Olympus M.Zuiko 45mm f1.8 The Portrait Lens

The Portrait Lens

Mighty tiny lens which many will describe when anyone see it, hold it and shoot with it. The Olympus 45mm f1.8 m.Zuiko looks like a metal lens, but it's made of plastic with a bright silver finish and the mount is made of metal. It is small enough that it can be slipped into a pocket when not in use.

Olympus M.Zuiko 45mm f1.8

People who shoot with DSLR would be sucked into the obsession over larger aperture at one point. The lower the F-number, the drooling the lens would be. Fast lenses bring plenty of advantages to general photography situations, and the most important of all is the ability to gather more available ambient light to produce a much more natural, pleasing image. This is evidently useful when shooting under low light conditions, where higher shutter speed can be achieved with larger aperture opening, mainly is to freeze motions and to prevent hand shake blur.

The front view of 37mm

The Olympus 45mm f1.8 m.Zuiko is a very sharp lens, wide open at f1.8, the central region of the image is tack-sharp, there are not much difference in stopping down to f2.0, from f2.8 onwards the lens is as sharp as sharp gets. It is sharp all the way through to f16, where a slight hint of diffraction limiting is present, but it is still very sharp even at this aperture. At f22 there is only very slight softness across the frame. You’ve seen a lot of professional-level photos with sharply rendered subjects and artistic defocused backgrounds. This is the lens that will help you achieve the same kind of shots. It’s especially good for portraits, but also works well for stills, action and video.


The Olympus 45mm f1.8 m.Zuiko is really a mighty tiny lens. The 45mm f1.8 is an affordable fixed focal length prime lens that’s bright enough to excel in low-light interiors, fast enough for pro-quality action shots, and second to none when it comes to creating the lovely defocused background effects you want in your portraits.

The creamy bokeh

The Crop of the above photo

Photographers who shoot a lot of portraits and still-lives are always seeking good bokeh. Lenses with relatively shallow depth of field – like the 45mm – are especially well suited to capture the combination of tack-sharp subject and beautifully soft, defocused background that exemplifies bokeh. One of this lens’s most interesting features is the unique-to-Olympus Movie & Still Compatible mechanism, or MSC. This technology provides amazingly fast – and nearly silent – autofocus operation. You’ll really notice the benefit when you play back your HD video and the only thing you hear is the ambient background noise in the scene you were filming; what you won’t hear is the sound of the lens focusing. This lens is perfect for tracking action. With MSC and the super-bright f1.8 aperture, you can film a school play or indoor sporting event in low light and still get excellent results.


I'm reviewing base on real world hands on, as a tools. There will be no charts or numbers, I find them pointless.


Test Photo shot with Olympus M.Zuiko 45mm f1.8 using Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark II, first we test the sharpest that this lens can be.

45mm @ f1.8, Photo Mode Natural

Crop of the above original photo

See how sharp this lens is, under the right condition, it can give a sharp image. More of the photos as per below.

The liquid green

 

 

The Vegetable green

The Carrot orange

The mixture of colors

The mischievous

45mm @ f1.8

45mm @ f1.8

In short, it’s a great addition to your Olympus photographic system.