Backdrop: Yoshihisa Maitani and the Olympus Compact SLR
Olympus came late to the 35mm SLR. When the original OM-1 appeared in 1972, the established makers had been building reflex cameras for more than a decade, and Olympus was not seriously regarded as a contender among them. What it had instead was a chief designer, Yoshihisa Maitani, the man behind the half-frame Pen and later the pocket sized XA.
The resulting OM-1 shows the leadership of a designer who viewed compactness as an engineering discipline rather than a styling exercise. Controls were repositioned to make better use of available space, unnecessary weight was stripped from components, and attention was paid to details often overlooked, such as mirror shock and operating noise. Naturally, as the soul of the camera, these ideas extended into the Zuiko lens range, which followed the same principle of reducing size without compromising performance.
Zuiko Lenses
The name Zuiko means light of the gods and has been applied to Olympus lenses since 1936. They have a stellar reputation, illustrated by articles such as Are Olympus lenses the GOAT vintage lenses?
The OM system offers a wide range of compact lenses (from 8mm to 1000mm in primes), some of which are legendary. The 21mm f2 is often regarded as one of the finest ultra-wide lenses ever produced for a manual-focus SLR and is rare and expensive today. The 90mm f2 Macro is also extremely highly sought after for its extraordinary sharpness, macro capability and portrait performance. The lenses I use are listed below.
- Olympus OM 24mm f2 A great wide angle lens. Prices are relatively high.
- Olympus OM 28mm f2.8 One of the best value lenses in the OM system. It’s extremely small, lightweight, optically solid and produces sharp images from moderate apertures.
- Olympus OM 35mm f2. A versatile lens with attractive rendering. Not at at its best wide open, but it compensates with character.
- Olympus OM 50mm f1.2 Atmospheric art lens, soft wide open. Obviously larger and heavier than the f/1.8, but still small for a 1.2. There is an interesting review of this lens with a Sony Alpha by Phillip Reeve.
- Olympus OM 85mm f2. An outstanding portrait lens.
- Olympus OM 100mm f2.8. Can be overlooked in favour of the better known 85mm, but it is one of the sharpest lenses in the OM range and its compact for its focal length.
Zuiko Lenses on Digital Cameras
The use of Zuiko lenses on contempory ‘mirrorless’ cameras (horseless carriages) is described very well in this Quora post, which I have reproduced in full below.
Olympus OM Zuiko lenses from the 1980s are heavily favored by contemporary digital photographers and videographers for several distinct reasons:
- Exceptional compactness: Modern mirrorless camera bodies are prized for being small, but attaching a massive modern autofocus lens often defeats the purpose. Because the OM system was built around making gear as small as physically possible, lenses like the Zuiko 50mm f/1.8 or 28mm f/3.5 are remarkably tiny. They balance effortlessly on compact mirrorless bodies from brands like Sony, Fujifilm, or Panasonic without making the setup front-heavy.
- Distinct optical character: Modern digital lenses are engineered to mathematical perfection, which can sometimes result in images that feel somewhat sterile. Vintage Zuiko lenses offer a softer micro-contrast, organic lens flares, and a gentle transition into out-of-focus areas. This provides a highly sought-after “cinematic” or analog rendering straight out of the camera, while still retaining excellent center sharpness.
- Tactile manual focus: Built before the widespread adoption of plastic autofocus housings, OM lenses feature all-metal and glass construction. Their heavily damped, smooth manual focus rings were designed exclusively for human hands, not autofocus motors. Because modern mirrorless cameras feature digital tools like focus peaking and viewfinder magnification, manually focusing these vintage lenses is actually faster and more precise today than it was on the original analog film bodies.
- Seamless adaptability: The original Olympus OM mount has a flange focal distance of 46 millimeters. Mirrorless cameras typically have flange distances under 20 millimeters. This structural difference leaves plenty of room to mount a simple, inexpensive metal adapter ring to bridge the gap. Because the adapter is just an empty tube spacing the lens correctly from the sensor, it requires no corrective glass elements that might degrade the image quality.
For photographers seeking the analog soul and mechanical build quality of vintage glass without paying the massive premiums commanded by classic rangefinder lenses, the Olympus OM Zuiko lineup hits an ideal sweet spot of character, price, and scale.
Selected Sources
- Olympus global home page for their technology museum
- Camerawiki Olympus Zuiko Lenses
- The Olympus OM System Information File (OM-SIF), at olympus.dementix.org. This is a serious enthusiast technical reference but does not have HTTPs.
- Camera-wiki’s combined page on the Olympus OM-1/2/3/4
- The Olympus OM-2S Program instruction manual
