see also:

• Micro Four Thirds system
• a brief catalogue of Micro Four Thirds lenses
• wide aperture 85mm field of view portrait lenses
• comparison with Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 and Nikon Nikkor AF-S 85mm f/1.4G lenses
• Sony A7II full frame with Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 vs Olympus OM-D with Olympus 45mm f/1.8 lens – real world comparison images of DOF, bokeh

DRTV - Kai's humorous video review:

• Olympus announced this lovely little portrait lens for Micro Four Thirds system in 2011
• it has the same field of view of a 90mm lens on a full frame camera and thus makes the perfect portrait field of view to avoid distorting facial features
• it's wide aperture of f/1.8 allows a sufficiently shallow depth of field to make your subject pop from the background, this depth of field is similar to that of a 90mm lens on a full frame camera set at f/3.6
• the lens has circular diaphragm blades to assist in giving nice bokeh when stopped down
• it is optimised for movies with a silent AF and is one of the Olympus MSC designated lenses
• it is a must have lens for Micro Four Thirds system users and at RRP $US399 is great value for money given that it seems to be sharper than the very expensive, large, heavy Nikon 85mm lens.
• although presumably it does not have the incredible sharpness, flatness of field and macro capabilities of the Olympus ZD 50mm f/2.0 macro lens, it will give a similar field of view and ability to blur the background, but with much faster and more silent AF.
• the Panasonic Leica-DG 45mm f/2.8 OIS macro lens offers the same field of view and with the addition of 1:1 macro capabilities and optical image stabilisation but at f/2.8 maximum aperture will not offer the same shallow depth of field and it is not optimised for silent, fast AF for HD videos.
• although not on the Olympus website's compatibility table, it seems the Olympus Macro Converter will work on this lens which is very handy indeed!

• 45mm focal length = 90mm effective field of view
• f/1.8 aperture
• 9 elements in 8 groups including two E-HR (Extra-High Refractive index) elements
• 7 circular diaphragm blades
• closest focus 0.5m giving 0.11x magnification with long axis of subject ~13.5cm
  • use of Hoya Close Up filter #2 allows long axis subject dimension of ~9.5cm
  • use of Hoya Close Up filter #4 allows long axis subject dimension of ~5.5cm
• internal focus so lens does not protrude on close focus
• fly-by-wire focus
• lovely bokeh
• MSC designated fast and silent contrast detect AF capability for movies
• 37mm filter thread
• front filter does not rotate on focus
• metal lens mount
• 56mm wide x 46mm long thus easily fits in the palm of your hand
• 115g
• optional LH-20B hood
• no distance scale, DoF marks, nor focus limiter
• RRP $US399

• DxOMark lens tests:
  • not as sharp in the centre as the incredibly sharp centre of the 12mm f/2.0 lens.
  • well controlled distortion, CA, and vignetting.
  • a very nice lens indeed for its size and price.
  • not as sharp wide open as the much more expensive combination of Canon 85mm f/1.8 on a Canon 5D Mark II but sharper than the Nikon 85mm f/1.4G on a Nikon D700 at f/2.0. It has less vignetting and distortion than either of these lenses at f/1.8-2.0.
  • https://www.dxomark.com/Lenses/Olympus/Olympus-MZuiko-Digital-ED-45mm-F18-mounted-on-Olympus-OM-D-E-M1-Mark-II__1136
• photozone.de review:
  • build quality of the lens is very good as it is assembled with very tight tolerances
  • 1% pincushion distortion in RAW
  • minimal vignetting even wide open at ~0.4EV
  • very sharp centre, very good borders but corners only “good level of sharpness” at wide open which becomes very sharp edge to edge by f/4-5.6
  • mild CA wide open uncorrected at 0.7px
  • lovely bokeh
  • “a highly desirable lens” “highly recommended”
• photographyblog.com review:
  • “optically, the lens excellent with centre sharpness being commendable even wide open, and overall sharpness being nothing short of astounding in the f/2.8-f/8 range”
  • “very pleasant to use, with focus speeds being good even on older Micro Four Thirds bodies, and blazingly fast on the newer ones”
• Thom Hogan's review
  • “This lens is impressive, and a bargain for its performance at that”