The problem with your present lens, from a product photography standpoint (besides not being true macro), is diffraction. In 35mm film, we thought of f8 as the sweet spot for most lenses. In m4/3, that tends to be around f4 (I find the 12-40mm f2.8 Pro lens works best wide open). f5.6 usually works OK, but things get noticeably softer above f8. So your 14-42mm lens's maximum aperture already is near the diffraction limit for the m4/3 format. It's just a matter of physics. The normal prime space in Micro 4/3 is becoming a crowded area. On the wide end of normal, Panasonic has had their excellent pancake design 20mm f/1.7 for years. They later released the Leica branded 25mm f/1.4 tested here. That lens has been a mainstay in the system for some time, and really the only choice for a 50mm equivalent lens with fast aperture and autofocus. Voigtländer has also had a player in this range for a few years as well, with the manual focus and very fast 25mm f/0.95 Nokton. Olympus has been strangely absent from the normal focal range until now, with the release of the 25mm f/1.8.

Like many other Olympus Micro Four Thirds prime lenses, the new 25mm ƒ/1.8 lens is very small and lightweight (about 2 inches long and only 136g). However, there is a nice solidness and a bit of heft, which gives it an enjoyable, high-quality and well-built feel.Some notes: As you can see in the images below, despite both lenses being marked as 25mm lenses, the Panasonic Leica has a slightly longer focal length. I can’t say whether the Leica is longer than 25mm or the Olympus is shorter than 25mm, though in comparison to other lenses I own, I’d lean towards the Olympus being slightly shorter than marked. For a lens of its focal range and build, the Olympus 8-25mm F4.0 is very compact and lightweight. Its small size has been achieved thanks to a first for an Olympus Pro-branded lens: a retracting zoom design. Pure RAW score:This table shows the performance of this lens when the file is stored in the camera as a RAW file. This score approaches the intrinsic quality of the combination of lens and test camera. If you make use of Photoshop, Lightroom or SilkyPix for converting RAW files, then the RAW scores for chromatic aberration and distortion are the same as the jpg scores. There’s no right answer to which is the best fast 25mm for the MFT system.. they all seem comparable and have their + & -‘s. It just boils down to personal preferences and how much is any one of these lens worth for you to invest in. Manual focusing is possible in a focus-by-wire fashion, although there are no hard stops at either end of the range. This should not put you off using it as it feels pretty natural in use, and actually enables the camera to display a magnified view of the subject automatically, or to use focus peaking if available on the camera body. The focus ring is quite generously sized given the overall dimensions of the lens. Chromatic Aberrations

The Olympus 8-25mm F4.0 Pro is an unusually versatile lens with no direct competitors within the Micro Four Thirds system. In terms of its focal range, the nearest alternatives are either Panasonic's Leica-branded 8-18mm F2.8-4.0 or 10-25mm F1.7. Less-direct rivals include the Panasonic 7-14mm F4 and Olympus' own 7-14mm F2.8 Pro. So if you're looking for smooth, nondescript bokeh, this isn't the lens for you. But then we're talking about an F4.0 ultra-wide lens for Micro Four Thirds here, so that's not really to be expected in the first place. You're not really going to get big bokeh balls unless you're shooting wide-open and near to the 25mm telephoto, so if they're what you're looking for, opt for a lens with a stronger telephoto and/or a wider aperture with a more uniform circle-of-confusion. Up front, you'll find 72mm threads with which to attach your choice of filters, and the front element also includes a fluorine coating to aid cleaning, if the lens gets splashed or smudged. High image quality: Beautiful, evenly spread sharpness, no chromatic aberration, very little flare or ghosts and a beautiful bokehHowever, when working with Olympus’s sensors, we recommend not boosting the overall saturation and instead doing it by color channel. Color Fringing

As we get to smaller apertures, the Panasonic retains a slight lead in the center at f/2.5, but by f/3.5, the lenses are just too similar to worry about. Likewise in the corners, the Olympus stays visibly sharper throughout, though by f/3.5 the differences are extremely small. Corner sharpness on the wide end when focused in the center of the frame is very good, even when shooting wide open, and results sharpen up only very slightly when focusing in the corner, indicating minimal field curvature. The lens is so sharp wide open in the center that stopping down to F6.3 only reduces sharpness slightly, due to diffraction (remembering that F6.3 on Four Thirds is F12.6 in full-frame equivalent terms). As you'd expect of an Olympus Pro lens, image quality is good to great in most respects. The only real weak spots for this lens are somewhat busy and distracting bokeh, and sunstars which won't exactly set the world on fire. SharpnessAt the widest apertures, we have a bit of a split result. Both lenses are already very sharp from wide open across the frame. This is, in and of itself, a very nice result for both lenses. However, the Leica 25mm shows slightly higher resolution in the center, even at f/1.4, (and more noticeable by f/1.8) than the Olympus 25mm. However, as we get to the edges, the Olympus takes the lead, with a clear advantage in the corner at f/1.8. The Olympus’ cross frame sharpness at f/1.8 is rather remarkable. There is extremely minimal falloff in resolution as you get to the edges. At that minimum distance and with the lens at its telephoto position, you'll manage a maximum magnification of around 0.21x (35mm-equivalent: 0.42x), while at the wide-angle position this falls to about 0.07x (35mm-equivalent: 0.14x). No really, of any Olympus lens that we tested, this one’s hit rate was amongst the highest. To be clear, we usually test our lenses by manually selecting a focusing point after framing a scene, then focusing and releasing the shutter.

For me this is the fast and compact standard prime that was missing in the Micro Four Thirds lens lineup. When Olympus first told us about their 25mm f1.8 lens, we were thrilled that they finally created one. For many years, the scene has been dominated by the Panasonic 25mm f1.4 which is a good lens in its own right, but isn’t the affordable option for many. But just because this lens is affordable doesn’t mean that it doesn’t deliver. In short, I don't feel the need to stop the lens down for better image quality. When you do stop it down one or two notches, sharpness and contrast get slightly better. Again, I think it's perfectly fine at f/1.8. You will never have trouble from vignetting with this lens. Even at full aperture, the vignetting is less than half a stop. In comparison: For a standard lens on a camera with a full-frame sensor, a stop and a half is not unusual.The lens offers no focus limiter and no image stabilisation, either. The latter is no big deal really, given that this is a fast wide-angle lens that allows hand-held photography in fairly low light without IS (not to mention that Olympus bodies offer in-body image stabilisation). Wide open, this lens is a complete stunner. After my first day of shooting in natural light, I concluded that there really isn’t any point in stopping the lens down. When a strobe was mixed in, I stopped it down or tried to get the light to output at f1.8 at ISO 200. As of January 29, 2014. Shortest distance between the mount and the front end of the lens, when retracted. The normal prime lens space in the Micro 4/3 system has recently become a bit more crowded, as Olympus has finally released their fast normal prime lens, the 25mm f/1.8. Panasonic has had their excellent Leica 25mm f/1.4 for several years now, and Olympus has decided to concentrate on creating an extremely compact high quality lens, while sacrificing a bit of lens speed. Olympus 25mm f/1.8 on the Olympus OM-D E-M5, with included lens hood Look in our list of tested lenses or in our list of tested micro-43 lenses to compare the performance of this lens with other lenses.