I currently own the Olympus 9-18mm although it has never really clicked with me. I’m not very fond on how much distortion it renders.
I enjoy using the 15mm most of the time, and the 12-60mm for casual photography, but a super wide angle has always called my attention but the distortion of the 9-18mm on its widest is really off putting and I end up correcting the image in post, losing a good deal of coverage.
My questions for actual 8-18mm users is how much do you like it? How about the distortion, performance, low light capabilities, portability and weight, etc.
Solid, metal casing,
Excellent image quality in the frame centre at all focal lengths,
Imperceptible longitudinal chromatic aberration,
Slight lateral chromatic aberration,
Lack of problems with spherical aberration,
Properly corrected coma,
Lower vignetting than in the case of the majority of rivals,
Silent, very fast, and efficient autofocus.
Cons:
Very high distortion level for RAW files,
Image on the edge of the frame at longer focal lengths could have been better.
I have the 8-18 and like it a lot. It is my primary ultra-wide lens. I do not see a lot of distortion, and low light is fine. It compliments my other lenses well. Recommended.
Admittedly, I’m more of a zoom/telephoto guy, but when I go wide the 8-18 is the one I use.
It’s a fabulous lens. Small, light, excellent autofocus, sharp, lovely color and contrast, nothing I can think of that I dislike about mine. I bought it at release, as I didn’t think that Panasonic was going to come out with an ultrawide prime lens, and I like it much more than I thought I would. Since then I’ve picked up both the Laowa 10mm f2 and the Panasonic Leica 9mm f1.7, but that’s nothing to do with any deficiencies with the 8-18. I’ve taken many of my favorite shots with the 8-18, it’s a good, solid, well built weathersealed workhorse Highly recommended.
I also have the 8 to 18.
It’s a great lens for ultralwide images!
I handle typical wide-angle distortion two ways
I make it a deliberate part of my image
or using darktabke lens correction and distortion modules I can correct a lot of it.
I use my wide-angle lens to give an image that people would not normally see with our human eye field of view. So I find the distortion is fun to play around with.
If a summary answers anything concrete for some, it does not for me …Proper Context however does;
“At the shortest focal length you deal with a ‘barrel’ variety of that aberration, amounting to −1.59%. At 10 mm it decreases to an ‘imperceptible’ level of −0.37%. At 13 mm you still deal with barrel distortion but, within the margin of error, the results are equal with zero (official result being −0.14%). Pincushion distortion is negligible as well, amounting to +0.32; you can observe that effect only at the maximum focal length.”
Lens correcting software washes out the Lens Tip theory in my book, about how one is better off using (gasp) jpegs over RAW …which is absurd, because a jpeg is a lens corrected inferior file, and it’s preset shadows and highlights, colors …on one hand it’s ok to lens correct, on another not? …or as if you are prevented by choosing RAW? In my opinion, the author of the 2017 review on Lens Tip was, dazed and confused
Reading a half-hashed summary then echoing a ; “Beware everyone because I read about it online” ? The sky is falling, the sky is falling
