Our rep from Olympus stopped in today to demo the new 60mm macro lens that they are releasing to accent the wonderfully full Micro FourThirds lens lineup. It is a pre-production sample and so I will not be able to give you any sample images from the lens, but I do have a few of the lens and some remarks about how it handles and what I am looking forward to with it as well. I only had this lens for a whole two minutes so my remarks are to be taken with a grain of salt. I did not have the time to really put it through some paces and understand fully how it works, but here’s the sneak peak anyhow:

This lens is awesome. It has a great build quality with responsive AF and very quick macro focus. The lens focuses down to 1:1 at a distance of 0.19m. There is a 1:1 macro lock function that can be accessed by holding the magnification selection dial to the setting during the focusing, and then is held there until you refocus and it resets itself to the normal focusing mode. The 60mm (120mm in 35mm equivalent) makes for a wonderful close up image that is tight and a focus area that is very well separated from the fore- and background. This lens really is a joy to use in the short time I had it in my hands, but I am looking forward to providing a more in depth look at it when it is released and we have a copy to demo further. If you would like to check it out yourself  Charles, the Olympus rep, is in store with the Olympus 60mm Macro on display (along with a whole slew of other m4/3 cameras and lenses) for today and tomorrow and will be happy to answer any questions you may have about the lens or the Olympus system of photography equipment.