That is probably also the philosophy behind this glass. Low profile, thereby covering the most common focal lengths from wide angle to telephoto portrait seems to have been the goal here. But more on that later.
First to feel and handling. The lens touches his pleasant and valuable and revealed when removed from the camera condition is relatively heavy.
Due to the very flat design is the zoom ring (of here like a switch does) but very narrow, I do not often happened that I accidentally rotated the focus ring when zooming. Then, when the AF is set to S-AF / M, adjusted to repeatedly manually focus. So here does not recommend a combination of AF and MF. One must also be aware that a power zoom is not set as precisely as a manual, which can be through a slower zoom speed (adjustable in menu) but partially compensate.
The autofocus reacts quickly enough, but felt a whole corner slower than a per-glass at the e-PL7. The effect is (of course) more pronounced in poor and art-light, in daylight into perspective the something. The outgoing at power zoom is also owed by the way that the camera takes a little longer, until it is fully operational.
In bad weather, darkness sets, mostly artificial light is the lens at full aperture and max. ISO 1600 has significant over the entire range weaknesses in sharpness. With the 12-40 PRO (which however is a different league) I do not know the way. As I and all my cameras have the noise reduction off, however, the bears in connection with the (opposite the E-M1) slightly outdated sensor (from the E-M5) certainly contribute to this effect. Stopped down to minimum aperture 5 and ISO 200 supplies the glass, however, to the last detail, a high sharpness.
Whether you like to use the 14-42 as a portrait telephoto, I leave every self. For me, the imaging characteristics and light intensity are (5.6) on the long side just too weak for this purpose. Here I take prefer to 12-40 PRO.
To me, that 14-42 but 100% fulfilled the purpose for which it was intended: to the e-PL7 as a backup of E-M1 for the pocket, especially when using a different focal length (hopefully soon the 40-150 PRO ) is equipped, in addition as always there and stand-alone for the classic street photography, while I could also imagine a bet on the M1 (the PRO-Teles are simply too large). It fits particularly suited to e-PL7, the super grippy, yet unobtrusive small is therefore in hand.
For the fiddly handling there a star deduction, optics and image Ever Hold are completely OK for this price range, 4 * and a buy recommendation.
