Update to Olympus E-P3 and 12mm f/2 reviews - Full size samples

When I posted my reviews of the Olympus E-P3 and 12mm f/2 lens, I stated that I believed I could get better sharpness and an overall higher quality file from Photoshop Adobe Camera Raw when the update was released. That has now happened and I have done some conversions using that software. The files below are all available as full-size high-res. files on flickr.

Click on the images - select Actions > View all sizes and choose the original file.

All images Olympus E-P3 12mm f/2 lens processed in Adobe Camera Raw and edited in Photsoshop.

Olympus 12mm f/2 - Review and user experience - Part 10 - Conclusion

Finally!

This has been a very long (10 parts!) series of posts about one lens. The reason is that its probably the most useful lens I've bought in a long time.

The only negatives I've seen are that its very expensive and following on from this, for a lens that costs this much, there's some Chromatic Aberration (though not much) throughout the aperture range.

Apart from those there's much for me to like here. 

It is I believe the sharpest m4/3 lens I've used. There are other lenses I use on m4/3 that are sharper, but none of them are AF lenses and none of them are wide-angles. I thought the 20mm f/1.7 was very impressive, particularly wide-open, and while I still believe that to be true, I think the 12mm f/2 is sharper.

The Olympus 12mm f/2 is sharp across the frame, even at f/2. The only apertures I'd be reluctant to use it with are f/16 and f/22 which are somewhat soft.

Wide open I think its superb. I've read some criticisms of its performance at f/2, but when I look at the situations I'm going to use that in, they are irrelevant to me. I would be perfectly happy to use it indoors in low light, set at its widest aperture, confident that it would deliver the goods and produce excellent image quality.

I also like the bokeh.

The aperture ring and the ability to set the hyperfocal distance and use 100% accurate zone focusing is, I believe, a master stroke. This produces images with stunning depth of field, which is just what I want for my landscape and location work. The fact that it does this so well, so precisely and so easily are huge plus points in its favour. This isn't a gimmick, or something added to "beef up" the spec. This is a really useful photographic option, and one that users of digital lenses have been missing for some time. The fact that its a 12mm obviously makes this possible and useable, and its not something that would work with every lens. However in this case, Olympus have made a very job of it indeed. My only (small) criticism is that they could have included f/8 and f/16 markings on the barrel.

It seems well made, but only time will tell how robust it is. 

It looks great and working with it is a pleasure.

Its a lens I'm going to be using A LOT, indeed I haven't been able to get it off the camera since I bought it. I see it as a very welcome addition to m4/3. Now lets see the 25mm f/1.4 and 45mm f/1.8!!

Olympus 12mm f/2 - Review and user experience - Part 9 - Low light video

I wanted to have a look at how the 12mm lens worked for video, and at the same time see how the E-P3 coped with low light.

I must admit I was very surprised at how good the footage looks. The last shots with the red Stratocaster were shot in very dark conditions and yet there is hardly any noise.

The 12mm lens is also sharper for video than the kit zoom and for a very quick test I was very impressed with the results.

Olympus 12mm f/2 - Review and user experience - Part 8 - Location shooting in the Cotswolds

Above and following 3 pictures all shot at f/11 using the aperture ring and zone focusing / hyperfocal distance.

To me this is really the lenses star feature. Its just so useful for what I do. Add in the fact that I can use slow shutter speeds down to 1/15th. sec. and still get pin-sharp results and it becomes just about my perfect lens.

The depth-of-field I can get, the sharpness across the frame, and the (relative) lack of distortion are all proving so irresistable that I'm having real difficulty getting the lens off the camera! 

The lightness of the package is also such a bonus. On the landscapes you can see the village in the distance, and the climb up on a very hot and humid was made more bearable by the E-P3 and 12mm being so small. I did this same walk a few years ago carrying a Nikon D2X and a couple of zooms and it was a lot tougher!

One final thing. Putting together multi-image stitches is often difficult with wide-angle lenses, because of distortion, but the 12mm is proving to be no problem in this regard. In the top image I was very close to the small mound on the right and must have swung round through 180 degrees. However the images have stitched together very well and ceated a very natural looking final image. 

Very impressive.

Olympus 12mm f/2 - Review and user experience - Part 7 - Low light - Wide aperture

Olympus E-P3 12mm lens

1/60th. sec.
f/2
ISO 640

The only way I deal with hand holding in low light on m4/3 and still come up with a viewable image, is to use fast lenses. In the past I've used either fast manual primes, adapted 4/3 lenses, the 20mm f/1.7 or Voigtlander 25mm f/0.95. The 12mm f/2 is the first of 3 AF lenses from Olympus and Panasonic that provide more options.

Olympus E-PL1 12mm lens

1/15th. sec
f/2
ISO 200

Since I'm very reluctant to use any m4/3 camera / sensor at anything more than ISO 1600, and less if I can, I wanted to see how the 12mm performed wide open, with a variety of shutter speeds and to see what the results looked like. How low could I take the shutter speed? Would the images be soft? Would there be too much noise?

