Olympus 12-200mm f/3.5-6.3 First Impressions: The all-in-one vacation zoom for MFT stretches its legs

posted Monday, March 25, 2019 at 11:22 AM EST

It's been quite some time since our friends at Olympus last brought us a new piece of glass. In fact, it's safe to say it's been well over a year! That's a long time waiting, but then again the new Olympus 12-200mm f/3.5-6.3 covers quite a bit of range! As expected, this latest offering has drawn quite a bit of reader interest, so we didn't want to waste any time in getting you an initial gallery and some first impressions thoughts right away.

Our job as reviewers is to bring out the best from the new gear, and also highlight any potential drawbacks or disadvantages we may find, to help you make informed purchasing decisions. Over the years we've found that zoom lenses tend to require design aspects that force trade-offs to be made, and we aim to find the places where these trade-offs may affect you the most. In this initial piece I've tried to showcase both ends of the spectrum for you, and there's a wide variety of real-world imagery in the gallery as well, to help you decide if this lens fits your needs in the field.