and reasonable iris control - not perfect but at least everything works and I can get by with the speed of the lens because the AF100 has an incredible ability to shoot very clean images @ 800 ISO. I call it my 'jog n shoot', not quite a 'run n gun' but does a good job and I like seeing the right side of the LCD and EVF lit up like a Christmas tree with all display functions working when I need them (especially OIS, not just any OIS but MEGA-OIS, whatever that is). Never thought I'd sing the praises of a Lumix lens but I gotta shout out about this one. Get over the fact that it's not a manly lens - it's small but performs well - Panasonic got this one right and it's only $300.

http://www.photozone.de/olympus--four-thirds-lens-tests/414-pana_1445_3556

I've got primes for everything else and a great Canon FD 35-105 f3.5 and a Tokina 11-16. Should have mentioned - I also have the Tokina 16-50 which I use in controlled situations and am quite pleased with it's performance.

Just remember, these are all variable primes, not zooms. Use them within their limitations and you'll be happy.


Regards,
Scott

 

[Joe Lawry]

Cheers for the response, i could deal with the audio clicks but not visual iris clicks.

Think i'll grab the tokina 16-50.

 

[Hywel]

HI,

Yeh, I have the Olympus 12-60 as well and couldn't really recommend it. Just a few too many compromises. It is a nice sharp lens with a great zoom range and an OK aperture, but for video shooting it is only usable as a variable prime and that can be too limiting even under controlled shooting conditions.

I'm keeping mine, but don't love it, especially not as it was pretty expensive.

Very annoying that the 4/3 lens system is so broken, to be honest. I guess a lot of the design decisions made sense for stills lenses and explains the struggles with video. The compatibility between Panasonic and Olympus system components leaves a lot to be desired even on the stills side, and the compatibility of the AF100 with Panasonic lenses is less than ideal in many cases too.

Cheers, Hywel