Comments about Olympus Olympus Zuiko 12-60mm f/2.8-4.0 Digital ED SWD Lens for Olympus Digital SLR Cameras:

Love this lens. Tack sharp, great bokeh, really fast focus. This is a must have lens!

Comments about Olympus Olympus Zuiko 12-60mm f/2.8-4.0 Digital ED SWD Lens for Olympus Digital SLR Cameras:

If you can afford it, you can't go wrong with this lens. It does pretty much everything very well. I also have the 14-54 mkI, which is also excellent. If this 1260 is too expensive for you, and you can do without SWD focus, you could be equally impressed with the 1454.

Comments about Olympus Olympus Zuiko 12-60mm f/2.8-4.0 Digital ED SWD Lens for Olympus Digital SLR Cameras:

One of the best purchases I have made at Adorama. And at a great price. These are things that make photography so enjoyable.

Comments about Olympus Olympus Zuiko 12-60mm f/2.8-4.0 Digital ED SWD Lens for Olympus Digital SLR Cameras:

I rented this lens for a wedding that I photographed. I was impressed with the focusing speed over my 14-54. Matched up my my E3 this lens makes the perfect combo for the work I do. My "keeper rate" has increased dramatically because of the speed and accuracy of the focus. Over a long day, the E3/12-60 combo can be a bit heavy. If you are looking for a high grade, fast and accurate lens, you will not be disappointed. I invested the earnings of the wedding into this lens and am very pleased.

Comments about Olympus Olympus Zuiko 12-60mm f/2.8-4.0 Digital ED SWD Lens for Olympus Digital SLR Cameras:

I debated between the 12-60 and 14-54. Hard to find a bad review of either. Both lenses have many fans. In the end I went for the 12-60 mostly because of the increased focal length, especially at the wide end. I've used 24mm prime lenses on film SLRs in the past and knew that if I went for the 14-54 I'd end up getting the 9-18 almost immediately. Even considered ordering both but that negates price, weight, and size advantages of the 14-54. And when I started thinking that way I also thought I'd often like to just grab the camera, a small bag, and no additional lenses. So the 12-60 made more sense in that context. By reputation the 12-60 also has the sharpness advantage. When thinking about "best uses" what stands out in my mind is versatility. You could find lenses that would be better in almost any of the specific categories; fast primes for low light, a true macro lens, longer focal length for sports, etc. But very hard to find a better general purpose every day lens in any system. It offers very good close focusing capabilities (not true macro), covers a very useful range of focal lengths, and it's very sharp (I've even been softening some people pictures a little bit. Even images shot wide open exhibit good sharpness though pixel peeping suggests that stopping down 1 stop gives a bit sharper image. Also, the swd focusing motor is really fast, even on an e620. It's chunky but the size and weight doesn't bother me, perhaps because I'm used to handling cameras by the lenses. So far I'm a happy camper.

Comments about Olympus Olympus Zuiko 12-60mm f/2.8-4.0 Digital ED SWD Lens for Olympus Digital SLR Cameras:

I got this lens to go with an E-620 body, all the reviews are correct, that this is a very nice piece of kit. Fitted to the E-620 it takes very good pictures. It does seem a little large on that body but not too bad. I've tried using for Macro, Landscape, Portrait, Sport, and Architecture I have not been disappointed it is very versatile. The only downside is that on the E-620 it is not fully integrated like the 14-54mm F2.8-3.5 II lens, with the 12-60mm the camera uses hybrid mode for autofocus (I'm surprised it can't be updated in the software). Not a huge deal, I should give it four stars, but it doesn't seem to affect the nice sharp pictures I've been taking. Love it.

Comments about Olympus Olympus Zuiko 12-60mm f/2.8-4.0 Digital ED SWD Lens for Olympus Digital SLR Cameras:

Great lens. Strong construction, great focusing etc. This lens stays on my camera as it can capture most everything I need. I am very happy with the money spent!

Comments about Olympus Olympus Zuiko 12-60mm f/2.8-4.0 Digital ED SWD Lens for Olympus Digital SLR Cameras:

This 12-60mm will amaze you if you upgrade from kit lense. You should have seen its great technical reviews at many websits. I don't need to express how great is this lense. From the size, yes, it is heavier and bulkier than the kit lense but that's how it increase its image quality. It will be much better if it can be fixed at F2.8 or 60mm end at 3.5 at least.

