Olympus 25 mm f2.8 pancake lens review: small really is beautiful
Wednesday 15 July 2009
I love
pancakes. There is no better breakfast. But surely
there have to be much better lenses than the
flattened and presumably optically compromised
pancake lenses that the likes of Pentax and Olympus
are serving up? With that in mind, I set out to get a
taste of the Olympus 25mm f2.8 pancake lens made for
the four-thirds mount, which, given the 2x crop
factor due to the four-thirds sensor size, translates
into the equivalent of a normal 50 mm lens on a 35 mm
full-frame camera.
From a practical point of view, small is nearly always more desirable when it comes to portability but, almost inevitably, in photography small is a signal that image quality has been sacrificed on the altar of convenience. Read More...
From a practical point of view, small is nearly always more desirable when it comes to portability but, almost inevitably, in photography small is a signal that image quality has been sacrificed on the altar of convenience. Read More...
Canon 5D Mark II: great mind, shame about the body
Saturday 20 June 2009
But Canon, bless their socks, just seemed to have the innovative edge: autofocus, in particular, was where they shone. Then image stabilization in lenses. Both significant attributes for a wildlife photographer. And, finally, when it came to digital, there they were leading the pack again. The Canon D30 was, and remains, a masterful camera. Forget that it was made of plastic, had a miniscule 3 megapixels and cost me $9000 New Zealand dollars: per pixel, I don’t think there has ever been a better camera.
Fast forward to 2009: the Canon 5D Mark II finally arrives in New Zealand. Read More...
Olympus E-3: Initial Impressions
Sunday 12 October 2008
Well,
Canon did as predicted at Photokina: finally
producing the Canon 5D Mark II and pretty much
fulfilling expectations if not hopes. Much more
resolution. A bigger, better screen. Supposedly
better high ISO performance. The downsides: the
autofocus system has been left untouched. Weather
sealing is perfunctory: enough to put it on the
brochure, but not enough to give anyone confidence to
risk a $2700 USD camera in the rain or at the beach.
I’ll get one, for sure. For landscapes and portraits
it is, on paper at least, the top of the
leader-board. But, alas, the handicapped and
antiquated autofocus system and its continued
vulnerability to the elements means that it cannot be
a one-stop solution for all my photographic needs.
Step up to the plate: an Olympus E-3. Sporting a sensor only half the size of the 5D Mark II and a relatively paltry 10 megapixels, it has something that other four-thirds cameras do not: probably the best weather sealing on the market (of any camera), a brilliantly fast autofocus system, and a decidedly large viewfinder. The smaller sensor means that the focal length of a lens needs to be multiplied by 2 to give its equivalent length on a camera with a full-frame 35 mm sensor such as the Canon 5D Mark II. Thus, a 50-200 mm f2.8-3.5 lens is the equivalent of a 100-400 f2.8-3.5 lens used on a 5D: a definite plus for things like wildlife photography. In addition, the E-3 comes with image stabilisation built into the camera body. Sounds good so far – but how did it pan out in the flesh so to speak.
I’ve had the E-3 for less than two days, so this is simply a record of my immediate impressions. Read More...
Step up to the plate: an Olympus E-3. Sporting a sensor only half the size of the 5D Mark II and a relatively paltry 10 megapixels, it has something that other four-thirds cameras do not: probably the best weather sealing on the market (of any camera), a brilliantly fast autofocus system, and a decidedly large viewfinder. The smaller sensor means that the focal length of a lens needs to be multiplied by 2 to give its equivalent length on a camera with a full-frame 35 mm sensor such as the Canon 5D Mark II. Thus, a 50-200 mm f2.8-3.5 lens is the equivalent of a 100-400 f2.8-3.5 lens used on a 5D: a definite plus for things like wildlife photography. In addition, the E-3 comes with image stabilisation built into the camera body. Sounds good so far – but how did it pan out in the flesh so to speak.
I’ve had the E-3 for less than two days, so this is simply a record of my immediate impressions. Read More...
Superwides: Canon 10-22 vs Tokina 12-24
Thursday 03 July 2008
For
landscape photography, a really wide lens can often
give a dramatic perspective – especially if there is
something close to camera in the foreground to give
the image depth. Even for nature photography, where
telephoto lenses are prized for their ability to draw
a subject closer, a wide angle lens can be useful for
setting animals or plants within their environment.
