Olympus 11-22mm f/2.8-3.5 Zuiko Digital Zoom Lens for E1, E300 & E500 Cameras

At 22mm/f11 this lens is perfect for the kind of portraits, where you need high depth of field, e.g. on the front cover of my Suntan Book (see link below), the family members are lined up behind each other. For panoramas the low distortion and large depth of field make panoramas possible, where closeup and far-away elements are combined. Adding a infrared filter delivers snow white greenery. Using camera shift or 2 cameras and 2 of these lenses, 3D is crispy clear. Especially for 3D, closeup and faraway elements need to be in the picture. Again, at f11 they are all in focus. A fantastic lens for artistic photography!

Following are some links of my books created with this lens and a E300:

Suntan: Skin Tone Color Adjustments in Lightroom and Photoshop

Panoramic & Stereoscopic Photography in Color and Infrared: A Step by Step Guide

Florida - Focus on Anna Maria Island - Panoramic & Stereoscopic: Hypnotizing Sceneries

3D Stereoscopic Portraits - Photography by Rolf Bertram - Posing by Audrey Michelle: Color and Infrared

Flexible: Posing by Audrey Michelle

I have had this lens a short time now, and the weather has not permitted much in the way of outdoor use. The shots that I have been able to take, including some indoor available light and flash, have been superb. Extremely sharp optics with excellent FOV. This lens will probably stay on my L1 body for all-around use.

I posted a photo above you can look at to see the objective glass element on this lens - it has some severe curvature to obtain the near 90 degreee field of view without distortion. I also plan to mount it in my linearity tester when finished using it for a customer and will post a photo of its overall resolution.

This lens would be IDEAL for a realator who takes "curb apeal" shots of homes, and interior shots where it is difficult to see floor to ceiling and wall to wall. At 11 MM there is no fisheye effect and all lines are straight. Unfortunately, even though this can focus down to about 11 inches, it can not mount the flash ring because it has a 72mm filter size instead of the 67 mm on the other lenses which can use the ring flash. This is really a shame too, because at close distances, the wide field of view of this lens will cast a shadow from the built in flash on the camera that may take up 1/8 of the picture. Using a flash off the camera for closeup work is one option, a bounce flash and a card is another option, but direct lighting will alsmost certainly show up in the picture due to the wide viewing angle.

Outside during daylight the lens really shines. I used it to take a photo of my house from the curb and got the entire lot (75' wide) from 50 feet away on the sidewalk, with the grass in front in focus, as well as the sky above, and parts of my neighbor's homes. This would give a realator alot of flexibility to either zoom in or crop the picture in photoshop for a front on view for flyers.

I bought an Olympus 11-22mm lens from Cameta Camera earlier this spring and found I use it much more frequently than my 14-54mm. The 11-22mm is essentially a near-super wide to normal lens that is both sharp across the image (sharper than the 14-54mm) and displays very very little distortion across its entire zoom range. An added plus--an exposure set at one zoom setting is good for any other, so you can lock an exposure and just focus between zoom settings. Auto focus is very fast. Images show very little CA at extreme edges. It takes a lens filter without signs of vignetting (dark image edges).

The lens works well on my E-510 and E-330. In fact, it works so well on the E-330 that it stays on this camera.

This is simply a superb lens for landscape and makes the Olympus 4:3 system unique for its overall small size and image quality. Images from the 11-22mm easily print full-size onto 13x19 papers with sharp resolution of detail (using Epson 2200 and 2400 printers). What a keeper. I highly recommend the 11-22mm.

As a former SLR user for the past thirty years, I recently decided to step up to the plate for a digital SLR.

Having owned a Nikon F2as, Olympus OM1 and a Minolta, I decided to purchase the 10 megapixal Olympus E-510. Knowing that the lenses are the key to photography, I purchsaed the body only without the kit lenses.

I purchased the Olympus 11-22 f2.8, along with the Sigma 1.4 for a "standard" lens.

The Olympus lens has proven exceptional. The 11 - 22 perspective is ideal in capturing Colorado landscapes. The photographs have been crisp with amazing color. In addition, the lens is dust and splash resistant making it ideal for outside work.

Due to the large number of elements and relative fast speed of the lens, it shows its weight. Despite the weight, the lens is well balanced with the E-510 body making it easy to work with.

If your focus is on great photography- this combination of body and lens is a great value.