Name: Olympus Zuiko 12-60mm f/2.8-4 Digital ED SWD Lens for E Series DSLRs - (Four Thirds System)
Brand: Olympus
SKU: IOM1260
Price: 819.00 USD
Availability: Discontinued
Rating: 4.84 (32 reviews)

Olympus Zuiko 12-60mm f/2.8-4 Digital ED SWD Lens for E Series DSLRs - (Four Thirds System)

Olympus 12-60mm

Olympus

Olympus Zuiko 12mm-60mm f2.8-4 Digital ED SWD Lens for Four Thirds System

Adorama

Photography

Lenses

SLR Lenses

Olympus SLR Lenses

Olympus 12-60mm 

Top Rated Gear: Olympus Zuiko 12-60mm f/2.8-4 Digital ED SWD Lens for E Series DSLRs - (Four Thirds System) Lens Type: Wide Angle To Standard Zoom

Designed to meet the needs of the professional photographer, Zuiko Digital lenses were born of an uncompromising commitment to performance. The lenses feature high resolving power, to get the most out of the imaging element. Zuiko Digital lenses allow light to strike the image sensor at a near-perpendicular angle, minimizing degradation and light loss. This large, award-winning family of lenses is perfectly matched to work exclusively with digital cameras so every pixel is properly exposed.In combination with the E-3, this lens delivers the fastest autofocus speed in the world. It covers a zoom range equivalent to 24mm to 120mm on a 35mm camera lens. This lens also boasts impressive close-up shooting capability, allowing users to shoot from as close as 25cm throughout the zoom range. Autofocus is powered by Olympus' breakthrough SWD. Designed to be the world's fastest AF system, this extraordinary autofocus drive provides both high speed and high precision while operating with extremely low noise.

Great lens half cost of new lens. In perfect condition. Like a great sunset this great find

Great lens super glass optics

For the vast majority of us, this is a great lens. I am not a pro. I started as a kid with Olympus and film. As film got scarce I started thinking digital and purchased an Olympus E-510 with kit lenses. Word on the street was that the kit lenses were better than Nikon and Canon kit lenses. The 14-42mm 3.5-5.6 and 40-150mm 4-5.6 turned out to be good lenses that captured some excellent images. Fantastic Plastic. I saved my dimes and nickles and purchased the Zuiko 12-60mm f2.8-4 and Zuiko 50-200mm f2.8-3.5, along with the Zuiko 50mm f2 prime macro. All excellent lenses. The 12-60mm is specially siuted for everyday, walk around shooting and occupied the E-510 mount the most.
 I have since purchased the Olympus OM-D EM-1 and the MMF-3 adapter. The results, with the lenses mentioned, are outstanding. The EM-1 brought out the full potential of the 12-60mm(24mm-120mm), from tight shots reasonably close up, to wide angle, to zoomed in, with amazing detail.
 There is also the issue of weight. It is heavy, but not something you can't get used to.
 I am a casual, student, enthusiast of the art and not a pro, but in my opinion, if you want good clean images and the greatest versatility at a reasonable cost, the Zuiko 12mm-60mm f2.8-4 Digital ED SWD Zoom Lens is one to think about.

Try It, You'll Like It.

Sharp, sharp, sharp. Great range for a walking around lens. Recently in Montana and the weather proofing was a plus. Extremely fast focus.

Nice Glass

A great all purpose lens.  It is fast and takes tack sharp pictures.  I use it on both the E-5 and the E-620.  By far one of my favorite lens.  Wish I had purchased this a long time ago!

I would buy this product again!

Typical of Olympus cameras and lenses, the 12-60mm is a fine lens. However, don't buy it for your MICRO four thirds camera. I bought an adaptor to make it fit my Olympus OMD E-M5 and soon found out that the automatic focus noisily seeks the subject, and most of the time can't find it, or takes forever to find it. I tried the 12-60 on another micro four thirds camera - a Panasonic GF1. Automatic focus didn't work at all: The GF1 defaulted to manual focus. I'm going to sell this lens and the adapter.

Auto focus doesn't work with Olympus OMD

I've had the lens a few weeks.  Am more than pleased with it.  I have been doing a lot of indoor low-light work in churches with low illumination.  Photos have been clear and sharp with minimal noise.   Results outdoors have been equally good.  

The lens is certainly heavier than the kit lenses but that little bit of extra weight is not noticeable after about ten minutes.  This lens has allowed me to take the two kit lenses out of my bag so that now I only carry it an a 70-300.  The only gap from 12mm to 300 mm is 60 yo 70.  Am very pleased.

Well worth the cost

This is a terrific walk around lens. It has a useful focal range and the photos are very sharp at 12mm and 60mm.  I have experience no lens creep. It is rugged and built to last.

I am glad I chose to spend the extra bucks for this one rather the the 14-54 lens.

Perfect Walk Around Lens

I got this lens second hand from Adorama but would be hard pressed to tell it from  new. It came with lens caps and hood and a belt mounted lens case I wash't expecting. This lens is as fast as all the reviews say and at f2.8 resolves the issues I was having with the Olympus kit lenses (14-42mm) not focusing well (or getting a reasonably short exposure time) in low light. I use it mostly for walking around shooing and some landscape / cityscape work but also photographing my son. The lens is substantially bigger than the kit lenses both in length and diameter. I'm using the Olympus E-410 and the lens diameter is big enough to leave a shadow when using the pop up flash. I knew this would happen from other reviews however I don't need to use the flash for indoor shoots as much and when I do I probably need an external flash and diffuser anyway.
The size of it means that the benefits of the small size of my camera is reduced but I can still fit the whole thing in a cargo pocket.

Improved low light shooting

Great walking around lens.  It stays on my camera most of the time unless I need a telephoto.

Great Lens

I am just a casual photographer and I struggled with the decision to buy this lens or the less costly Zuiko 14-54 lens.  I wondered why, Olympus would manufacturer two lenses of similar focal length in its high grade category. 

Based on some advice I received from DPReview users and other reviews, I went with the 12-60mm and never looked back.  I have absolutely no regrets. This is one very sharp lens. 

If you can afford this lens, buy it. It is worth every cent.

No Regrets Dropping the Extra Bucks

I use this lens with Oly E-620; and it produces best bright shots. A must-have for Oly E system.

Olympus Zuiko 12-60mm  - great lens

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

What can you say besides - Wow?

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.

Simply great

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

Superb 4/3 lens. Still one of the best.

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.

I like this lens!

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.

Outstanding General Purpose Zoom

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.

Very Impressive Lens

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!

Love this lens!

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.

The best upgrade lense from kit lense

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

Wonderful wide-angle Lens from Olympus

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.

The choice if you are on a budget!

Good Job

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.

This lens cures swine flu.

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

Must have portrait lens

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).

Great lens (even on an E-410)

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.

Works great on EVolt -500

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.

Olympus Zuiko 12-60mm f/2.8-4 Digital ED SWD Lens for E Series DSLRs - (Four Thirds System)

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