The Olympus 12-40mm f2.8 PRO II lens is the first lens I bought after changing my approach to photography and a lens I truly appreciate. This lens gives a depth of field equivalent to 24mm – 80mm in full frame equivalency, which makes it an excellent walking-around lens when paired with my OM Systems OM-1 camera body. It even worked well paired with my smaller and more casually styled PEN E-P7, although the size, weight and weather-sealing suit the OM-1 more.

This lens feels premium in the hand, is light enough to carry around all day, and given its versatility, produces excellent results in many genres of photography. The only real drawback I have with this lens is the lens hood – I always use it for both protection of the glass and to help prevent flaring, but it’s a little fiddly to apply, especially when swapping lenses. I now have the lens change/hood install practised to where it can happen quickly and easily, but it’s a less elegant solution than some of the other approaches to lens hoods I will be covering in this series.

This lens is typically the one on my camera when I leave the house (unless it is dark out, then the 20mm f1.4 PRO is the choice), spends the most time attached to the camera of all my lenses – 63% of all photos taken since I started shooting exclusively RAW images have been with this lens.

Some samples: (click for a larger view)

All systems have access to a good, consistent aperture 24-70mm lens, and this is the Olympus take on this (with a little extra reach at the long end as a bonus). The manual clutch mechanism feels so natural to use, it’s a little jarring when other lenses don’t have access to it.

If I could only shoot with one lens from now on, it’s this one!