Olympus E-P3 12mm lens

1/15th. sec.
f/2.2
ISO 200

Olympus E-PL1 12mm lens

1/80th. sec
f/2
ISO 1000

Olympus E-P3 12mm lens

1/15th. sec
f/2
ISO 320

Olympus E-PL1 12mm lens

1/25th. sec
f/2
ISO 400

Olympus E-P3 12mm lens

1/80th. sec
f/2
ISO 800

Olympus E-PL1 12mm lens

1/80th. sec.
f/2
ISO 640

The conclusions I came up with are as follows.

I'm perfectly happy to use the lens at f/2. Just like the Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 it works very well wide open. When I initially looked at results from the lens I was very impressed by its f/2 performance and that is borne out again.

On both the E-PL1 and E-P3 I can hand-hold the 12mm lens down to 1/15th. sec with no problem. Below that, things started to get a bit hit and miss. At 1/15th. sec I achieved a 100% success rate which was encouraging. Obviously with movement involved I would have to raise this somewhat.

When I did have to raise the shutter speed I was happy with the results up to ISO 1000. Any more than that and things started to look somewhat unpleasant. Neither of these cameras are Fuji X100's. I was using jpgs for this. I always will use this option as it means less noisy images. Indeed I've never once shot a raw file at a wedding or an indoor event. Most camera manufacturers know how to get the least noise out of their high ISO jpg files, I find. (Its when they start applying noise reduction to low ISO files that I take issue with them!)

The m4/3 "Depth of field bonus" very much applies here. f/2 on full-frame would give a very narrow depth of field. Here the 12mm focal length plus the smaller sensor gives some leeway in focusing which is always useful in fast moving low light situations.

While not being my first choice for dark interiors, I'm sure that if needs be I can work with this. Obviously if I'm using m4/3 in very dark places I would seriously consider using flash. I've shot at weddings with m4/3 and Metz guns using bounced flash and it worked very well. At some point in the future I will do a piece on m4/3 and flash. Somehow flashguns have become out of favour. Its all high ISO's and natural light these days, but they do still have their place and can give great results if used well.

So, summing up, I'm very pleased with the 12mm lens at high(er) ISO's and wide open. 

To me there are two things that make it a special lens. Firstly the DOF scale and the possibility to use zone focusing, and secondly the fast aperture. Its all very well to have a wide aperture, but to make it a useful feature it has to be good quality. Too many fast lenses have what seems a very wide minimum setting, only to spoil it by that setting being pretty soft and often riddled with CA and fringing. The 12mm, while not being immune to either of these, is however very good in that regard. And soft it's not. In fact its very impressive indeed, as far as I'm concerned, and I would have no hesitation in using it both from neccessity and for effect.

Olympus 12mm f/2 - Review and user experience - Part 6 - Location shooting on my bike

My favourite cycleway goes through the heart of Warwickshire countryside. Its an area of farmland and intense agriculture. This time of the year its full of fields of ripe crops, all very useful for stock photography. Its only accessible on foot or on a bike, and I love to combine a ride with the photography.

Normally I would take a zoom lens with me, but I decided to take the 12mm only this time.

Often as in the image above I'll shoot wide panoramas with multi images.

Handy for a few cyclist shots as well.

We're having a mini heat wave in the UK at the moment and it was hot work, but very enjoyable.

I don't have any special way of carrying the camera, just on a strap over my shoulder and behind my back. 

The images here are again from jpgs. On the raw front, I downloaded a copy of Olympus Master 2 yesterday to see if it was any better at processing the E-P3 raw files. It wasn't! Pretty rudimentary software, it seems to be constantly trying to make the files look like the Olympus jpgs, which makes the whole process somewhat redundant. Yesterdays tests with the E-PL1 showed just what is possible with files from the 12mm and Photoshop development and I'm somewhat impatient for the ACR update as I really want to see if and how the E-P3 is different to the other Pens. 

In the meantime I still get the best conversion from Rawker via dcraw. This however means the files are somewhat noisy and have to be "cleaned up" in Photoshop. ACR does this much better and in a much shorter time. I'm thinking that if the Photoshop raw update doesn't get released very soon I may finish off this review of the 12mm with my E-PL1. At least I'll be able to get a proper assessment of what its capable of.

Olympus 12mm f/2 - Review and user experience - Part 5 - Test shot stock edit

Just out of interest I've uploaded one of the sample shots to flickr at full resolution to show how I would edit it for placing with a stock picture library. I've cleaned up the CA, slightly sharpened it and increased the contrast. I've also blown it up to 50MB.

Olympus 12mm f/2 - Review and user experience - Part 4 - Test shots on E-PL1

A series of test shots using the 12mm on my Olympus E-PL1. Shot on a tripod, raw at ISO 200. All processed in Photoshop Adobe Camera Raw at identical settings - i.e. - the basic default raw settings.

