Contrary to the weather forecast the sun came out yesterday with clear blue skies for a few hours.
Went to Henley in Arden to try out the Leica M9 fitted with the Cosina Voigtlander 35mm f1.7 Ultron and the Olympus E-P2 fitted with a Panasonic Leica Elmarit 45mm F2.8. There are lots of very old buildings on the high street and we shot quite a few multi-image shots with the cameras, to combine later in Photoshop.
It was useful to test these camera/lens combinations in good light, at the same time getting some stock images. The Voigtlander 35mm was excellent. Both the old screw mount Voigtlanders that we have - this and the 75mm F2.8 heliar - are incredibly sharp. The 28mm f2.8 Biogon was a bit disappointing. It worked very well on the M8 but with the M9 has a lot of CA and fringing. It also lacked a bit of "bite". Many of these Zeiss M-mount lenses are in fact made by Cosina.
The 35mm Ultron is a gem however and over the years 35mm is probably our most used focal length.
The Panasonic Leica Elmarit 45mm F2.8 seems to love the Olympus version of the m4/3 sensor. For some reason its sharper on both the E-P1 and E-P2 than on the G-series Panasonics.??? Again results were superb.
Words - D
Images - D & A
