Here’s a shot of my wife that I took which shows how sharp details such as eyelashes look when shooting portraits. I didn’t make any extra effort to get a really sharp shot here. This was how it came out when we were playing about taking pictures.

These photographs are seemingly emblematic today. Baby photos are a right of passage, as are kindergarten graduation photos, high school graduation photos, and engagement photos. I know people who can’t bear the thought of missing their sweetums walk down the aisle to accept their eighth grade achievement certificate. I’ve opted to create an entire subsection regarding the manual focus ring because it is the single biggest shortcoming of an otherwise outstanding lens.Imatest was only able to detect 0.9% pincushion distortion during testing, which is a very low level indeed. If absolutely straight lines are paramount, you'll be glad to know that the distortion pattern is uniform across the frame, which should make applying correction in image editing software afterwards a breeze. The 45mm F1.8 is a lovely lens precisely because it offers great image quality while offering an attractive balance of size, price and weight. However, its mainly plastic construction makes it clear that there are trade-offs being made. By contrast, the 75mm features very solid-feeling all-metal construction and those rarely-inexpensive words 'Made in Japan' etched into the body. Sure enough the 75mm is expected to sell for more than twice the price of the 45mm. The above photo was shot wide open at 1/160 and ISO 500. I still think this photo is one of the best I’ve ever shot and I chalk it up to the Olympus 75mm f/1.8’s fast aperture and intimate focal length. For this reason alone, I foresee myself keeping the 75mm well into the future — or at least until all my extended family’s kids have become too old for fun photographs. By keeping the 75mm as a fixed length, Olympus was able to build an incredibly fast f/1.8 aperture into its top-end M. Zuiko Premium lens. Like any other fast lens, the 75mm’s f/1.8 aperture is great for indoor portraits where light may be at a minimum or where you have moving subjects that are hard to freeze in your frame. Again, the 75mm points directly to the realm of baby and toddler photography; combining its long reach and fast aperture allows for intimate, natural scenes of young children doing their thing.

The scale on the left side is an indication of actual image resolution. The taller the column, the better the lens performance. Simple.At first, I thought that having a single focal length would create problems but the more I used it, the more I realised it was just a matter of moving around and finding the right spot to create my composition. Of course it is not always possible to be positioned exactly where you want to be, so a prime lens can also have its limits. But when you have the freedom to move around, it will certainly deliver better results than a zoom. E-M1, 1/160, f/1.8, ISO 1000 E-M1, 1/100, f/1.8, ISO 800 E-M1, 1/100, f/1.8, ISO 800 In spite of the smaller Micro Four-Thirds sensor, this lens can deliver an enormously shallow depth of field. All apertures deliver creamy and seamless out of focus elements, resulting in the most beautiful bokeh in the micro four-thirds lens world. One of the Sigma’s closest rivals is the Olympus M.Zuiko 75mm f/1.8. First released in 2012, it is a lens that many Micro Four Thirds users covet owing to its excellent optical quality and creamy bokeh. We ourselves have owned this lens for many years, and Mathieu often used it when he worked as an events photographer in Turin. For this reason, we were just as curious as many of our readers to see how this long-standing jewel in the Micro Four Thirds crowd would stand up against its latest opponent! Olympus describes the 75mm as a 'high grade portrait lens.' With its 150mm-equivalent field of view it's a little bit longer than the traditional 85-135mm range, that was classically used for portraiture on 35mm cameras. Its minimum focusing distance of 0.84m means you can get pretty close to your subject, however the long effective focal length limits how close you can sensibly work with people (because your narrow field-of-view gives quite a tight crop when working close to your subject).

But, having said that, this personal focal length won’t be for everyone. If you tend to shoot landscapes, or yearn for artistic street photos, I can’t see the Olympus 75mm being a lens of choice. There’s too much reach in the 75mm to stay impersonal and it’s difficult to capture a proper landscape at the 150mm focal length. Unsurprisingly it does create very pleasing images of people. Below are a small sample of the types of pics I have got so far. I am not much of a “street photographer” but the focal length works nicely to grab interesting pictures without being overly intrusive. I am not the most experienced portrait photographer, but its something I would love to learn more on and improve. Shot at f/1.8 Look at the difference in subject isolation between the previous shot and this one shot at f/4. Is the Olympus 75mm f/1.8 a perfect lens? I’ve always felt optical quality of a lens and camera combination to be very subjective. Some people adore the vibrant Fuji greens, while others prefer more neutral tones.Chromatic aberration is the lens' inability to focus on the sensor or film all colours of visible light at the same point. Severe chromatic aberration gives a noticeable fringing or a halo effect around sharp edges within the picture. It can be cured in software.