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Olympus Zuiko Digital 12-60mm 1:2.8-4 Gordon Laing, September 2008

Olympus Zuiko Digital 12-60mm gallery, with E-3 and E-420

The following images were taken with the Zuiko Digital 12-60mm 1:2.8-4 SWD lens, mounted on an Olympus E-3 and E-420 body. The E-3 was set to Large Fine JPEG quality, Auto White Balance, ESP with AF metering and the Natural Picture Mode with Normal Graduation; Noise Reduction and the Noise Filter were set to their ON and STD settings respectively. In-camera Image Stabilisation was enabled for all these handheld shots. The E-420 was set to Large Fine JPEG quality, Auto White Balance, ESP metering and the Natural Picture Mode with Normal Graduation; Noise Reduction and the Noise Filter were set to their ON and STD settings respectively.

The individual exposure mode, file sizes, shutter speeds, aperture, ISO and lens focal length are listed for each image.

The crops are taken from the original files, reproduced at 100% and saved in Adobe Photoshop CS2 as JPEGs with the default Very High quality preset, while the resized images were made in Photoshop CS2 and saved with the default High quality preset.

The three crops are typically taken from far left, central and far right portions of each image.


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Zuiko Digital 12-60mm 1:2.8-4 SWD





Olympus Zuiko 7-14mm





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Landscape: 4.32MB, Program, 1/400, f7, ISO 100, 12-60mm at 12mm (equivalent to 24mm)

  This first shot was taken with the E-3 and the 12-60mm lens zoomed-out to its widest equivalent of 24mm.

If you're familiar with our Gallery shots, you'll see this has captured a noticeably larger area than those with 28mm coverage.

Impressively, the lens also remains sharp right up to the corners. A great start for the 12-60mm in this Gallery.
 
     


Landscape: 4.12MB, Program, 1/250, f6.3, ISO 100, 12-60mm at 39mm (equivalent to 78mm)

  Another shot taken under bright conditions with the E-3 and 12-60mm, this time roughly halfway through its optical range.

As you'll see throughout this Gallery, the 12-60mm performs very well across its entire focal range.

At an equivalent of 78mm here, it's delivering a very detailed image that's well-corrected up to the corners.
 
     


Landscape: 4.66MB, Program, 1/400, f7.1, ISO 200, 12-60mm at 60mm (equivalent to 120mm)


    Our next shot was taken with the 12-60mm zoomed-into its maximum focal length of 60mm.

The E-3's sensitivity was increased to 200 ISO and its focusing set to continuous to track the approaching boat.

As the crops show, the 12-60mm is still delivering very sharp, detailed and well-corrected results when zoomed-in, so as we've seen so far, it's a decent performer at any focal length.
 
     
   
     
   


Portrait: 4.29MB, Aperture Priority, 1/640, f4, ISO 100, 12-60mm at 60mm (equivalent to 120mm)

  For this portrait shot taken with the E-420, we zoomed the 12-60mm lens into its maximum focal length and opened the aperture to its brightest f4 setting.

The open aperture has resulted in a small depth of field with the background nicely blurred - perhaps not quite as much as you'd like at a 120mm equivalent, but still a pleasing result.

The crops once again show the lens performing very well even with its aperture wide open.
 
     


Portrait: 4.31MB, Program, 1/250, f10, ISO 200, 12-60mm at 60mm (equivalent to 120mm)

  For this second portrait shot, this time taken with the E-3, we again zoomed the 12-60mm lens into its maximum focal length but popped-open the flash to eliminate harsh shadows.

In Program mode with a flash sync, the E-3 selected an aperture of f10 which has unsurprisingly resulted in a reasonably large depth of field, but as you can see above, it's possible to better blur the background with the aperture at f4 if desired.

Once again, there's no complaints when examined at 100%.
 
     


Macro: 4.78MB, Program, 1/200, f4.5, ISO 400, 12-60mm at 60mm (equivalent to 120mm)

  The 12-60mm can focus as close as 25cm, which can deliver some reasonable close-up capabilities with the lens zoomed-in.

Here's an example taken as close as the lens would focus, and it's better than many macro capabilities on general-purpose lenses. The crops are also very sharp and detailed.

So another string to the 12-60mm's already capable bow.
 

     


Indoor: 4.37MB, Program, 1/80, f3.2, ISO 1600, 12-60mm at 12mm (equivalent to 24mm)

  Our final shot illustrates how a wider than average focal length can be useful when shooting interiors.

This is a standard Gallery composition for Camera Labs, but like our first shot at the top of the page, shooting at an equivalent of 24mm has allowed us to squeeze more in than the usual 28mm lenses.

Overall, this Gallery illustrates the broad flexibility of the 12-60mm lens. It zooms wider and longer than most kit lenses, delivers respectable macro capabilities and excellent quality across its range.
 
     


All words, images, videos and layout, copyright 2005-2009 Gordon Laing. May not be used without permission.

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