Olympus M.Zuiko 17mm F1 8 Review | 54 Data compared

The ePHOTOzine review highlights the Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 17mm f/1.8 as a compact, premium lens featuring a solid, all-metal build and a "snapshot" manual focus clutch ring. It delivers excellent center sharpness from f/1.8 to f/11 and features a silent, fast Movie and Still Compatible (MSC) autofocus system, making it ideal for street photography. However, the lens shows higher chromatic aberration at the edges and noticeable barrel distortion before corrections. Additionally, edge sharpness drops off at f/1.8, and the premium price tag does not include weather sealing or a lens hood.

The Olympus M.Zuiko 17mm f/1.8 is a highly compact, lightweight Micro Four Thirds lens constructed with a robust metal build that offers a natural, slightly wide 34mm equivalent field of view. It delivers very good sharpness in the center of the frame even when wide-open at f/1.8, achieving peak center resolution between f/2.8 and f/5.6. A signature feature of this lens is its elegant stepping-motor autofocus system, alongside a manual focus clutch ring that pulls back to reveal a physical distance scale with depth-of-field markers. Thanks to automatic firmware corrections built into the Micro Four Thirds system, the lens essentially functions with zero distortion and experiences almost unnoticeable color fringing. Despite its high-quality construction, the lens has notable performance trade-offs, particularly its lack of weather-sealing and a noticeable drop-off in optical sharpness toward the edges and corners of the image frame. Its main pros include a highly versatile focal length, a fast f/1.8 maximum aperture for low-light shooting, and an incredibly portable form factor weighing only 120 grams. Conversely, its primary cons include the absence of weather seals and the...

The Olympus M.Zuiko 17mm f/1.8 is a compact, 120-gram all-metal prime lens designed for Micro Four Thirds cameras, offering a 34mm full-frame equivalent focal length suitable for street, landscape, and low-light photography. Optically, the lens delivers impressive, sharp center resolution and high contrast even when shot wide open at f/1.8, alongside unexpectedly smooth, high-quality bokeh for a wide-angle lens. Mechanically, it stands out with a robust build quality and a convenient focus-clutch mechanism for fast switching between autofocus and manual focus, powered by a nearly silent and rapid MSC autofocus drive. However, the lens suffers from notable technical limitations, including high lateral chromatic aberrations (averaging 1.8 pixels at the borders) and heavy uncorrected RAW barrel distortion of ~4.5% that relies heavily on digital auto-correction. It also exhibits noticeable field curvature in the corners at wide apertures and a relatively long minimum focus distance that restricts maximum magnification to 1:12.5. Combined with a somewhat steep price tag and the exclusion of a lens hood—which must be purchased separately as a pricey accessory—the overall price-to-performance ratio is held back despite its premium...

The Olympus M.Zuiko 17mm f/1.8 is a premium-grade, compact prime lens designed for Micro Four Thirds cameras, offering a flexible 34mm full-frame equivalent field of view ideal for everyday street photography. Its standout features are its exceptional, retro-style all-metal build quality and a unique focus clutch mechanism that allows shooters to seamlessly snap the focusing ring back to switch from autofocus to manual focus, complete with tactile resistance and an engraved distance scale. Additionally, the lens boasts a bright f/1.8 maximum aperture for solid low-light performance and subject separation, an incredibly quiet MSC autofocus motor suitable for video, and virtually non-existent barrel distortion (just 0.3%). However, the lens falls short in optical performance when compared to other Micro Four Thirds primes, primarily due to mediocre sharpness. While the center frame is highly resolved and sharpens significantly when stopped down to f/4, the corners remain persistently soft and never exceed 1,300 lines. Out-of-focus background areas (bokeh) are also plagued by noticeable "onion ring" textures and coma artifacts near the image edges, which can worsen if post-process sharpening is applied. Finally, the...

The Olympus M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 17mm f1.8 lens is a high-speed prime designed for Micro Four Thirds (MFT) cameras, offering a 35mm equivalent focal length and a compact, 120-gram body. Tested on a Panasonic Lumix DMC GH-2, it achieved a DxOMark score of 19 points. On the positive side, the lens boasts an attractive price point of around $500, a sturdy metal outer construction, and a fast maximum aperture. It also features a useful snapshot focus mechanism consisting of a push/pull manual focus collar with distance and depth-of-field markings. Optically, it provides much better and more consistent sharpness across the field than the older 17mm f2.8 model while maintaining a faster speed. However, the lens falls short in several key optical performance areas. It fails to impress in outright resolution and acutance, failing to match the sharpness of the wider Olympus 12mm lens, particularly in the center from f/2 to f/5.6. Distortion is also noticeable and not as well controlled as it could be. The most significant disadvantage highlighted in the review is the very high level of chromatic aberration, which...