This Lens Exhibits Heavy Vignetting, Part I...

So, here at the tail end of 2017 and going into 2018, my road back into photography has wandered from crop-sensor Canon DSLRs through crop-sensor Nikon DSLRs and now to mirrorless.

My lens situation is a little bit of a mess though, because I have Sony E-mount cameras in both APS-C and full-frame sizes, as well as some Olympus Micro Four Thirds bodies.

While the Sony lenses will physically interchange between the full-frame ɑ7 and the APS-C bodies, the situation there is analogous to the Nikon DX/FX situation. If you put one of the crop-sensor lenses on the full-frame body, it will only use the chunk of sensor in the middle to avoid giving you the big black circle around your picture.

So, in Sony E-mount full-frame lenses, I have a decent fast 50mm prime lens and a Zeiss 24-70mm f/4 zoom. This camera is mainly intended for work stuff.

In the APS-C crop sensor E-mount category, I have most of my lens bases covered. I have a sweet Sigma 30mm f/1.4 for a prime lens, as well as a Sigma 60mm f/2.8 ART for portraits. There’s a Sony 18-105mm f/4 G-lens for a vacation lens and a 55-210mm kit zoom for a zoo lens. I really only need a good wide-angle and a macro.

So what about Micro Four Thirds? I own MFT cameras for a couple of reasons…

The most important reason is this: While my Sony NEX-5T, with its 16MP BIONZ sensor, is technically superior in most benchmarks to half the Micro Four Thirds cameras I own, it feels like its interface was designed by a guy Sony transferred to cameras from the alarm clock or DVR divisions three weeks prior.

By contrast, my Pen E-P5 or OM-D M5 is oozing photographic charisma. You want to grab those little condensed cameras and go out and start making pictures as soon as you pick them up.

Maybe because the lenses are physically smaller, Micro Four Thirds glass is cheaper than APS-C or full-frame. Maybe because both Panasonic and Sony are working at it, the lens library is much larger than that for the Sony E-mount.

It didn’t take long before I’d built up a pretty decent lens selection for MFT. Panasonic’s 20mm f/1.7 and the Olympus 45mm f/1.7 were no brainers for fast primes. A deal on an Olympus 12-40mm f/2.8 PRO set me up with a good fast zoom. I bought an extra Pen E-P1 body that came with a Panasonic 40-200mm that would make a good zoo lens. Now I needed a vacation lens.

In my book a vacation lens is the one I keep on the camera that is slung around my neck more or less constantly. I’m never on vacation by myself, so when I want to pause to take a picture, I don’t want to inconvenience the people I’m with by juggling lenses and setting up the shot. I need to keep a lens on the camera that will handle everything from wide-angle landscapes to middlin’-long telephoto.

For a few years I used a Canon 18-135mm on my EOS 20D, which was supplanted by the Nikon 18-140mm on the D200. I had a good vacation zoom now for the Sony E-mount, but what about Micro Four Thirds? I started digging around online, prowling KEH and the used sections at Roberts, Adorama, and B&H.

I finally spotted a good used Olympus 14-150mm lens for sale at Roberts cheap enough to be affordable. Since they’re local, I could buy the lens online at midnight and check “Pick Up At Store” instead of having it shipped, which appealed to my instant gratification needs.

The next morning, I hopped in the Zed Drei and drove downtown to one of the last camera stores in Indiana.

To be continued…
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