M43 legacy lens: 12-50 mm EZ

I’ve toyed around with an Olympus 12-50 mm EZ lens today. I got this together with an OMD-EM5 (the original one) for a really good price. I love the EM5 but had not given the 12-50 much attention.

The lens has been discussed a lot when it came out in 2012, also for UW use, and I suppose pretty much everything has been said and posted about it. It’s a slow, decent but not brilliant lens with a moderate macro mode at 43 mm focal length. Some of the users here might have it lying in a drawer, collecting dust.

So why do it over?

Something has changed since 2012, and that is we now have AI-powered image touch-up possibilities. My approach is to use an algorithm that promise to recover unsharp shots (a myth) at a low intensity setting to improve the IQ of modest kit lenses. I explained this before in more detail on this site, many companies offer tools like that. Let’s see what this can do for the macro-mode. The 43 mm focal length is interesting as it is not too far away from the 60mm + MFO3 combination that many here like for the flexibility and outstanding image quality. The M43 30 mm macro lenses are great for the somewhat larger things but a bit limited for high-magnification by short working distances. The 45 mm Panasonic (Goldilock's compromise?) was sometimes described as a bit slower focusing.

I only have the Panasonic 30 mm for a direct comparison and it’s all in air (can’t dive this year). I took the shots (sunflower) at a kind of UW-reasonable setting – hand-held, ISO 200, f 10, 1/200 sec and light coming from a flashgun. I tried to do this at the minimal focusing distance of the 12-50 EZ macro, so should be 1:3’ish.

These are 100% crops from close to the center, a bit of "classic" noise-reducion & sharpening applied.

12-50 EZ in macro mode:

Pana 30mm with a roughly similar field of view:

The Panasonic 30 mm has better IQ, I think, though the focus may be ever so slightly different (try to look at the stigma to the left). But the difference is not all that big in this center part.

The f 10 probably limited the Panasonic 30 mm somewhat, but realistically that's what many of us will use for sufficient depth.

Now how does this look after my ON1 touch-up? (same raw-files, 65% AI noise reduction, 23% detail, 15% AI sharpening)

12-50 EZ macro:

Panasonic 30 mm:

Conclusions:

1)     BOTH lenses benefit from this treatment. The 12-50 gets better than the “native” Pana 30 mm but after touch-up the Pana still wins clearly.

2)     While I insist that recovering blurry images with this tool doesn’t work, it looks like the procedure CAN extend the focal depth a bit. Won’t save a truly ruined shot, but can be pleasing – or not, if shallow depth of view is what one wants. The Bokeh definitely gets busier for things that are just out-of-focus.

AF performance: In air, I found the Olympus 12-50 EZ (macro mode) to be slightly faster than the Panasonic 30 mm. Both lenses will hunt occasionally, but the 12-50 will only focus out to ~1.2 m in the macro mode. Maybe that makes a difference? I only have bodies with contrast-detection AF, the newer phase-decetion systems may give different results. But the two lenses are not far apart.

If you think that this might be an interesting 43 mm macro option for you, look around in the local classifieds as this lens has been discontinued. Reasonable prices will be 100-120 € if you buy from a private seller or less if you're lucky. I would not spend more than that. The lens should fit in any port designed for the 60 mm macro (12-50 EZ is just 1 mm longer). Add a +5 diopter if you need higher magnification.

I certainly don't expect this to reach the IQ of the 60mm + MFO3 combination (those two lenses bought new are about 10x the cost of a pre-owned 12-50). I can't compare but that would be against all common sense. Nontheless, I think the image quality is good enough out-of-camera for sharing on social media and it can be improved post-processing for larger prints.

Edited 2 hours ago2 hr by Klaus
typo, added "classic" NR info