I am a long time Olympus 4/3's guy (currently left wandering in the wilderness with Oly's abandonment of classic phase-detect DSLRs). I own a full set of the SHG lenses. Yes, the 7-14mm, 14-35mm, 35-100mm, 90-250mm, 150mm, and 300mm. With my 1.4 and 2.0 teleconverters, that covers a 35mm-equivalent range of 14mm to 1200mm that I can still carry in one (huge) Lowepro trekker backpack.
I also own most of the HGs: the 8mm FE, 25mm Panleica, 14-54mm, 35mm and 50mm macros, and 50-200mm. Oh, and for light duty, the 14-42mm, 40-150mm and 70-300mm SGs as well. I guess you can say I have a lot of experience to rely on with Olympus lenses.
I can say this: The SHGs are some of the best lenses ever designed. Overdesigned, really. They are big, heavy, bulletproof and optically as near to telecentric perfection as you can get. The SHGs are why you originally bought into the Olympus 4/3 system.
Yes, they are expensive, but you are buying a lifetime lens that will walk circles optically around any of the other Olympus lenses including all the new m4/3 lenses.
The HGs are plenty sharp, but the SHGs have something tangibly much better about their image quality that is very visible, even to a casual observer. Better bokeh, better colour, tonality, fidelity and separation. Just better. The phrase "3D" look always jumps to mind. If you want to shoot longer tele ranges (I do a lot of that), the 300mm is just in another league altogether from the generally well-respected 50-200mm. The 90-250mm is only a slight step down. None of the SHG lenses visibly degrade when used with the TC's either. I guess that's what should be expected for the hefty price premium.
The 14-35mm and 35-100mm zooms and especially the 300mm "Big Tuna" comprise about 90% of my shots. YMMV.
Here's a sample panorama shot with my 12mp E-5 and the 14-35mm. It's really downscaled for the web but gives you a pretty fair idea how well these lenses work (I should post a full rez version sometime, somewhere, since this shot won a bunch of local awards for me:
Maybe some day I will buy into the micro system, but not likely with the EM-1 generation. I'll wait until they get the phase detect system working a bit better first, or better yet, resurrect the DSLR line. A DSLR with the newer 16mp sensor would be my dream.
Leigh
zippski