And, for some photographers, the wider the better.
But, there is an issue when it comes to getting really wide perspectives using entry-level digital cameras and prosumer models such as the Canon 40D and Nikon D300: the crop factor – whereby only a portion of the imaging circle of the lens is used – means that the image is effectively magnified compared to that produced on a camera with a full-frame sensor using the same lens, thereby negating its putative perspective. A 28 mm lens may be regarded as a standard wide angle on a 35mm film camera or digital camera with a full-frame sensor (such as the Canon 5D, Nikon D3 or the newly announced Nikon D700), but on a Nikon D60 or D300 that would effectively become a 42 mm lens, while on the Canon 450 or 40D, it would be transformed into a 45 mm lens.
Fortunately, for those wishing to use super wide angle lenses on crop cameras, the manufacturers have come up with a solution: extremely wide angle lenses. The Canon 10-22 f3.5-5.6 is one such lens. Intended to be mounted on Canon cameras with a 1.6 crop factor (ie those that can take EFS designated lenses), it produces images with an effective focal length of 16-35 (the same as that of the flagship 16-35 mm f2.8 L lens optimized for use with the 1D series of cameras). Perhaps its main rival when it comes to image quality is the robustly-made Tokina 12-24 f4.
Like many photographers before me, I was faced with the decision of which of the two lenses to buy? Read More...
But, there is an issue when it comes to getting really wide perspectives using entry-level digital cameras and prosumer models such as the Canon 40D and Nikon D300: the crop factor – whereby only a portion of the imaging circle of the lens is used – means that the image is effectively magnified compared to that produced on a camera with a full-frame sensor using the same lens, thereby negating its putative perspective. A 28 mm lens may be regarded as a standard wide angle on a 35mm film camera or digital camera with a full-frame sensor (such as the Canon 5D, Nikon D3 or the newly announced Nikon D700), but on a Nikon D60 or D300 that would effectively become a 42 mm lens, while on the Canon 450 or 40D, it would be transformed into a 45 mm lens.
Fortunately, for those wishing to use super wide angle lenses on crop cameras, the manufacturers have come up with a solution: extremely wide angle lenses. The Canon 10-22 f3.5-5.6 is one such lens. Intended to be mounted on Canon cameras with a 1.6 crop factor (ie those that can take EFS designated lenses), it produces images with an effective focal length of 16-35 (the same as that of the flagship 16-35 mm f2.8 L lens optimized for use with the 1D series of cameras). Perhaps its main rival when it comes to image quality is the robustly-made Tokina 12-24 f4.
Like many photographers before me, I was faced with the decision of which of the two lenses to buy? Read More...
Canon 70-300 DO Lens: Good Concept, Shame about the Contradiction
Sunday 11 May 2008
A recent
review of the Canon 70-300 DO lens in
Popular Photography has prompted me to
report my own experience with this much-maligned
lens.
A portable telephoto is pretty much an oxymoron: an inevitable compromise between two contradictory concepts. For moving about, typically smaller and lighter are better. For image quality in a 300 mm lens, usually larger is better, with more glass correlating with better light gathering ability.
Enter Canon’s DO lenses. The DO stands for diffractive optics, and these are the first lenses from any manufacturer (and at this stage there are only two: the 400 f4 DO IS USM and the 70-300 f4.5-5.6 DO IS USM) to employ a grate in the lens elements that bends the incoming light to a greater extent than normal refractive lens elements, thereby allowing the lens to be smaller and largely free of the chromatic aberrations that plague digital photography (usually seen as purple fringing along high contrast edges).
First introduced in 2004, the Canon 70-300 DO IS USM lens (with a street price of around $1200 USD) promised to deliver the Holy Grail in the world of the portable telephoto zoom: a small, compact lens that could produce stellar image quality. Not only that, Canon threw in the very latest image stabilization technology (supposedly making you at least three stops steadier than you would otherwise be handheld), meaning that you could leave the tripod at home. It all seemed far too good to be true – and, in essence, it was. Read More...
A portable telephoto is pretty much an oxymoron: an inevitable compromise between two contradictory concepts. For moving about, typically smaller and lighter are better. For image quality in a 300 mm lens, usually larger is better, with more glass correlating with better light gathering ability.
