Quality Digital Camera

Pros:
Very Small, Very Light, fits easily in a jacket pocket
Ultra-wide angle is very useful
Image stabilization available on-camera
Noticeably better construction than my other Olympus standard grade lenses
Wide filter ring prevents vignetting (use just one filter)
Good image quality, except for:

Cons:
Barrel distortion at wide end (correctable in Photoshop)
Last few pixels not quite as “sharp” as center
Practice required to keep horizon level, not create weird perspective
Construction not as good as Olympus “pro” lenses
There are wider lenses for other brands (that weigh 2x more… hehehe.)
There are better ultrawide zoom lenses (in the $1500 range… haHaHA!)

My stuff for reference: E-410, 9-18mm, 25mm pancake, 35mm macro, 40-150mm (small), 14-54mm, 70-300mm (14-42mm and 18-180mm lenses sold)

I bought the Olympus system to get great image quality at a small size and price, I wouldn’t have if not for rumors of this lens. When it was announced it seemed better than I hoped! I bought it early for a trip to China (I normally wait for the price to drop), it is a good thing I did, because I used the 9-18mm about 70% of the time! I also took the 14-54mm and the 40-150mm kit lens, thus making a small, quality, versatile package that I always carried in my pockets and hand/neck.

The 9-18 is ideal for travel, it fits in a pocket or can be carried attached to your camera all day and not be tiring. More importantly, when you get to touristy places, you can stand very close to your subject (if you don’t mind the perspective), thus you will be in other people’s photos, rather than them being in yours! Plus, there are a surprising number of subjects that can only be photographed whole or with no obstructions with an ultra-wide angle lens. Great for “spy” pictures of people who think you are pointing the camera somewhere else. And, you can lower shutter speeds to 1/20s and still have sharp pictures, a huge benefit for cameras with no IS. Imagine what it would be like on a camera with IS!

Image quality is good, but there is noticeable barrel distortion towards 9mm. Otherwise I would say IQ is between the 14-54 and 40-150, but closer to the 14-54. Lens flare was not a big problem for me, but more than my 14-54 (and I like placing the sun in the frame). Keeping the lens clean helps a lot with flare. Contrast (something I like) is much better than the 40-150, but not as good as the 14-54mm. Sharpness I am less attuned to because all Olympus lenses are sharp and I rarely view my pictures full size, but it is sharp from f/4 to ~f/10, about/nearly as good as the 14-54mm. Chromatic aberration happens, and is slightly worse towards the edges, but is not too bad. The extreme corners (~50 pixels on mine, I estimated just for this review) can be softer than the center, becoming similar to the center towards f/8. By comparison, the 14-54 experiences less corner variation from f/2.8 to f/8. This is a very minor consideration.

Other thoughts: construction quality is better than my other Olympus standard grade lenses, including texturing on the whole exterior and a less plasticky sound when you hit the limits of the zoom range. Zoom travel is very short and is of the out-in-out variety. I now think my 14-54mm is too big, and got the 25mm pancake to anchor the gap between the 9-18mm and 40-150mm. With the 9-18mm, 40-150mm and any of the <Olympus 14-54mm, Sigma f/2.8 18-50mm, Olympus 25mm pancake, or Sigma 30mm> you will have a small yet extraordinary setup with the E-420, E-520, or E-620. Alternatively, use the 9-18mm, 35mm macro, and 70-300mm for landcapes/macro/wildlife. You will see many tourists walking past with a Nikon D300 or Canon 50D and a large lens, that weigh more than your camera and three lenses together despite having less zoom and smaller aperture. You will wonder what delusion they are under that they think they are making better pictures (of the same thing)!

Update: after several months of usage, I returned to China for a longer stay, and have been using the 14-18mm range quite a bit to take pictures of people around town. I am glad that the good image quality occurs across the zoom range. I have found that this lens is now the anchor of my small lens collection. Things I notice even more after a few months are, the 9-18 is contrastier than the 40-150mm, and the construction quality is far higher than the 40-150mm or other standard grade lenses (except the 25mm pancake?). My 40-150 has a quite a few nicks in it. The 9-18 has just 3 hairline scratches which are difficult to see even on close examination.

The Olympus 9-18mm f/4.0-5.6 Zuiko is an excellent ultra wide zoom in a reasonably small and light weight form factor. The quality of its images is comparable to those the Olympus standard lens series. The Dual Super Aspherical (DSA) front element enables the lens form factor. I purchased this for use on my Olympus E-520 because I wanted a relatively light weight ultra wide system with live view.

For those who might want to compare this lens to the Olympus 7-14mm f/4.0 Zuiko, I have one that I use with my Olympus E-3. The Olypmus 7-14mm Super High Grade is really an extraodinary lens just as is the Olympus 14-35 f/2.0 and the Olympus 35-100mm f/2.0 that I happen to also use with my Olympus E-3.

But, if you want an ultra wide zoom for the E-520 (or E-420, E-510, E-410, E-500, E-330, E-300) that is easy to use and works as a well balanced system with excellent image quality then you should seriously consider this lens!

This lens is physically just a little bigger than the 2 kit lenses. The front element, with a 72mm filter size, is the thing that sticks out compared to the kits.

It is Japan-made, not Chinese, which generally represents a higher quality even though it is in the same “Standard” range as the kits. It is nicely finished, with the same textured black paint as the E-510 camera body. The attachment base is metal, rather than the plastic of the kit lenses.

Olympus controls the size and cost by staying within the not-particularly-fast f/4.0-5.6, but overall this is a very reasonable compromise.

For image quality, it sets a high standard. It is superior to the quite satisfactory kit lenses.

The prospective buyer now has several compelling options in the wide zoom range. Which one is selected depends very much on your “lens plan” as you develop your system.

The 11-22mm is just a little more expensive, and has a little extra speed, and is in the “High Grade” series so has even better image quality. For me, compared to the 9-18, the loss of some angle was more important than the gain in speed and image quality. The 7-14mm is much more expensive, and is part of the “Super High Grade” series. As such, it does not really compete with this 9-18 (at least not within my budget). Unfortunately, Olympus does not offer a prime ultra-wide, other than the 8mm fisheye which is really a fixed-length special-effect lens rather than a prime.

I would be even happier if this lens was offered as a High Grade lens for a couple hundred extra dollars, but as it stands, it is a very much appreciated addition to my system.

Can you guide on a high definition review website. I got this from my friend looks ok

High definition camera

Bob