Best Lenses For The Olympus OM-D E-M1 and Micro Four Thirds Format – Updated 3/27/15

Telephoto

Panasonic Lumix 100-300mm f/4.0-5.6

The Panasonic Lumix 100-300mm f/4.0-5.6 is the best telephoto lens for a couple of reasons.  The lens is slightly cheaper than the $549 Olympus MSC ED-M 75 to 300mm II f4.8-6.7 at $484.95 and the image quality is slightly better than the Olympus version.

Macro

The Olympus MSC ED M. 60mm f/2.8 Lens is the best available for the m4/3 format (there aren’t many choices), the Olympus 12-50 kit lens, with macro mode, is a disappointment in regards to image quality.  The 60mm Oly lens is also dust and splash proof making it ideal for your professional kit.

Portraits

Panasonic 42.5mm/F1.2 Lens

The 42.5mm f/1.2 lens is one of my favorite focal lengths…  You can use this for portraits, Street Photography, and really anything and everything.  The image quality is great and it’s a light lens.  Image stabilization is built into the lens so it’s perfect for Panasonic bodies and Olympus alike (just turn off O.I.S. when using on an Olympus body with images stabilization).

The only faster lenses in this focal range are made by Voigtlander and are manual focus only.

Olympus 75mm f/1.8

The Panasonic 35-100mm f/2.8 can work well for portraits but if you want the best then you’ll need the Olympus M.ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 75mm f1.8 which is also ranked as the number 1 Micro Four Thirds lens (in regards to image quality) at the time I wrote this.  The closest competition comes from another Olympus lens, the Olympus M. Zuiko Digital ED 45mm f1.8 and it comes in at about half the price of the 75mm.

So there you have it, those are the best lenses available for the m4/3 camera bodies right now.  All the lenses listed above are native m4/3 lenses so they don’t require an adapter or anything like that.  The reason I stuck with the native lenses as opposed to listing some of the 4/3 lenses (Micro Four Thirds is different from 4/3) is because the larger 4/3 lenses that are available are larger and dwarf the camera body.

Did I miss your go to lens?  Feel free to drop a comment below and let us know your favorites and why.  If you found this article helpful be sure to hit one of the social sharing links below.  Thanks!