Enter Canon’s DO lenses. The DO stands for diffractive optics, and these are the first lenses from any manufacturer (and at this stage there are only two: the 400 f4 DO IS USM and the 70-300 f4.5-5.6 DO IS USM) to employ a grate in the lens elements that bends the incoming light to a greater extent than normal refractive lens elements, thereby allowing the lens to be smaller and largely free of the chromatic aberrations that plague digital photography (usually seen as purple fringing along high contrast edges).
First introduced in 2004, the Canon 70-300 DO IS USM lens (with a street price of around $1200 USD) promised to deliver the Holy Grail in the world of the portable telephoto zoom: a small, compact lens that could produce stellar image quality. Not only that, Canon threw in the very latest image stabilization technology (supposedly making you at least three stops steadier than you would otherwise be handheld), meaning that you could leave the tripod at home. It all seemed far too good to be true – and, in essence, it was. Read More...
The Sigma DP1: Back to the Future
Thursday 24 April 2008
Let’s
get this established from the start: this set of
first impressions is NOT about image quality (IQ).
The jury is no longer out when it comes to the
quality of images produced by the DP1 – the world’s
first “pocketable” digital camera to include a sensor
the size of those found in DSLRs (Digital Single Lens
Reflex cameras: you know, the ones that have
interchangeable lenses and where you use a viewfinder
that shows you the actual image as it is seen looking
through the lens). The images from the DP1 may be
prone under some circumstances to having magenta or
green colorcasts, they may occasionally exhibit moiré
artefacts, but there is little doubt that the DP1 is
capable of producing the best image quality in its
class. In good light and with appropriate
post-processing, images shot in RAW stand up well
against those coming from 8-10 megapixel DSLRs. In
some areas, such as the extent of its dynamic range
(which is a measure of the ability to retain details
in the shadows and highlights), the little DP1 may
even trump its bigger brethren.
So – this is not about images, then, but how the Sigma DP1 is as a camera. Read More...
So – this is not about images, then, but how the Sigma DP1 is as a camera. Read More...
Canon 24-70 mm f2.8 L vs Canon 24-105 mm f4 L IS
Saturday 08 March 2008
There is
probably no more frequently asked question on
photography forums than what is the better lens when
comparing Canon's two professional mid-range zooms.
These discussions are invariably circular and pretty
much get nowhere, like an old married couple arguing:
"he said..." "she said..." "he said..." etc,
ad
infinitum. Typically they end
up confirming what we already know at the start: the
Canon 24-70 f2.8 L is one stop faster and somewhat
bigger; the Canon 24-105 f4 L has image stabilization
(IS) built into the lens and has more reach on the
long end. They are both built like tanks. They both
cost a similar amount (maybe not an arm and a leg
when you consider their quality, but the equivalent
of a hand and a few toes anyway). One's tempted to
say, "You pays ya money and you makes ya choice."
But what choice should you make? Read More...
But what choice should you make? Read More...
Leica D Summilux 25mm f1.4 – Review
Monday 25 February 2008
This is
a remarkably squat, unexpectedly heavy
lens. If it were a
member of a rugby team, there is no doubt that it
would be a front-row prop. But this is no
thick-necked thug capable of doing only a single
job. Defying its build, it shows more of the
finesse of a ballet dancer. Read
More...
Four-thirds Sensors and the Problem of Exposure
Sunday 10 February 2008
Digital
photography has brought with it many advantages, but
in general there are two related areas from the film
days that have been compromised in the move to a
world of ones and zeros: dynamic range and exposure
latitude. The negative effects of these two aspects
seem to be most apparent in small-sized sensors.
Leaving aside the tiny sensors in most point and
shoots, I am going to comment briefly on the
importance of nailing exposure in four-thirds
cameras, which use a sensor half the size of a
traditional 35 mm frame. Read
More...
Leica D-Lux 3 vs Canon G9
Friday 18 January 2008
When it
comes to point-and-shoot (P&S) cameras offering
manual control and able to provide access to the RAW
files, the field is a rather limited one. Two of the
most promising are the Leica D-Lux 3
(essentially the
same as the Panasonic LX2 with the addition of a
red dot and some pretty trivial software tweaks)
and the Canon G9. As a number of
people have asked about comparisons between the
D-Lux 3 and the G9, I thought I should provide
some initial impressions having recently obtained
a G9 to go with the D-Lux 3. Read More...