Wandering about in the woods with my M.Zuiko 12-45mm f4 Pro 'standard' zoom catching a mostly wider view of the forest glades after the recent storms as Autumn marches relentlessly onwards.
After the recent storms bringing both torrential downpours and gale force winds I quite expected to find some damage at the local woods and most of the Autumn leaves gone. Happily only a single tree had succumbed (though it is always sad to lose an old friend that was nearly 200 years old) and many of the colourful leaves were still on display though indeed many had been hammered and fallen.
So, let me start with a few comments about my beautiful little 12-45mm f4 lens I used for this woods walk. Well, compared to my 14-150mm f4-5.6 II, which provides a balanced trade-off between capability and performance to deliver great convenience, it's like chalk and cheese. The 12-45mm is a Pro lens which I am more than happy to use at any focal length, at all distances including for extreme close ups, at all apertures from f4 to f11 and confidently get super duper results.
It is small and light so matches the smaller bodied OM-5 to a T, supports all of the cameras computational functions and focuses close enough to give a 0.5x magnification across its entire zoom range. It also zooms out to the magical 12mm (24mm equivalent) rather than the super zoom's 14mm those 2mm extra not seeming much but a 24mm wide angle equiv. verses a 28mm equiv. makes all the difference in the real world. Finally it is fully IP53 weather sealed to match my OM-5, something quite handy in this part of the world.
The only trade-off is that it lacks the convenience of the10.7x zoom range of the super zoom. Thus to get the same reach out to 150mm (300mm equivalent) I have to cary my lovely 40-150mm f4 Pro as well and endure the inconvenience of swapping lenses when needs must.
Well, what of my walk in the woods? It was, I am pleased to say, super zen relaxing and photo delicious, or some such twaddle. In other words I really was lost in that magical world of making photos in the autumnal splendour. Joyful!