Some pictures taken over the past couple of days with my "new" Olympus OM-D E-M5. Look pretty good to me. Great colour, the files are sharp at 100%, very little distortion and processed via Photoshop CS6, no CA or fringing. So what "sexy" lenses did I use to take these. Panasonic 12-35mm? 12mm f/2? 45mm f/1.8? Maybe an m-mount or Voigtlander MF lens with an adapter?

Well, no. I used three of the least talked about and most insulted lenses that Olympus produce. Now these three lenses are also probably the most sold and used lenses by all Olympus m4/3 camera owners, since they are or have been kit lenses for the various Olympus Pens. They are:-

Olympus 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6

Olympus 40-150mm f/4.0-5.6

Olympus 17mm f/2.8

The fact that they are all actually decent lenses, none of which cost a lot and often are bundled with the cameras as a kit for not a lot more than the camera body, seems to mean nothing. They don't get much attention, and the general consensus is that they should be discarded ASAP.

As part of my ongoing mission to give the humble kit lens the respect it deserves, I decided to take them out for a spin. And none of them let me down. I voice the opinions over and over again that the differences between lenses are greatly exaggerated, its the sensor and in-camera processing that makes the real difference and that these lenses are cheap because the camera manufacturers make an awful lot of them and use cheap materials. However there is still a school of thought that equates price with quality, no matter how often that just isn't the case. Not to say of course that all expensive lenses are overated, they aren't, its just that ipso facto doesn't alway apply.

So here they are on my OM-D, not very flashy, no reputation for excellence and no ideas above their station. They definitely know their place. Which in this case, is attached to one of my cameras, ready to take pictures.