You should see the potential problem it may have and to see if you can take it or not. The problem I found is that you cannot use built in flash for e6xx, e5xx, and e4xx since about 1/6 bottom of image will be blocked by the big lense when enlongated. You should use external falsh if you have to add more light. The good news is that the infrared of external flash will fully solve the problem of low light focusing. Another problem is that when you choose the widest zoom (12mm) with the hood on and you will see the shad of the hood in the image. Is it a design problem? In addition, the hood is not easy to fit on both positions when comparing with 50-200mm, 14-42mm, 40-150mm, and 70-300mm. It is not a defect but you need to get use to it.
May be my specific lense got the specific problem.

The most important thing is that you have to check the series number to see if it is the set of defect lense. You can search this information from Olympus website or from blog such as dpreview.

Anyway you should use this lense for multiple purposes as happy as I am. Your another best choice should be the 14-54mm II SWD and it depend on how you are going to use it. For me, I want one with more range, a little bit higher quality but i need to pay for it.

Comments about Olympus Olympus Zuiko 12-60mm f/2.8-4.0 Digital ED SWD Lens for Olympus Digital SLR Cameras:

This is a wonderful wide-angle lens from Olympus. [...]

Comments about Olympus Olympus Zuiko 12-60mm f/2.8-4.0 Digital ED SWD Lens for Olympus Digital SLR Cameras:

The 12-60 is the best (imo) walk-around lens that Oly makes which happens to be the most affordable. Sure you could get the 14-35 but this has better reach on both ends and is only a bit slower. This has a wonderful range and can be used in a variety of ways from, festivals, events, portraits, everyday usage, etc. It is some distortion at 12mm but this is pretty minimal and mostly you won't see it unless shooting lines such as in architecture. This type of stuff is easily fixed in post if it's going to matter. For the money this would be my first choice. Even after I purchase the 14-35 and 35-100 lenses this lens will remain in my arsenal for some types of events and general photography. It truly is nice.

Comments about Olympus Olympus Zuiko 12-60mm f/2.8-4.0 Digital ED SWD Lens for Olympus Digital SLR Cameras:

Great Product - Recomend for anyone.

Comments about Olympus Olympus Zuiko 12-60mm f/2.8-4.0 Digital ED SWD Lens for Olympus Digital SLR Cameras:

I bought this lens as a replacement for my 14-54mm kit lens. This thing has blown me away. Build quality, focusing speed, and image quality are all amazing. The color you get from this guy is also pretty fantastic. If you don't buy this lens right now there is probably something wrong with you.

Comments about Olympus Olympus Zuiko 12-60mm f/2.8-4.0 Digital ED SWD Lens for Olympus Digital SLR Cameras:

This is THE lens we use for portraits, all we use is Olympus film and digital camera systems. Extremely fast focus, crystal clear images. Our studio depends on this lens.Hasn't ever let us down

Comments about Olympus Olympus Zuiko 12-60mm f/2.8-4.0 Digital ED SWD Lens for Olympus Digital SLR Cameras:

Got it as replacement for my E-410 kit lenses and it is a great lens. It is a bit big on the E-410 (no surprise there) but it works like a charm. However using the built in flash with this lens will yield an ugly shadow in the picture (like having the lens hood on the smaller lenses does), so make sure to use an external flash.

(next upgrade will most likely be to a new camera house to better fit this lens).

Comments about Olympus Olympus Zuiko 12-60mm f/2.8-4.0 Digital ED SWD Lens for Olympus Digital SLR Cameras:

Lens works great on an EVolt-500. The FOV at 12 mm is impressive allowing the entire scene to be captured. A much heavier lens then the standard 14-45 kit lens.

Comments about Olympus Olympus Zuiko 12-60mm f/2.8-4.0 Digital ED SWD Lens for Olympus Digital SLR Cameras:

This is now my "stay on the camera" lens. Versatile, solid and accurate, the auto focus, coupled with my E-510 is awesome and the sharpness of images wonderful. If you are planning to upgrade from kit lenses, do it with this one - you won't regret it.