Olympus 25 mm f2.8 pancake lens review: small really is beautiful
Wednesday 15 July 2009 Filed in: Reviews
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...
Point and Shoot Cameras (P&S) versus DSLRs
Tuesday 09 June 2009 Filed in: Views
Like many, I have been
patiently searching – oftentimes, impatiently waiting
– for a small, carry everywhere camera that can
deliver great image quality. I’ve looked at most of
the likely contenders, principally those from
Canon, Panasonic and
Leica -
but they all came up short in the image quality
stakes. For a while (which proved to be
considerably shorter than the time it took for
the DP1 to write files to a card), I
thought that Sigma had answered my prayers to the
Camera Gods. Alas, usability – or rather, a lack
of it – let down the Sigma DP1 as surely as the
ham-fisted way Panasonic, in a misguided attempt
to deal with noise, smeared detail in images taken
with their cameras.
All those manufacturer’s have put out recent successors: Canon G10, Panasonic LX3/Leica D-lux 4, and Sigma DP2. And, while they are all improvements to some extent, the basic problems with each manufacturer’s offering remains: the Sigma is still as slow as a dead tortoise and the Canon et al are, truth be said, still victims of their tiny sensors – unable to deliver DSLR-like quality when the going gets tough; which in photographic-speak means, when the light levels drop below anything that would have you reaching for your sunglasses.
I await with interest and something bordering on desperation for the imminent release of the Olympus micro four-thirds (m4/3) camera, the E-P1. It is my one last hope that the possibility of a small Decisive Moment Digital camera (DMD), as Mike Johnston refers to this elusive photographic tool over at The Online Photographer, is a reality and not just a dream.
In the meantime, however, I was struck by another thought: perhaps this search for peak performance in a small camera is not so important? That it’s like concentrating on the top speed that a car can do when we mostly drive it at 60 mph or less. What got me thinking this way was reviewing some of my images taken with a Canon G9 and being pleasantly surprized at how good some of them were: admittedly, they had all been taken at low ISOs (the equivalent of keeping well within the speed limit) and in good light – but for the resolutions one would typically use to display them on the web or for prints up to, say, 14 x 11 inches, I wondered whether we were not agonizing unnecessarily. Perhaps, under such circumstances and for such purposes, which would cover the way the majority of us use our photos, these top-of-the-line point and shoot (P&S) cameras were already delivering results that were essentially indistinguishable from a Digital Single Lens Reflex camera (DSLR)? Read More...
All those manufacturer’s have put out recent successors: Canon G10, Panasonic LX3/Leica D-lux 4, and Sigma DP2. And, while they are all improvements to some extent, the basic problems with each manufacturer’s offering remains: the Sigma is still as slow as a dead tortoise and the Canon et al are, truth be said, still victims of their tiny sensors – unable to deliver DSLR-like quality when the going gets tough; which in photographic-speak means, when the light levels drop below anything that would have you reaching for your sunglasses.
I await with interest and something bordering on desperation for the imminent release of the Olympus micro four-thirds (m4/3) camera, the E-P1. It is my one last hope that the possibility of a small Decisive Moment Digital camera (DMD), as Mike Johnston refers to this elusive photographic tool over at The Online Photographer, is a reality and not just a dream.
In the meantime, however, I was struck by another thought: perhaps this search for peak performance in a small camera is not so important? That it’s like concentrating on the top speed that a car can do when we mostly drive it at 60 mph or less. What got me thinking this way was reviewing some of my images taken with a Canon G9 and being pleasantly surprized at how good some of them were: admittedly, they had all been taken at low ISOs (the equivalent of keeping well within the speed limit) and in good light – but for the resolutions one would typically use to display them on the web or for prints up to, say, 14 x 11 inches, I wondered whether we were not agonizing unnecessarily. Perhaps, under such circumstances and for such purposes, which would cover the way the majority of us use our photos, these top-of-the-line point and shoot (P&S) cameras were already delivering results that were essentially indistinguishable from a Digital Single Lens Reflex camera (DSLR)? Read More...
Olympus E-3: Initial Impressions
Sunday 12 October 2008 Filed in: Reviews
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...
Four-thirds Sensors and the Problem of Exposure
Sunday 10 February 2008 Filed in: Reviews
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...