Olympus 12-45mm F4.0 vs. 14-42mm Kit lens ft. Red35!

Olympus 12-45mm F4.0 is a good choice for a first lens after the 14-42mm Kit lens. There is also a special guest!
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This video was made with the following gear:
My video gear:

Camera:
Olympus OM-D E-M1 MKII

Lens:
Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 17mm f1.2 Pro

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Dörr flexible LED light

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Sandisk Extreme Pro 64GB

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Peak Desing Travel Tripod

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[RedPhotography]

Wow, I just saw myself!!! Thanks Peter for featuring me! Love your new style of travel (beaming from one place to another!) Also, welcome to our London weather!

[Centauri]

What's most surprising is actually how *good* the pancake zoom is! You have to pixel peep very closely to see the differences, and even then the quality differences are not that glaring. I have both the pancake zoom and the 12-40 f/2.8 and I have to admit, if I don't need the faster speed or wider angle, I am comfortable carrying around the little pancake zoom more often.

[WilliamWallaceRoss]

I just ordered the Olympus 12-45mm F4 Pro based on all the reviews I saw, as well as, this video review. Since I shoot mainly landscape and cityscape, I believe the sharpness, plus the added wide angle will do just fine for the occasional panorama's that I capture.

[DannyB-csvx]

In camera photo stacking is also available with a Pro Lens. It is great for Makro, but also is used in landscape.
With post processing software it can be done with a non pro lens, but it is an extra step.

[HenryFalkner]

As a glorified hobbyist, with the E-M10 II and the 14-42 and the 40-150 kit lenses, the pancake lens does the job within that range of focal lengths. I can get watchable 33x23 inch prints from harbor night scenes - when the wind is low enough to give me the city light reflections.

[stevekellett]

The 14-42mm pancake is the best kit lens I have ever used particularly on the M10 m2 & E5 m3.

[lmhjgseuk]

Haha, it's nice to see M43 bloggers get together. You should do more collaborations in the future. Kudos to both of you. Cheers!

[nlanca]

Thanks for that Peter (and Jimmy). I can see that for someone out and about doing landscape the 12-45 is a good choice. For myself the kit lens is fine for travelling light when I dont want to, or arent able to, have the 'holy trinity' 1.8 primes to hand.

[timbaugh]

Love your videos Peter – I’ve learned so much. I tend to do more street photography and family snaps so the 12-45mm lens looks cumbersome and unwieldly to me. I have an M10 and have just got an M5 MKIII. I tend to use a 17mm f1.8 or 25mm f1.8 plus the 14-42mm kit lens. The issues you highlighted with the 14-42mm can be dealt with in post via Lightroom. If I was into landscapes, then I could see the 12-45 being a good choice.

[bringbackhumanity]

You'll have to zoom in and peep closely to see the difference in image quality between the two lenses really. I'd say if you already have the kit lens (typically comes with the Olympus camera when you bought it) then it's probably not worth upgrading to the 12-45 f4 lens. I'd also say it's probably a good idea to stick with the kit lens for some time to really get used to it and then upgrade to the 12-40 f2.8 pro lens which would be a more decent upgrade if low-light shooting is an issue.

[manoloquintoempecinado]

The excelent pancake 12-42 mm must always be taken, by size. Whether or not you have any other lens, it always makes it easy to carry the camera in your pocket.

[driftx]

I started with a 12-40 f2.8 pro but now I'm thinking about just getting primes for the faster apertures and a kit lens for my landscape work since it'd be stopped down anyway.

[AnandaSim]

Ever since I came back to photography from the film days after a few years when film got less popular and digital became better priced and with enough performance, I have had the opinion that 12mm (24 equiv) is significantly wider than 14mm (28 equiv). That was even before Olympus DSLR. For my style of photography, I want sweeping lead in in an urban scene where there are converging lines, converging curves, 12mm is much more preferable than 14mm. For family and friends shots, 12mm will always allow me to squeeze in one or two more people in a group shot or stand nearer (without the unpleasant fattening of those at the edges if you go wider) than 14mm.

For kit lenses, there is of course a relative softening off centre, unless you stop down one or two stops. But what makes them less enjoyabe for me is at f/4 or f/5.6 when the fall off of focus in the look is not as exciting as f2.8 - I gotta try out the new 12-45 f/4 to see whether I still feel like that

[nagolas]

At 4:08 Peter shows how to change some lens settings. I can't figure out how to access that menu nor create it with a E-M5 mark III.
Do these settings only available from a E-M10 body (excluding E-M1 & E-M5) ?
If so, if there any way to change these settings by software (I fail to find such option in "OM Workspace" v.2.1.1).
Thank you for any advice.

[alanworland]

Just bought the 14-42 and have been pleasantly surprised at how good it is!

[leonfourie]

Nice suprice when Jimmy Chang also came in the video with his perspective on the lens.

[davidponce]

Thanks for the video, nice seeing you both. After watching this video I am pondering how the new lens compares to the old 12-50 kit lens?

[jerry]

12 mm is significantly wider than 14 mm. For walking around taking photos, I have often used the 14-150 mm lens for its broad zoom range and versatility, but I always carry a wider lens (normally the 12 mm f/2) because 14 mm is sometimes not wide enough. (Try taking a good photo of Trier cathedral without having a lens at least as wide as 24 mm full frame equivalent.)

I like the 12-45 because it feels a lot nicer to use, and in most cases it is wide enough in a city environment.

[IhorFiglus]

I have the Olympus 12-40mm f/2.8 PRO and recently picked up the 12-45mm. I have no argument that the 12-45 is a quality lens, but it's not that much smaller than the 12-40 which is a full stop faster. I think having the faster lens is more beneficial than the slight difference in size (PLUS the 12-40mm has the manual focus clutch!) so I'm selling the 12-45.

[robbrown]

I own both these lenses and I enjoy the slightly wider field of view over the kit lens. However in all honesty when it comes to image quality I can’t see any notable improvement and am left feeling slightly disappointed by the PRO lens :-(