Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsSharp, very quick to focus and works well on a Panasonic GX1
Reviewed in the United States on September 24, 2013
I happen to own the Panasonic Leica designed 45mm macro, and just spent a day doing comparison testing. These are very different lens, both in size and function.
Here are the basic differences:
Panasonic 45mm:
1. Has reduced focus and full focus, nothing else.
2. Is very short
3. In macro mode, unlike every other lense I have used, this one stays very bright. This is good for focus, but bad for flash control, as even the built in flash will over expose images (cannot turn down enough). Between this lense and the Oly, there is more than an f stop difference in clos macro, while the same for normal distances.
Note: You can test this by setting the camera to manual, using the same setting in the same lighting and shooting the same object. At normal distances, they are the same, but in close macro, the oly images, with the same magnification, are darker.
Olympus 60mm:
1. Has an extra setting that will limit the focus from .19 to .4 meters, if all you are doing is macro. Reduces focus time, saves battery and greatly reduces hunting.
2. Like every other macro lense, this one has a higher f stop than it shows when you get really close. As it so happens, the extra working distance and this mean the automatic strobe work great all the way to 1 to 1.
3. This is a light, very long lens.
Image quality seems great with both lens, but at the same magnification you get better working distance (good), less light light to the camera (bad), great auto strobe control (good) and reduced depth of field at the same f stop (might be good or bad).
As both oly and pany use contrast detection, how you have the camera set to focus and how much contrast the target has are important. More so with the oly when in macro mode, because less light is getting thru. I tried spot focus, and at one to one, in normal room light, the camera would not focus at all. Switch to a single spot, and I just had to be careful where the camera was pointed at. Use all the focus spots, and it worked very well. As different micro 4/3rd camera's have different options, these results may vary.
I like the lens, used correctly I find it fast, accurate and fun to shoot with. Not shot test images at really high f stops, but will in the next week.
