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Featured Review: Olympus Zuiko Digital ED 50-200mm f/2.8-3.5 SWD
by albot976 (Intermediate)
| Price Paid: $950.00
Review Date: September 28, 2010 Overall Rating: |
4 of 5
Summary:
In short, solid and consistent performance at an okay price.
For what it is, the weight and size are manageable and generally better when compared to the competition. Mine came in its own carrying case, which I never use. Lens doesn’t rotate while focusing and it takes 67mm filters, which is reasonable. The lens hood has a slide too, making the use of a polarizer convenient. Also comes with a removable lens collar. Oh, and as a high grade lens, it’s dust/splash proof.
Speaking of focusing, the SWD makes it very quiet and snappy. As a telephoto, it will take a moment longer than, say, the 12-60mm but even racked out all the way, I was very happy with it’s ability to quickly and accurately find focus (watch that shallow DoF though). The weight and bulk of the lens makes it difficult for macro attempts, and the arm’s length 1.2m minimum focus distance doesn’t help. But slap on an ec-14 or 20, and you can get some surprisingly nice results.
Performance-wise, it’s right in between outstanding and very good overall. IQ is excellent with a tiny drop off towards the edge. The focal length extremes suffer a bit, especially at 200mm – which is unfortunate considering what it is. But unless you’re going to be at 200mm ALL the time, it’s not a dealbreaker. The performance across the aperture range is also very good, but more importantly, consistent. In my experience, the difference between 2.8 and the sweet spot of 5.6 is nearly unnoticeable at the same focal length.
You can find chromatic aberration if you look for it…but you have to look for it. Distortion is totally negligible, as expected. There is usually negligible vignetting at longer focal lengths, but I’ve only seen it when heavily push/pulling contrast in post-processing. I’ve experienced some flare, especially without the hood, but good technique will generally avoid the issue.
As far as more subjective experiences, it feels well-balanced, I love the snap-to-focus response, and all this makes it a fun telephoto to use. Don’t expect excellent results right away though, especially if you don’t have good telephoto experience. The faster aperture might make motion blur less of an issue, but the reduced DoF wide open and camera shake from the weight makes technique that much more important. Also, if weight and space are an issue though, think twice before bringing this lens along (I never use this lens when hiking, ever).
It’s a tad on the expensive side, at least for me since I’m not a frequent telephoto user. It does complement my 12-60 nicely though. Still, it’s not as great of a deal as the 70-300 and I don’t use it nearly as much as my 12-60, so the value suffers a bit.
Strengths:
excellent focus speed, accuracy, and noise
very good overall IQ
very consistent performance
dust/splash proof
Weaknesses:
200mm quality could be a bit better
lens flare could be an issue; albeit rarely
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The Olympus Zuiko 50-200mm f/2.8-3.5 Digital ED SWD is very fast and renders beautiful image quality, sharp throughout the entire image and with minimum distortion and vignetting. Together with E3 this telezoom is very versatile, the fast f-stop and the image stabilizer reduces dramatically the need for carrying a tripod. The focus mechanism is nice, lightning fast and quiet. Build quality seems excellent (although I have not yet tested its splash proofing) Highly recommended!