Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 30mm F3.5 Macro Review

The Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 30mm F3.5 Macro ($299.99) is a crisp, compact macro lens for Micro Four Thirds cameras from Olympus, Panasonic, and others. It captures images with excellent detail, and focuses almost right up to its front element to project subjects onto an image sensor at greater than life-size. It's a very solid performer, though it can take a while to focus if it has to hunt across its full range, and lighting can be tricky when the lens is nearly touching your subject.

Design

The 30mm F3.5 Macro ($299.00 at Amazon) is small and light, balancing well with most Olympus mirrorless cameras. It measures 2.2 by 2.4 inches (HD), weighs 4.5 ounces, and supports 46mm front filters. That's the same filter size as lenses in the company's f/1.8 prime series, so if you've got multiple lenses, you can share filters among them. Olympus offers some of its other lenses in silver or black, but you can only get the 30mm Macro in a black finish.

Aside from the manual focus ring, there aren't any physical controls. Switching focus modes is handled by the camera body. You don't get any sort of tactile feedback as you turn the ring, but the electronic focus system operates smoothly and responds quickly. You may miss the specific feel of turning the ring to physically move the focusing elements, but I think this lens delivers a fine electronic focus experience.

Autofocus speed is a concern, however. There are no problems when the image is almost in focus before you take the shot—it confirms and locks on in 0.1-second in those cases. But if you're focusing up close and want to shift to a distant view, or vice versa, the lens can take a full second to move across its range. It also has a tendency to hunt for focus when working close, especially in poor lighting conditions. I'd like to have seen a focus limiter switch, so you could restrict focus to close or near distances, eliminating some of the searching back and forth.

The lighting issue is another one. Because the lens focuses so close—3.7 inches from the sensor, which is about a half-inch from the front element—it's very easy to cast a shadow on your subject. Using a flash won't speed up the focus system when the camera casts a dark shadow on what you're trying to shoot, so you may want to consider an on-camera LED light. I would have loved Olympus to include a built-in light, like the one Canon uses on the 28mm Macro lens for its mirrorless system.

At its closest distance the lens projects subjects onto the image sensor at 1.25x life-size. Olympus uses some odd language in its marketing materials, claiming a 2.5x magnification in full-frame terms, but that math doesn't work—magnification is not dependent on sensor size. Still, even without the marketing fluff, it captures smaller details better than most macro lenses, which typically are only capable of shooting at 1:1 at the minimum focus distance.

There is no in-lens stabilization. Olympus builds that function into its camera bodies, and recent models from Panasonic have included it as well. Its omission should really only be a concern if you have an older Panasonic body without it. You'll get the best stabilization with an Olympus body with 5-axis stabilization, but I used the 30mm with the 3-axis PEN E-PL8 and had no qualms with its effectiveness.

The lens isn't part of the Olympus Pro series, so there's no weather sealing. This is a concern if you shoot with a sealed camera in the company's OM-D series. You don't want to use the 30mm Macro in heavy rain or other severe weather. Olympus has a longer 60mm Macro option that is sealed, the 60mm F2.8 Macro. It magnifies at 1:1 and includes a focus limiter, but is priced higher at $500. Its tight field of view makes it a less versatile option for photographers looking for a lens for general and macro photography, but it's a better choice for photographers who need an all-weather macro.

Image Quality

I used Imatest to check the sharpness of the 30mm Macro when paired with the 20MP OM-D E-M1 Mark II. The lens puts up strong numbers at f/3.5, notching 2,541 lines per picture height using a center-weighted evaluation. Edges do lag behind the average (2,256 lines), but are still strong performers. We consider 1,800 lines to be acceptable on a 20MP camera, and the lens exceeds that mark by a wide margin, delivering image quality that is considered excellent.

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Stopping down to f/4 delivers a modest improvement (2,589 lines) and image quality is just about the same at f/5.6 (2,588 lines) and f/8 (2,605 lines). Diffraction starts to cut into image quality at narrower settings, an expected result for a Micro Four Thirds lens. You can still shoot at f/11 with a minimal drop in clarity (2,535 lines), but you lose some resolution at f/16 (2,116 lines) and f/22 (1,478 lines).

Shooting at narrower f-stops is needed to increase depth of field when working at very high magnification. Newer Olympus bodies support in-camera focus stacking, which combines images at several focal points into one to get more of your subject in focus. Consider using it, along with a sturdy tripod, if your shot requires you to narrow the aperture past f/11.

There's no visible distortion. That's especially important with a macro lens, as they are sometimes used to reproduce documents or digitize negatives. There is some drop in illumination at the corners of the frame when shooting at f/3.5 (-1.4EV) and f/4 (-1EV), but it's minimal at narrower settings. The -1.4EV deficit is outside our threshold of acceptability as it's noticeable in a lot of images, but it's not to the level where it's distracting, and is fairly easy to compensate for using software.

Conclusions

If you shoot with a Micro Four Thirds camera and want to add an inexpensive macro lens, the Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 30mm F3.5 Macro is a really good way to go. Its field of view is close to standard angle, so it can double as an everyday lens, and at just $300 it won't set you back like some of the top-end gear in the Olympus Pro lens lineup. Autofocus speed can be a bit slow, especially if the lens has to move across its entire focus range to lock on to a subject. But image quality is excellent, and the high magnification sets it apart from a kit lens or even a top-end zoom. It's certainly an option that Micro Four Thirds owners should consider.

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