Photography News Issue 66

Photography News | Issue 66 | photographynews.co.uk

First tests

Olympus M. Zuiko ED 12-200mm f/3.5-6.3 £799.99

Superzoom lenses with a wide range of focal lengths in a portable bodyform make them ideal for travel or if you simply prefer an all-encompassing one-lens outfit. The Olympus M. Zuiko ED 12-200mm f/3.5-6.3 has a massive 16.6x range giving coverage from 24mm all the way to 400mm in 35mm terms. It’s competitively priced at £799.99 too. I tested this lens on an OM-D E-M5 Mark II. The lens on this camera (without any grip) gives a combination that is very nicely balanced, which helps handling even when shooting at the longer focal lengths. Zooming out from 12mm to 400mm more or less doubles the lens’s physical length but that doesn’t alter the duo’s centre of gravity much, so balance and handling remain good. Like most Olympus lenses there is no integral image stabilisation mechanism so the camera’s built in five axis IS system is obviously key to get the most of this lens. Shooting handheld at the 200mm lens, I was consistently getting sharp handheld shots as slow as 1/40sec. For such a long focal length and lightweight combination this was a very impressive showing. AF speed and sensitivity rate highly. The lens’s AF silently glides

Specs

Price £799.99 35mm format 24-400mm equivalent Mount Micro Four Thirds Autofocus

Yes, high-speed imager AF with MSC (Movie & Still Compatible) mechanism Construction 16 elements in 11 groups Special lens elements 2x ED, 2x SED, 3x aspherical, 2x HR, 1x Super HR, 1x high refractive Coatings Zero coating Filter size 72mm Aperture range F/3.5-6.3-22 Diaphragm Seven blades Manual focus Yes Minimum focus 22cm Focus limiter No Maximummagnification 0.23x Distance scale No? Depth-of-field scale No Image stabiliser No Tripod collar No Lens hood LH-76C Weather-sealed Yes – dust, splash and freeze proof Dimensions 99.7x77.5mm Weight 455g Contact olympus.co.uk

Zooming out from 12mm to 40mmmore or less doubles the lens’s physical length

into action and locks on quickly even at the longer focal lengths. The zooming action is smoothwith, on our sample, a little extra stickiness approaching the 200mm setting. Superzooms can deliver a modest optical performance but judged on my test shots, I was impressed at how capable this lens proved to be. To be fair, it’s not a world-beater in terms of resolution, sharpness or contrast; but given its wide coverage I wouldn’t expect it to be. That said, the lens performed well enough.

I tested the lens at its six marked focal lengths: 12mm, 25mm, 45mm, 70mm, 100mm and 200mm. The lens was seen at its best at its central focal lengths from, say, 45mm to 100mm with a dropping off of performance at the extremes especially at the wide end. At 12mm, imagequalitywasnothing special at f/3.5, but stopping down to f/5.6 brought about an improvement and this continued to f/8 which was the best aperture at this setting. F/16 and f/22 are best avoided as

Images This hotel interior was shot with the 12-200mm f/3.5-6.3 set to 12mm using a handheld exposure of 0.4sec at f/8 and ISO 400. The lens works well with the camera’s IS mode

Images 16.6x zoom range in one lens means incredible flexibility, as you can see in this pair of pictures taken from the same spot

12mm

400mm