Hi Moose,
Well I have only had it for a few days but my initial response to it has
been good. I will have to do some more work with it before giving you a
fuller assessment on the visual side of things but here are some general
notes:
Build quality feels as solid as my 14-54mm though the body casing is plastic
rather than metal. The mount is metal and is solid in mounting on my E-1. It
lacks a focus scale like the first tier lenses and does not have a dust
sealing ring on the mount either. Unlike the 35mm f3.5 macro's ribbed
plastic focus ring the 18-180mm has a rubber grip. The 18-180mm is made is
Japan rather than the Chinese origin of some of the other first tier lenses.
It is slightly wider and longer than the 14-54mm but still balances well in
the hand on my E-1.
Despite the slow speed of the 180mm end I found the viewfinder is still
bright enough for compositional purposes in lower dusk/late evening lighting
conditions. Manual focus under these conditions could be risky though. The
auto focus is fast on this lens, possibly even better than my 14-54mm,
though I can't do a direct comparison at the moment for reasons explained
below. I will note I use the center focus point exclusively on my E-1. The
lens does focus to 18 inches even at the long end though I don't know the
magnification at this distance. The loss of around a stop as you zoom is
detectable in the viewfinder but is not unacceptable to my eyes. I am
expecting that for my intended use of this lens it will not present any
issue (I will be using this as a fill in emergency backup to my 14-54mm and
walk around lens for vacation type shots).
My only slight complaint would be the choice of a 62mm filter size. The hood
is a bayonet on design and its mount is only slightly smaller than the one
for 14-54mm. Given that they are so close is size using a 67mm on the
18-180mm would have made more sense for a system concept (this wouldn't have
happened in the OM system for instance). The lens cap for this model is a
center pinch design that is easily removed and replaced with the hood in
place. I will also note that the aperture mechanism seems to be louder on
this model with a noticeable chirp when stopping down (this could be my
sample of course, if anyone else can confirm this with theirs please post).
Now I will explain why I got this lens... This last week I have been working
on the final batch of yearbook senior informals for the school my wife works
at. On Thursdays shoot I executed my 14-54mm with a truly stupid tripod
setup (short leg setting and center column raised). I set the tripod down
with two legs on a bricked path and the other just off the path on grass,
there was just enough of a slope for things to start to tip and over it went
onto the ground. The camera landed lens first with the hood digging a little
hole in the dirt :( . Suffice to say this didn't work out well for the lens
which now makes a ca-chunk-a chunk noise when shook lightly. I got through
the last half hour of session with the 50mm f2 and manual zooming. My real
problems came when assessing what to do about a lens for next weeks final
shoot. I narrowed it down to a choice between a 14-45mm, another 14-54mm or
the 18-180mm. The 40-150mm got discounted from consideration early on due to
the 4.5 foot minimum focus. The 14-45mm felt like it was going to be a very
short stop gap for my purposes and wouldn't get used much after I get the
14-54mm back from being repaired service. And despite some seriously
tempting deals from Cameta on E-1's with a 14-54mm plus SHLD-2 ($1100 with a
2gb card on eekbay) I could quite commit to spending that much of the E-3
money to get a third backup body. So while its not really in the same class
as the 14-54mm the 18-180mm won out because I will actually use it after the
14-54mm comes back.
Anyway enough rambling I have to get back to editing pictures as proofs for
the 9th, 10th and 11th grade are due this week!
Dan S.
-----Original Message-----
From: olympus-owner@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:olympus-owner@xxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Moose
Sent: Monday, September 11, 2006 2:04 AM
To: olympus@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [OM] Re: Moon 9:05
Daniel Sepke wrote:
> As a companion to Candace's sunrise here is the moon as seem this
> evening at
> 9.05 EDT here in Raleigh NC (yep just an hour ago). Picture was taken
> with my new 18-180mm DZ at f8 100 ISO and this is about a 50% crop of the
frame.
> Enjoy!
>
> http://photo.sepke.net/003.html
>
I forgot to ask your impressions so far of the 18-180. Of course, you may
not have had it long enough to be really sure of it, but I'm curious what
you think of it so far.
I was quite tempted by the E-330 and 18-180 kit. Add the35mm macro and its
quite a nice looking kit.
Moose
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