soundimageplus: OLympus E-PL1

Showing posts with label OLympus E-PL1. Show all posts

Sunday, 9 October 2011

Olympus E-PL1 is a great little camera

With regard to "rationalising" all this gear I have, I looked at my E-PL1 which I bought fairly recently at a knowdown price. (It is incidentally even cheaper now.) I've always liked it, and having had 3 copies of it (so far!) have actually sold an awful lot of pictures with the camera.

It has ISO 100 which I like. Both my G3 and E-P3 don't have this option. Despite the fact that its basically a software "fudge" as the base ISO is actually 200, it still gives me "cleaner" images than either of my other two m4/3 cameras. The AF speed is fine, and its only marginally slower than the E-P3. I has a nice grip and it fits my nice little leather case.

These were taken a while ago using the 12mm f/2 lens.

I took the shots below with the 45mm f/1.8 lens yesterday.

I like the files this camera produces very much, and because of the ISO 100 setting I actually prefer them to my E-P3. I've actually found a way to interpolate my 12MP m4/3 files up to 18MP (51MB) with excellent sharpness and virtually no increase in noise. This has worked so well, and is the result of long hours of experimentation with exposure and raw processing, that the E-PL1 becomes a very useful camera. I'm not quite at the "holy grail" of getting my Olympus Pen files to look like they were taken on a Leica M9, but I'm getting closer, and beginning to think that it might be possible to achieve something close to that.

Monday, 12 September 2011

m4/3 is still the most useful format for what I do

Olympus E-P3 12mm f/2 Panasonic G3 Leica 25mm f/1.4

Despite using a lot of different cameras and enjoying the results, m4/3 is still the format that works best for what I do.

Olympus E-PL1 Panasonic Leica 25mm f/1.4

Created from 15 separate images (three rows of 5) stitched together in Photomerge in Photoshop. Original is a 135MB file, (the equivalent of a 47MP sensor)

Olympus E-P3 Panasonic Leica 25mm f/1.4

Created from 5 separate images stitched together in Photomerge in Photoshop. Original is a 87MB file, (the equivalent of a 30MP sensor)

Olympus E-PL1 12mm f/2

Created from 3 separate images stitched together in Photomerge in Photoshop. Original is a 68MB file, (the equivalent of a 24MP sensor)

Olympus E-P3 14-42mm zoom

Created from 4 separate images stitched together in Photomerge in Photoshop. Original is a 76MB file, (the equivalent of a 26MP sensor)

Because I shoot mostly static subjects, I have no problem creating large files from my m4/3 cameras, using the stitching function in Photoshop to create huge files from several images. As can be seen from the above samples, for the majority of these I create "conventional" image shapes. I do often put together panoramic images, but this is the exception rather than the rule.

I also like the depth of field "advantage" that m4/3 gives me.

Olympus E-P3 14-150mm zoom

This flower was blowing about in the wind. I needed a fast shutter speed to "freeze" it. The settings for this shot were 1/400th. sec. at f/5.6 at the 150mm end of an Oympus 14-150mm zoom. This allowed me to get a reasonable amount of DOF. APS-C or full-frame would have made this more difficult.

Thinking about this I was reminded of when Ansel Adams was producing his wonderful landscapes with a 10x8 plate camera. At the time he was part of Group f/64 which was dedicated to sharp focus and maximum depth of field. Working with these large format cameras and lenses makes it very difficult to do this. Moderately wide to standard lenses on 10 x 8 are around the 200-350mm range and we all know how much DOF those lenses provide, so it becomes clear why f/64 was the aperture needed. A 28mm view on 35mm / full frame requires 14mm on m4/3 but 180mm on 10 x 8. So to get that f/64 equivalent on m4/3 is much easier to achieve. It doesn't quite work like this, as the lens used produces a different perspective, but you get the idea.

Consequently I can produce images like this.

Panasonic G3 14-42mm zoom

1/500th. sec. f/8 ISO 160.

Hand held, with a fast shutter speed, lots of DOF and what is these days a low ISO gives me a sharp image with very deep focus.

