Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 14-42 mm f/3.5-5.6 ED review - Vignetting

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Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 14-42 mm f/3.5-5.6 ED

7 April 2010

Arkadiusz Olech

8. Vignetting

One of the advantages of a small sensor is supposed to be (and in the huge majority of cases is) very low level of vignetting. What is the situation for the Olympus M.Zuiko 14-42 mm? Let’s have a look at the crops below.

Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 14-42 mm f/3.5-5.6 ED - Vignetting

As you see we won’t get any serious issues with the light fall-off in the frame corner anywhere. Our measurements confirm that conclusion. At the shortest focal length and wide open the vignetting level is just 16% (−0.51 EV). What’s interesting, on stopping down the aperture we don’t see any improvement. By f/4.0 the brightness loss amounts to 15% and by f/5.6 it remains still 14%.

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The middle of the focal lengths range is even more curious. At the maximum relative aperture (f/4.7) the vignetting reaches 13% (−0.41 EV). We got precisely the same value within the margin of error by f/5.6 and f/8.0.

At 42 mm the situation is similar to that at 14 mm. At the maximum aperture the light fall-off in the frame corners is 15% (−0.47 EV). On stopping down by one stop the aberration decreases to 13% and on stopping down by two stops – to 12%.

To sum up the tested lens deserves only praise in this category. The vignetting won’t be bothersome for any combination of focal lengths and aperture.