Olympus Zuiko Digital 35-100 mm f/2.0 review - Vignetting

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Olympus Zuiko Digital 35-100 mm f/2.0

10 May 2010

Arkadiusz Olech

8. Vignetting

If we remind ourselves the test of the Canon EF 70-200 mm f/2.8 USM we can easily notice that the lenses of this class on full frame can lose over 2 EV of light in the corners. The lack of such “attractions”, preserving of course the same angles of view, was supposed to be the Four Thirds system’s advantage. Let’s check how the situation looks for the ZD 35-100 mm.

Olympus Zuiko Digital 35-100 mm f/2.0 - Vignetting

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Just one glance at the crops, presented above, tells us the situation is good. Taking into account the fact that the lens is faster by 1 EV than its competitors we can even say it fares sensationally well here!

We lose the most of light at the shortest focal length and by f/2.0 – in this case 25% ( - 0.84 EV). This value is certainly noticeable but rather not very bothersome. The problem disappears completely by f/2.8 where the vignetting reaches just 7%.

In the middle of the focal lengths range we see virtually no problems at all. Even at the maximum aperture the brightness loss amounts to just 14% (−0.43 EV) and on stopping down to f/2.8 it decreases to a rather nominal value of 3%.

When we pass to 100 mm focal length the vignetting increases once again but even there it doesn’t constitute a serious problem at any point. By f/2.0 it amounts to 22% (−0.71 EV) and it decreases to 4% by f/2.8.

One interesting fact can be noticed here. Although the vignetting levels at both ends of focal range don’t differ much (25% vs. 22%) a significant difference can be seen when it comes to the shape of the brightness loss profile. At 35 mm the vignetting increases very slowly throughout most of the frame to “explode” in the corners. At 100 mm, for a change, the vignetting increases in succession with the similar speed. The pictures below illustrate it pretty nicely.