So, add in the fact that m4/3 sensors produce rich "glossy" colour, have fairly weak AA filters, and a wide range of lenses to work with, including some with real quality, such as the 12mm f/2 and 25mm f/1.4 and it becomes a very attractive system as far as I'm concerned.

m4/3 covers the vast majority of what I do. Its not particularly useful for low light, high ISO work, though the fast lenses help there. As I've said often enough, the restricted dynamic range is a problem I've found ways to work round and it doesn't really negatively influence what I shoot. So all in all, a very useful format. It is my most used system, and as far as I can see likely to remain that way for some time to come.

Olympus E-P3 12mm f/2 Panasonic G3 Leica 25mm f/1.4

Friday, 26 August 2011

Panasonic Leica 25mm f/1.4 Micro Four Thirds lens review - Part 1 - Pictures, Quality & In use

Panasonic Leica m4/3 25mm f/1.4 Lumix G3

Panasonic Leica m4/3 25mm f/1.4 Olympus E-P3

The first thing to say here, is that optically this is a superb lens. I have no hesitation in saying this is the best lens I've used on a m4/3 camera. That includes all Panasonic and Olympus lenses, adapted lenses and yes, Leica M lenses. A bold statement? Well yes, but in this 3-part review I will demonstrate why I think that.

f/1.4

With lenses of this speed the first thing we all want to know is how good is it wide open? This is what justifies its price after all.

Panasonic Leica m4/3 25mm f/1.4 Olympus E-P3 @ f/1.4

The answer is that its very good indeed. I've always thought that the 20mm f/1.7 was a great performer wide open, and when I used it indoors I just used to set it at its maximum aperture, confident in the knowledge that it would produce sharp results. The 25mm is the same.

Panasonic Leica m4/3 25mm f/1.4 Olympus E-P3

Panasonic Leica m4/3 25mm f/1.4 Olympus E-PL1

There is some distortion as can be seen above.

Bokeh

Really very nice indeed.

Panasonic Leica m4/3 25mm f/1.4 Olympus E-P3

Panasonic Leica m4/3 25mm f/1.4 Olympus E-PL1

Panasonic Leica m4/3 25mm f/1.4 Lumix G3

Sharpness

Really very impressive. Its sharp at f/1.4 and it just gets better the more you stop it down. I'll be providing some test shots on this in the next part, but in the meantime here are some images with enlarged sections.

Panasonic Leica m4/3 25mm f/1.4 Lumix G3

In the field

Panasonic Leica m4/3 25mm f/1.4 Olympus E-P3

Handling

There is the problem of the "rattlesnake" effect on Olympus cameras. This is the noise of the aperture blades opening and closing in bright light when live view or the EVF are on. If you are wondering whether this may affect you - I started a thread on it at Dpreview - I have no idea of how widespread it is but my experiences aren't isolated.

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1041&message=39178279

Apart from that I like the handling and feel of the lens. The lens hood is quite big, but then I like that too. Its relatively light, which I like, but its not a pancake. It is however vastly lighter and smaller than the Panasonic Leica 25mm f/1.4 four thirds lens.

Personally I'm much more concerned about weight rather than size, but others may may think the size is important.

Is it worth the money?

I guess that all depends on how much use you have for a fast standard prime. In my opinion it IS better than the 20mm f/1.7 and its attraction for me is not just the speed and large aperture. It is a stunningly sharp lens. I was looking at images I shot with it on the G3 yesterday and I gasped several times. I opened up files, using the same raw settings I had used for the 25mm, from my NEX-C3 and my Nikons and it was sharper than anything I've been using on both of those. The results were VERY close to what I get with my Leica M9 and Zeiss 50mm.

Samples

Here are three jpg. samples straight out of three different cameras. As usual click through to flickr Actions > View all sizes to see the full size high resolution images.

Panasonic Leica m4/3 25mm f/1.4 Olympus E-PL1

Panasonic Leica m4/3 25mm f/1.4 Olympus E-P3

Panasonic Leica m4/3 25mm f/1.4 Lumix G3

I've also made three raw samples available. (Please note these are © images and may only be used for your own evaluation. They MUST not be shared or used in any other way whatsoever) These are .dng files.

Click on the links here.

25mm f/1.4 Olympus E-P3

25mm f/1.4 Panasonic G3

25mm f/1.4 Olympus E-PL1

These should work with all recent versions of Photoshop or Lightroom. I cannot say whether they will open in other software.

Panasonic Leica 25mm f/1.4 Micro Four Thirds lens review