Sharp across the frame - even at f/2. Softer at f/16 and f/22. Some CA throughout.

Have a look - see what you think.

Olympus 12mm f/2 - Review and user experience - Part 3 - Initial thoughts on Image Quality

As I've indicated before I'm not going to go into this thoroughly until I have some decent raw development software to work with i.e. Adobe Camera Raw. However a few things are obvious even using the lens for just a day.

Firstly it is a sharp lens. Just how sharp its possible to get the files it creates I've yet to discover. Its certainly sharper than the new kit lens, though not by a huge distance, as far as I can see so far. Decent raw file conversion may prove much more definitive on this.

As you can see from the comparison above it's not a huge lens, and slightly smaller than the new kit lens when folded in. The large lens hood for the 12mm isn't available yet (Typical!) but I have one on order. However I didn't have any problem with flare yesterday.

I was really pleased to see that it performs really well at f/2.

I've always thought that the Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 was the best lens I've ever used wide open, but this is better. Really very sharp indeed.

Since its so good wide open it follows that all the other apertures should be good too, and that seems to be the case. I'll do some more testing at a later date and let you know what I discover.

To be honest, in terms of IQ its very much what I was expecting. All the reviews and samples I looked at indicated that this was going to be a top quality lens. Its certainly one of the best m4/3 has to offer and with its fast aperture and wide-angle will be very useful to many photographers. Shame it's not cheaper!

Olympus 12mm f/2 - Review and user experience - Part 2 - On Location

How good is this? Not the image I hasten to say because its a fairly run of the mill canal shot. Whats remarkable is how it was created. Its a multi shot stitched image created by photomerge in Photoshop from these three originals.

This produced a file of 87MB, which is the equivalent of a 30MP sensor. The image was taken hand-held at 1/15th. sec. with the Image Stabilisation on.

It was also taken at f/11 using the hyperfocal distance scale, which is revealed when you move the focusing ring downwards on the 12mm lens.

The file is very sharp, with no evidence of camera shake on any of the original three shots, there is also enormous depth of field. As you can see from the scale on the lens, at the f/11 hyperfocal distance everything from just under 2 ft. > infinity is "in focus". Strictly speaking only one plane is in sharp focus, in this case at 5 ft. but the image gives the impression of being in focus throughout.

This technique is used by landscape photographers. Indeed when I was shooting film virtually all my landscape images were created this way. Its also commonly used by street photographers, as a way of shooting quickly without having to re-focus all the time. It was (and is) used a lot by photographers who use Leicas. It obviously works best with wide-angle lenses and thats the most common application of it. This is often referred to as zone focus.

Its really nice to see a m4/3 lens providing this option. There's lots of talk about the Fuji X100 being a "street camera" and as I constantly say I'm no "street photographer" but it strikes me that this makes the Olympus + 12mm lens even more useful for this. True, there's no silent shutter, nor anywhere near the same high ISO performance, but working on the noisy streets of a city I would imagine this camera / lens combination would give great freedom and the ability to get in close.

Anyway for my landscape work its incredibly useful.

Here are some other shots I took yesterday using this technique.

Olympus 12mm f/2 - Review and user experience - Part 1 - First Impressions

This summer sees the release of three fast primes for the m4/3 system. The Panasonic 25mm f/1.4 and Olympus 45mm f/1.8 are scheduled for later, but the Olympus 12mm f/2 is out, and mine arrived this morning.

So:-

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Its a very small lens. Looks and feels well-made, though this isn't a metal m-mount lens.
Looks good - great combination with the E-P3.

Sharp. Well it should be, it costs a LOT of money.

What's it like at f/2?

Well it's very good indeed. No softness wide open here. Beautifully crisp with nice bokeh.

Pièce de résistance

Slide down the focusing ring and up comes an infinity mark, and three aperture marks set at f/5.6, f/11 and f/22. As its an autofocus lens it goes beyond infinity in order to avoid problems when the lens is focusing. However move the infinity mark to the centre and you have exact, precise infinity focus. So moving the centre of this mark to match up with the aperture markings gives you the maximum depth of field for that particular aperture. This is the hyperfocal distance or zone focusing. 

On the lens I have this works PERFECTLY. I took lots of shots with the lens set at the f/11 mark to get the maximum amount of depth of field while keeping infinity in focus.

I'll go into this more in a later post.

I'm no "street photographer" and this is a somewhat lacklustre attempt but again the lens was set at the f/11 hyperfocal distance, I had the E-P3 set to touchscreen release. Since using this form of focusing is manual (The AF is disengaged automatically) just touching the screen anywhere fires the shutter. Olympus call this "Snapshot mode". Proper street photographers might call it something different. Possibly "Just what I've always wanted".

Just what I've always wanted might describe how I feel about the 12mm. This is a VERY useful lens for me, and a short initial session with it suggests it has the quality to go with this usefulness.

A very welcome addition to the m4/3 range.

More over the next few days.