A few weeks ago, a lost and lonely lens followed me home. The Olympus 7-14 f/4 is perhaps the signature lens of the four-thirds system, being unique among all digital cameras, but it's frequently overshadowed by its longer and faster Digital Zuiko siblings. Among other camera systems, everyone seems fascinated by fifty-plus legacy lenses, and new wide zooms are coming out all the time.

My new friend was sad because it keeps hearing about the Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC HSM, which must have spent two decades in grad school to earn so many letters after its name. "... a good optical performance and a budget price, the Sigma 10-20mm is an excellent investment ... " Budget price indeed -- it's one-third of the price of the Olympus 7-14 f/4. Even an architectural photography website recommends the Sigma 10-20 over the Olympus 7-14 for four-thirds cameras -- and the Sigma doesn't even exist in the 4/3 lens mount!

What's a pro Olympus lens to do in a third-party consumer-lens world?

So I took pity on the poor Zuiko, with its eighteen elements in twelve groups, and gave its 114 degree angle-of-view an E-1 camera to call home. It has rewarded me with loyalty, smear-free corners, and virtually no vignetting or distortions. It hasn't all been easy, and there has definitely been an adjustment period, but as we learn more about each other the problems are disappearing.

Since I adopted it with an eye to architectural photography, it makes sense that I start there.



Union Station Departures

Toronto's Union Station is a vast building, and hardly needs an ultra-wide to capture its grandeur. There's something to challenge and reward any lens. In this case, it proved a useful test for the 7-14, giving deep shadows and bright highlights. The shading that you can see in the corners is actually lens flare caused by the central light fixture, rather than vignetting. While this can be seen as a negative, and might horrify purists, it adds a creative dimension that reflects a unique way to draw with light. (The purists are all out using 50 f1.4 lenses on film cameras, so I'm not too concerned that they'll be offended by reading this.)



Snowy Churchyard

I've been walking past this small church for months, but had to wait to take the photo of it that I wanted. I needed to wait for a light dusting of snow to give a blank canvas to the shadows, and I needed to wait for the 7-14 lens. This photo is a study in worst-case scenarios: iso800, wide open, and hand-held at a 1/4 second exposure. Did I mention that it was snowing? Very slightly cropped from my E-1's 5mp file, it makes an excellent 11x14 print. The noise adds a nice grain to the sky, without obscuring the textures in the wood, brick, and snow.



City Place

The opposite of Snowy Churchyard, my photo of a condo development near my work was as optimum as it was unplanned. At iso100, I had a shutter speed of 1/500, which was faster than I needed on a monopod. Still, I didn't see the need for an aperture greater than f5.6, as this lens' depth of field at 7mm is vast.



West of Queen West

There's a trendy part of town that's famous among photographers for its back alley graffiti. Clubs and classes take field trips to it, and every summer there's a festival that sees the entire stretch primed and repainted. This photograph was taken at f/8 and 7mm focal length, and has only been lightly cropped on the right side. Colour reproduction, distortion, vignetting and aberrations are non-issues -- as is focusing.



Truck

And one final image -- I can't resist this one. It was fun to take, with my lens nearly touching the bumper, and I enjoy its attitude. This truck may never move under its own power again, but don't tell it that.

All images were shot using an Olympus E-1, with apertures ranging from f/4 to f/8.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions, comments, or critiques that you may have.

Awesome review, Matt. The lens looks really sweet!! I have a Nikon 12-24 and don't use it as much as I should (damn 18-200 refuses to stay off my camera) - but am always amazed by the POV that you get with an ultra wide.

The edge to edge sharpness on these look excellent as does the contrast. Thanks for your effort on this review.

Great writeup Matthew... the perspective that you get with the ultra wide is very unique indeed, especially with the first shot.

Awesome Mat. Well done write up. Photo's as well.

Thanks very much, everyone.

I've been surprised by just how much I like this lens. The ultra-wide angle really gives a different view on the world, and it has been the most difficult lens I've ever had to learn. When I'm walking around with this lens, I come away with far fewer photographs, but the ones that I do take are much more likely to be keepers. The Snowy Churchyard is my current favourite shot, and a lot of the appeal comes from my knowing the area where it was taken. (It's about 100 metres from my home.) Without the exaggerated perspectives and distance relationships (that fence is only a few feet high) it's a nothing scene, but it came out exactly the way I wanted it to.

I submitted a couple of these to a competition at my club, and the organizer just sent me back an email saying "Good eye on the City Place - I'm going to try that." I'm not sure that I have the heart to tell him that no lens for his camera will produce that angle of view. (Maybe I'll wait a few weeks and see how it scores first.) And no, he's not judging.

Hi Matt,

I love wide angle photography and this lens does look sweet. Nice job on the review/story.

This is one of the lenses I am more affraid of. I always think I will mess my picture. I wanted to buy the 17-40mm(?) but I thought I had no great landscapes to use it. Looking at your pictures I understand that it can be also useful in other subjects and give a great perspective in your picture.

Thanks a lot for the review and the pictures.

I'd like to 2nd his opinion -- very good eye on City Place! The pic seems very balanced - I like it very much!

aaaaaaaaaawsome! you have a talent, no doubt. It takes some skill to fill a frame like that, very impressive. I like them. Uli

Well, thanks again. I appreciate the encouragement; it does give me incentive to keep trying new things with this lens.

I have to admit that I'm really not sure what this lens is ideally suited for. (Apparently it's great for underwater photography, but that doesn't help me much.) A lens this wide, or its equivalent for other formats, is actually really bad for landscapes. It's just too wide. Unless the camera is level, there will be severe keystoning. If the camera is level, then the image will have the horizon right down the centre. Also, because the perspective distortion is so exaggerated, objects that aren't in the foreground virtually disappear. For example, the person in the alleyway photo was only about fifty feet from me; in the Union Station photo, you can see the scale difference in the size of the people in the foreground versus the back of the hall. Now imagine what that would do to a distant treeline or mountain range.

Here are a couple of shots from last night, for a little variety:




And a fellow Olympus-using photographer from my class:



(I was standing about as far from the table as he was. He's using a lens with a 70mm equivalent focal length.)