Olympus ZUIKO DIGITAL 25mm f/2.8 Lens

No Olympus has not produced a 'sepuku' instrument in the form of this lens.
This is not your father's pancake lens. This is a very low profile lens of the digital era. Designed from the ground up for the 4/3 sensor. Not wavy film.A flat rigid sensor. It is sharp. Better than the 'Tessar type' simple lenses of old filmdom because of the fixity of the media. It resolves amazingly ! It is not expensive and will give a very low profile to the already compact system.
I rated it excellent because it excels in performance what this type of lenses used to perform by far.My main reason for buying it was the compactness albeit the unfairly poor reviews I read. Since I was expecting disappointment and dismal performance I was stunned by the quality produced.
What I did not like was that the filter size is the oddball 43mm.I had to buy one as opposed to the more common ones I have dozens of. There's a hood for it but it's pricey too. I bought a cheapie hood that works well.Not that I had problems with unwanted reflections and stray light. The coatings do a good job controlling aberrations. It is a well engineered piece of work that may just bring back the simple life of normal lens perspective shooting. Yes this is an equivalent 50mm in 35mm lore.

I added this lens to my E-410 with the two kit lenses (14-42 and 40-150). It's a great way to lighten your load, do a little more in lower light and stick out a little less. I'm no pro so take this review from an average joe who likes to play with settings and get great shots for personal use.

It's a little louder in focusing than the 14-42 but not loud by any stretch. Focus speed seems comparable as well. In low light it does a little better. Pictures are very sharp but I can't really see much difference in image quality from the 14-42. The bokeh is definately better though as you'd expect from a faster lens.

The biggest (mental) barrier for me is thinking that it's a wide angle lens and sometimes shooting sheet shots without looking through the view finder...I'm still learning that even though it's flat, the field of view is narrower than the 14-42.

Despite the reviews, I actually like the screw on lens cap. After a couple of spins, i've gotten fast with it and it seems a ton more secure than the kit lens's squeeze caps that seem to fall off all the time.

All in all, a good lens. And most importantly, the one that's on my camera most of the time now.