Advice on Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 60mm f/2.8 Macro lens

Nature Talk
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For the last few years, I’ve used a Canon EOS M50 Mk II body with a Canon EF-M 28mm f/3.5 Macro lens to photograph plants, inverts, herps, etc (basically any non-bird or butterfly, for which I have a separate body and long lens). It’s been a great setup, but I’m looking to improve my macro shots and be able to capture finer detail. Particularly, I’ve noticed that my current setup just isn’t quite good enough to get very small features like tiny seeds, stem hairs, etc as sharply as I’d like.

I am strongly considering an Olympus setup, with the OM-1 Mark II body, and an Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 60mm f/2.8 Macro lens.

I am mostly interested in photographing plants, but also will always photograph inverts and other taxa when I find them.

I definitely want a setup with autofocus (I have somewhat shaky hands, and also just generally not a fan of pure manual focus setups), and I also must be able to photograph a whole plant, not just the close-up details. This is non-negotiable for me; if I’m photographing eg a shrub, I don’t want to have to swap lens, or use my phone. Now I certainly don’t expect to use this setup for really big stuff; things like eucalypts, I just use my phone anyway. But shrubs and small trees need to be fair game, and be able to get a half decent shot of the whole thing.

I would love to hear from anyone who uses/has used this lens, and whether it’s a good lens for this purpose, ie, great macro detail of plants (and insects), but still allows a wider shot of the plant more broadly.

Also interested in general thoughts on the lens, what it does well/does poorly, how easy it is to use, any advice for add-ons to use with it (flashes, diffusers, etc).

I have several big trips to remote parts of Australia later in the year, and will be taking tens of thousands of photos across a few weeks, so I want to make sure a) the lens is a good fit for me, and b) I’ll be able to use it well

I’ve watched/read plenty of reviews and info online about this lens, so I don’t need links to those, more interested in actual iNatters’ experiences :)

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I haven’t actually used the lens, but from other photographers’ photos, it does seem to be a very sharp lens. And the OM-1 II is a pretty great camera as well. Here is a great macro photographer who tried it recently (note that most of his photos are taken with the more expensive OM 90mm, and only some of his recent posts are actually taken with the 60mm lens): https://www.instagram.com/bens_small_world/

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It’s a nice setup, but there are probably some cheaper/lighter Olympus bodies that would do just as well for this purpose. A lot of the flagship features like the advanced subject tracking aren’t really useful for static subjects. Part of the benefit of the 60mm macro is how small and light it is - so I would consider a lighter body myself. The OM-5 II (coming out in the next month) is about 1/3 lighter and almost 1/2 cheaper, and you probably wouldn’t be able to see any difference in the photo quality or usability. There are also a ton of lightly-used Olympus bodies on the market.

I use the OM-1 II and the 90mm macro but I shoot almost exclusively macro so it’s my primary body and I can deal with the extra weight.

For flashes, the Godox compact flash (V350o) is great and the tiny flash that ships with the OM-1 II (FL-LM3) is actually pretty handy+usable. A softbox diffuser or the kind that slide over the lens work well and are easy to travel with.

One thing to note, the 60mm is going to require you to be farther back from the subject compared to your 30mm. For skittish bugs this is fine, but for plants it may be more difficult to get the whole thing in frame and still get enough light on the subject. Definitely recommend leaving time to get comfortable with the setup before you go on your trip.

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I have used the M.Zuiko 60mm macro for the vast majority of my iNat observations of plants since I joined in 2017. I’ve used it with two Olympus E-M5 series cameras. The combination is lightweight, and the optical quality is excellent. It is the lens that primarily stays on the camera, although I also have other lenses. Usually, it is the only lens I use for an observation. The only time i need to change lenses is if I want an overall context shot but can’t get far enough away from the subject. That happens maybe 20% of the time or less, usually if it’s a tree or large bush, or if I’m in really thick woods.

I do use a telephoto lens for most of my observations of birds and small animals.

You can get an idea of the kind of results you’d get by taking a look at my observations. However, the camera and lens info is not in the EXIF data for my photos. To tell if I used the Olympus camera, view the observation, hit the “i” button at the bottom of the photo, and look at the file name. If what’s between the dash and “.jpg” is a four digit number or an alphanumeric string, then I took it with the Olympus camera, probably with the 60mm macro. If it’s a 6-digit number, it came from my smartphone.

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It’s a tiny lens, which is probably its biggest asset. Also has execellent sharpness, and it’s used by lots of macro photographers with great results. Its only “issue” is that it’s getting a bit long in the tooth (probably 12 years old by now?) so it’s not as good as more recent macro lenses. But really, once you post to iNat it’s probably not a difference you could really discern. There are over 67k photos in this Flickr Group, you can check them out.

I tried the OM-1 and the 60mm lens for a while (all my macro shots from Ecuador were taken with it. There are some iPhone photos and 300mm photos in that link but most are from the OM and 60mm) and it’s great but I was just missing something I got from my Nikon set-up so I’m sticking with Nikon. But the Nikon is so much bigger, it’s probably a stupid idea and I’ll probably switch to something as my body continues to decrepify.

I used the Godox 350TT flash and the AK diffuser with it in Ecuador for all the night shots.

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thanks all, this has been helpful

I’m probably going to buy the body and lens this week, as there’s an EOFY sale on at my camera store and I’ll get a $500 discount

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my first batch of obs with the new setup: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?on=2025-07-14&user_id=thebeachcomber&verifiable=any

still a long way to go with practising and learning, but fairly happy so far

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Lite seems rite (this lens + OM-5?) for highly active photowalks, though the OM-1 family body feels very nice in the hands too.

The Laowa 50mm 2:1 macro lens can get closer, but with no autofocus one needs to get very comfortable with focus peaking and breathing the lens.

The 90mm is impressive but seems to involve more work/time per ideal result, and/or higher proportion of missed/suboptimal ones. Wrist weariness can build up from the shifted center of gravity for those photographing one-handed.

Focus stacking can be pretty cool even with ‘only’ ~5-10 frames, but I would recommend doing it in focus bracketing mode and stacking later on a computer instead of using ‘focus stacking’ mode on the camera. Then you can carry on imaging without having to wait for onboard processing etc.

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Also wanted to mention Nicky Bay’s results with MFT are super interesting and inspiring! https://www.nickybay.com/

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Looking good! One tiny tweak I’d suggest is changing ISO from 100 to 200. 200 ISO is the base ISO for OM cameras so it should provide you with the biggest dynamic range and it will allow you to use a little less flash power.

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