Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 12 mm F2.0 Lens, Fast Fixed Focal Length, Suitable for All MFT Cameras (Olympus OM-D & PEN Models, Panasonic G-Series), silver

Beautiful jewel of a lens! I have the 12-40 F2.8 so was hesitant about buying a focal length I already had covered. But this lens has twice the light gathering ability as the zoom and is really small so great for taking out when you don't want anything bulky. I always feel well designed items should not only perform well but look great too, and this looks beautiful on the camera which is a bonus to it's stunning image quality. I bought the lens hood too, which is for me a must at this length to stop stray light softening your photographs. The Olympus hood is not really plasticky like some say, it's somewhere between plastic and metal and feels really nice. You don't want a heavy metal lens hood on a tiny lens anyway! I highly recommend this lens, having a single focal length isn't always about better quality it allows you to practice the discipline of seeing images in a different way to a zoom which in turns allows you to build a style and visual language to a more consistent degree. I find it easy to take a lot of great shots with a zoom, but when I take out a fixed focal length something else happens, I get more 5 star shots, and there's something about them that is less pictorial and more expressive.

This is a great lens-relatively fast aperture at f/2 and wide enough at 12mm (24mm full frame equivalent). All metal construction and push pull auto/manual focus ring like most Olympus pro lenses. This isn’t a pro lens but delivers pro like sharpness with good colour rendition. Small, light weight and a must have.

Purchased after first trying the 9-18 zoom as my wide angle. The 9-18 is OK, but this 12mm is a bit sharper and less prone to softness in the corners or edges, even when wide open. It's less flexible than the 9-18 in that you need to move your feet and/or change lenses for different distances, but much more flexible in that seems to do a good job right from wide open, possibly peaking at about f5.6 as far as I can tell to date, but still good at f8 and f11. Although some reviewers seem to think you can't get shallow depth of field with wide angle or with micro four thirds (and certainly not with both), my observation so far is that that's rubbish. If you have any idea what you're doing, you can easily get a near object sharply focused with this lens and objects behind it pleasantly defocused (or vice versa) or you can use it to put a whole landscape into focus as much as you can with any other wide angle lens. One thing I did notice when comparing this and the 9-18 lens was that the zoom seemed to have a bit more DOF at the same F-stop as the 12mm. If you've got the money and the space for both, it may be worth getting both. I had to choose one and preferred the 12mm for its image quality (main priority), but also like its build quality and appearance. I have some doubts about the usefulness of the pull-back focus ring (at least for the way I use it) and have deducted one star for the fairly steep price, although it's not as steep as the ridiculously priced black version, in which the only difference for a few hundred more quid appears to be the colour. No hood included, as usual, so that's the other reason for deducting a star. The hood is not cheap, but matches the lens in style and build quality.

Great build quality - all metal construction, fast and offering excellent image quality. I prefer this lens to my Leica M Summarit 28 mm - but that's just my opinion. A very nice touch is the facility to immediately switch from manual focus to autofocus with a simple flick of a ring on the lens body - pull the ring back and a focus/distance scale appears, simultaneous with the manual focus function. This negates any necessity to go into the camera menu to disable auto focus. Another essential lens for a micro four thirds user, although one should bear in mind that this lens does not have in-built image stabilisation, so a Panasonic user might struggle a bit. This lens is a must - have for an OM D user though, with that camera enjoying an in-camera sensor stabiliser.

I was looking for perfect lens for holidays so I could take only the camera with the lens on. This one is perfect. Wide enough, fast enough, sharp enough and bright enough. Worth every penny. I thought it will replace 9-18 but I still need wide zoom. 12mm is perfect especially for night and evening city and street photos. I didn't buy this funny and expensive metal lens hood - it's my first lens which I use without the hood and I'm fine with it.

A truly outstanding lens with bags of potential for the serious photographer. Excellent sharpness across the aperture range and the distance scale focussing option is fabulous - taking me back to when photographers had to have something about them. One piece of advice. If shooting from the chest, don't use the Digital ESP metering but try centre-weighted or spot metering mode instead. Or set about +1.5EV to compensate for the larger amounts of bright areas in the frame A wonderful lens and I use it as my standard now.

Bought as a present for an owner of a Pen ep3, this extends the range of photography that can be explored with high quality photgraphy. Slightly concerned that lens was metallic and silver in colour, but it does look good on a black Pen ep3 body, and is not too heavy. Still learning how to get the best out of the various features, but a few stunning photos already..

I have a panasonic GF1 with the excellent Olympus 12mm F/2, Panasonic 20mm F/1.7 and Olympus 45mm F/1.8 lenses. I chose this lens because I wanted a wide angle with very large aperture, and was not willing to make a compromise with the much smaller and cheaper 14mm F/2.5 from panasonic. It works very well with the GF1, which I personally think is best suited to fast prime lenses rather than the slow and bulky 14-45mm kit lens originally sold with the camera. Likes: - The fastest wide angle prime lens available for micro 4/3rds - Excellent picture quality (very sharp) - Excellent build quality (feels great when you are using it) - The diameter (46mm) is the same as the 20mm F/1.7 lens, so filters, screw on hood and lens caps are interchangeable - Autofocus quicker and much more silent than the 20mm F/1.7 Dislikes: - Does not come with a lens sack, unlike panasonic lenses - Lens hood costs an extra 60 pounds (3rd party screw in hoods available for 12 pounds) - Lens cap is a bit fiddly (not as bad as the 45mm F/1.8 though). - Difficult to fit the camera in a large coat pocket with this lens (protrudes 45mm from body) - Expensive (but I know I will forget the price and love the photographs years later) - Only available in silver I was already aware of everything I listed as "dislikes" before I bought the lens, so I accept them as the price to pay for arguably the best wide angle micro 4/3rds lens available at the moment. Having said that, I will remove a star just out of spite, because I think Olympus should include a lens sack and hood for the price they are asking.

I used this on an Inspire 2 drone with the X5S camera. I love the wider field of view that this gives you over the stock 15mm that comes with it.

広角特有の画角に慣れるまでは少し時間がかかりましたが、使い込んでいくと自分の見ている視野に近い自然な感覚で撮影できるようになりました。 ​F2.0と明るさも申し分なく、室内や少し暗い場所でもきれいに撮影できます。 ​使い慣れてからは扱いやすさを実感しており、お出かけや日常の風景をサッと切り取るのに重宝している満足度の高いレンズです。

Un objetivo con uan gran luminosidad, mucha, y se agradece, así no tengo que aumentar demasiado el ISO para las fotografías nocturnas. Focal fija de 12mm con enfoque automático y manual, yo lo uso en manual y es un placer buscar los enfoques para objetos cercanos, aunque en la mayoria de los casos hago paisaje y noche. Las fotos estrelladas son un primor. Si tienes una micro 4/3 y te planteas un gran angular, yo recomiendo este, y más si lo consigues por debajo de los 500€. Y eso que al principio dudaba entre este y el 7-14 f1.8 (lo he probado), pero mejor este 12mm f2.0. Como siempre M.zuiko hace muy buenos trabajos con sus objetivos.

This lens is light, even with the optional lens hood installed. Optically, fine to use with the High Resolution mode of OM System cameras

Je l'ai utilisé pendant mes vacances en Grèce monté sur mon EMD 5 mk 3 avec son pare-soleil d'origine Olympus. Je confirme : du haut de gamme, tant l'objectif en lui-même que les photos/videos qui en sont sorties. Ce que l'on peut lire/voir sur internet à son sujet je le confirme.