Jonathanjk’s Weblog


Panasonic/Leica 25mm (Part 7)
August 10, 2008, 9:40 pm
Filed under: Buying Advice, Equipment highlight, photography | Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Here is where the review begins to get interesting as it’s just Panasonic/Leica images here on in!  Sunday was a terrible day for weather so I was confined to my house and back garden for most shots. Sorry!

I was interested in the Depth of Field and the Chromatic Aberration if the lens would produce any.  Which it did, slightly at higher f-stops in the centre and to the sides at lower f-stops.  I took some random images as well for a later part in this review and it does so up slightly in other images, again it disappears at lower f-stops.  It must be noted that I can’t see any CA unless I zoom really close in so I’m not concerned so much about it, but your reactions may very.

There was no need for me to create crops of these images as the zoom function illustrates well the details I’m talking about.  I’m trying to not comment too much as I want the images to speak for themselves.

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RE: Parts 8 and 9
August 10, 2008, 8:30 pm
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The rest of this review will be uploaded some time tomorrow with a conclusion, I’m having image upload problems at the moment.

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Panasonic/Leica 25mm (Part 6 of Leica lens test)
August 10, 2008, 5:48 pm
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Minimum focusing distance

In this part I just wanted to quickly illustrate the minimum focusing distance with each lens using their highest aperture. I used a pencil as a guide, this is where the 2 zoom lenses shine in effect because their focusing distances are shorter than the Leica.  The 12-60mm especially so. 

Images with the 1A and 1B are related to the kit lens.  Images with 2A and 2B are concerned with the Leica, images 3A, 3B, 4A and 4B are concerning the Zuiko 12-60mm.

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Panasonic/Leica 25mm (Part 5 of Leica lens test)
August 10, 2008, 5:10 pm
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Panasonic Lumix/Leica 25mm Prime

Making comparisons.

What I’ve done is organise a few setup shots with all 3 lenses to measure the differences between each and with:

  • Minimum aperture for each lens
  • f16 selected between all 3 lenses
  • f22 for making comparisons to f16

What I am going to do then is measure bokeh with minimum apertures and lens sharpness equally at f16 and just out of interest at f22 to see the difference. This excludes the Leica lens as it is limited to f16 but it will be interesting to see what the other lenses can do.
The minimum focusing distance was something I thought was interesting and have taken some pictures to show that between the three lenses. The images will be unprocessed from best quality RAW, using Lightroom 2 for exporting the RAW files to full quality jpegs. I’ve shot at ISO 100 as well. PLEASE NOTE, these are full size quality jpegs!

Focusing with the Leica 25mm Prime
I’ve set up these series of images so each focus point has something of interest at different distances to each other, the Olympus has 3 focus points. I have a Cactus on the left, Yellow Pages in the distance in the center and my Optimus Prime Transformer on the right as the primary subjects of interest. Everything else in the image will act as a guide to help you make your own judgements, for example behind the Yellow pages is a foldable washing line (to judge image sharpness with lower apertures and to see how much difference Bokeh makes) also on the table is some literature with text reading away from the camera.

You can see right away the bokeh present at f1.4 in the previews!

If you can’t tell where I have focused, I’ve started first on the Cactus Pot, then the Yellow Pages and then Optimus Primes’ left leg, read the images from left to right for all examples given.

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Olympus 12-60mm Zuiko (Part 4 of Leica Lens Test)
August 10, 2008, 4:52 pm
Filed under: Buying Advice, Equipment highlight, photography | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Olympus 12-60mm Zuiko

Making comparisons.

What I’ve done is organise a few setup shots with all 3 lenses to measure the differences between each and with:

  • Minimum aperture for each lens
  • f16 selected between all 3 lenses
  • f22 for making comparisons to f16
What I am going to do then is measure bokeh with minimum apertures and lens sharpness equally at f16 and just out of interest at f22 to see the difference.  This excludes the Leica lens as it is limited to f16 but it will be interesting to see what the other lenses can do.
The minimum focusing distance was something I thought was interesting and have taken some pictures to show that between the three lenses.  The images will be unprocessed from best quality RAW, using Lightroom 2 for exporting the RAW files to full quality jpegs.  I’ve shot at ISO 100 as well. PLEASE NOTE, these are full size quality jpegs!

