Hi everyone, hope this find you all well.

Weather-sealing is very useful but, if one wants to have it in a M.Zuiko lens, it inevitably means having to buy very expensive and too heavy (for me) PRO series lenses. I guess that I’ve gotten increasingly used to the beauty of small, light, lenses and even my new M.Zuiko12-45mm f/4 PRO lens seems heavy again by comparison, although blissfully not as heavy as my 12-40mm f/2.8 PRO. Optically, it seems very good, given my limited opportunity to test it and it will probably be the lens that I take on my travels this year but I’m not really looking forward to carrying it around on foot all day despite its comparatively small size whereas, by comparison, my Lumix 14-42mm is so light, covers virtually the same range and is optically very good but not weather-sealed.

It’s a trade off for me, carry something lighter, increase my mobility, decrease my pain and ultimately increase my happiness and get more shots or something heavier that’s got weather-sealing and, arguably better image quality, which limits my mobility and get fewer shots due to increased fatigue. As the old saying goes, at least for me, it seems like, “one can’t have one’s cake and eat it”. 🙂

I wish that OMD would make a range of non “PRO”-branded lenses with weather-sealing. I’m not bothered about them being fast lenses like their f/1.2 series. At the moment there’s a considerable gap between affordable, lightweight f/1.8 non weather-sealed lenses and f/1.2 heavier, expensive, weather-sealed prime lenses and the gap is there with their zooms as well. I’ve also worryingly started to drop things, I’ve dropped three lenses recently albeit indoors on carpet and, fortunately, they’ve all survived, I find that my grip just goes without warning. 🙁

I’m more than happy with the image quality of their old “Premium” series glass, I just wish they had thought to incorporate weather-sealing in their designs. Broadly-speaking Fuji got this right!. I’d love OM Systems’ 20mm f/1.4 PRO for its weather-sealing and it’s a really interesting focal length, not interested in the f/1.4 bit, that much although useful in poor light of course, but it’s way too costly and, most importantly, too heavy.

IMHO all camera gear should be made with at least a degree of weather-sealing including lenses which should always come with a lens hood and some form of case, something that Olympus don’t provide in the price except with their “PRO” lenses and even then one doesn’t get a case. Panasonic, Sigma etc. however generally do. I guess it comes down to Olympus/OM Systems moving in one direction design/marketing-wise and I’m moving in another direction preference-wise. 🙂 The latest lenses and, particularly cameras, are offering me more and more features that I don’t require or want but not those that would be of the most interest and benefit to me.

Kind regards

Leigh

Hi everyone,

For my next trips. E-M5 II, M.Zuiko 17mm f/1.8 and my new M.Zuiko 12-45mm f/4 lens. Should make a nice lightweight selection for travelling. 🙂 A weather-sealed body and lens combination and a faster prime for low light/indoor shots. Although generally-speaking I prefer the 25mm FOV I’ve chosen the 17mm because of its wider angle. This is useful in indoors situations and it’s also good for landscapes and architecture. I’m not a street-shooter but, using zone focusing set the aperture to f/5.6 and set the focus to 3m and everything between 3m and infinity is acceptably sharp. I do like to have a depth of field scale on a lens like this. Like some of their other lenses it also has a manual focus clutch which enables switching between auto focus and manual focus very quickly. I’ve always disabled it in the camera settings as I find it far too easy to accidentally move especially when attaching and removing the lens and I prefer a function button dedicated to toggling manual focus suits me better.

You might also notice that I’ve added a half-case to the camera which adds negligible weight. It protects the camera especially the base of the camera, the tripod thread and the somewhat delicate and vulnerable battery door which I’ve already replaced once. It also removes the possibility of the small rubber “bung” that protects the contacts for the dedicated grip falling off and getting lost and as it pretty much covers the rubber cover over the HDMI and USB sockets which I don’t use often, preventing it from accidentally opening and thus further helps with the weather protection. It improves one’s grip without having the added extra bulk and weight of a camera grip and lastly it looks darned smart, the black faux-leather with red stitching matching my choice of camera strap. 🙂

Snug as a bug in a rug for transporting in one of my small Manfrotto shoulder bags.

Kind regards,

Leigh