Focusing with the 12-60mm Zuiko
I’ve set up these series of images so each focus point has something of interest at different distances to each other, the Olympus has 3 focus points.  I have a Cactus on the left, Yellow Pages in the distance in the center and my Optimus Prime Transformer on the right as the primary subjects of interest. Everything else in the image will act as a guide to help you make your own judgements, for example behind the Yellow pages is a foldable washing line (to judge image sharpness with lower apertures and to see how much difference Bokeh makes) also on the table is some literature with text reading away from the camera.
If you can’t tell where I have focused, I’ve started first on the Cactus Pot, then the Yellow Pages and then Optimus Primes’ left leg, read the images from left to right for all examples given.
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Olympus Kit lens (Part 3 of Leica lens Test)
August 10, 2008, 4:14 pm
Filed under: Buying Advice, Equipment highlight, photography | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Olympus 17.5-45mm

Making comparisons.

What I’ve done is organise a few setup shots with all 3 lenses to measure the differences between each and with:

  • Minimum aperture for each lens
  • f16 selected between all 3 lenses
  • f22 for making comparisons to f16
What I am going to do then is measure bokeh with minimum apertures and lens sharpness equally at f16 and just out of interest at f22 to see the difference.  This excludes the Leica lens as it is limited to f16 but it will be interesting to see what the other lenses can do.
The minimum focusing distance was something I thought was interesting and have taken some pictures to show that between the three lenses.  The images will be unprocessed from best quality RAW, using Lightroom 2 for exporting the RAW files to full quality jpegs.  I’ve shot at ISO 100 as well. PLEASE NOTE, these are full size quality jpegs!

Focusing with the Kit Lens 17.5-45mm
I’ve set up these series of images so each focus point has something of interest at different distances to each other, the Olympus has 3 focus points.  I have a Cactus on the left, Yellow Pages in the distance in the center and my Optimus Prime Transformer on the right as the primary subjects of interest. Everything else in the image will act as a guide to help you make your own judgements, for example behind the Yellow pages is a foldable washing line (to judge image sharpness with lower apertures and to see how much difference Bokeh makes) also on the table is some literature with text reading away from the camera.
If you can’t tell where I have focused, I’ve started first on the Cactus Pot, then the Yellow Pages and then Optimus Primes’ left leg, read the images from left to right for all examples given.
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Panasonic Lumix/Leica 25mm f1.4 (Part 2)
August 10, 2008, 2:58 pm
Filed under: Buying Advice, Equipment highlight, photography | Tags: , , , , ,

Lens and Test information

NOTE: Part 2 is mainly about the differences in the lenses and how it works for me.  Part 3 has the comparison pictures so skip ahead if you don’t want to read me waffle on about my decision to buy the lenses I own. I’m not really going to comment on the Olympus E420 itself.

What I’ve done is compare this prime lens with 2 zoom lenses, it isn’t entirely fair of course and comparisons like these are obviously unbalanced to a degree.  What I’ve done is limit the two zoom lenses to the 25mm focal length in order to keep things balanced.  The two zoom lenses are:

In terms of 35mm they equate to the numbers in the brackets.  The sensor size for the 4/3rds system has a x2 magnification because it is smaller than the 35mm film negative roughly by half.  For more information about 4/3rds click the link. 

The minimum apertures for both lenses set to at 25mm are f4 for the kit lens and f3.4 for the standard zoom lens (half a stop difference btw).  Both lenses have a moving aperture and the f-stop moves in accordance with selecting the focal length.  So of course while looking at Bokeh and making comparisons between lenses, the Leica lens will of course produce a better bokeh because of its higher f-stop!  However, I’m interested in the difference with bokeh between the lenses for personal reasons which is what I would like to share, a reminder that this review isn’t trying to be professional nor will be indepth.  But if you think I haven’t covered something which is fundamentally important then contact me please and I’ll be happy to edit my review, (this includes the E420, but for the moment I have deliberately excluded it because I don’t have another camera with which to compare it to).

Now for me personally I have 3 favourite focal lengths, they are the 24mm, 50mm and 85mm (35mm actual lengths).  The 4/3rds system at the moment doesn’t offer many prime lenses when compared to what Canon and Nikon offer.  So I knowingly made this compromise for Olympus were offering such small gear and I was interested in the 12-60mm zuiko lens (itself also tiny for a zoom lens) because it covered the 3 focal lengths I like to use the most.  
The lens itself is quite fast as well covering f2.8 at the wide end and f4 on the long end.  I could be quite happy to stay at the 12mm focal length using it like a prime, it might seem like a waste but when compared to the price of the Leica prime it was roughly the same and everything else the 12-60mm can do becomes a bonus.  A positive way of reminding me how flexible that lens is. :)
So I bought the 12-60mm thinking it would serve me well, and it has to point until I want to shoot in low light or shot with a very tight focus.  I’m also the kind of photographer who likes to move around my subject; something that prime lenses force me to do, it is all to easy and convenient to just zoom in with a lens.
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