Mike;
I bought my 50/1.2 brand new in the early 90s. Boy, I thought, it sure
is one big, beautiful, impressive-looking shapely hunk o' glass. I like
just admiring the way it looks sans cap on the front of my champagne 4T!
:>)
One application I had in mind at the time was night-time photos: both
moonlit landscapes and star trails. A nice fast lens would shorten
exposure time dramatically over the usual normal lens, thought I. Heck
the 50/1.2 is even 1/2 stop faster than the 1.4! Alas, I found the
50/1.2 lens to be not well suited for these types of photos due to
distortion at the large apertures. It has a nice bit of coma til about
F/2.8 or so, which is a real no-no for point sources like stars. (BTW,
the same goes for the 50/1.4 and 1.8) I have since found solace in my
50/2 Zuiko macro for this type of work in this focal range. Especially
with the recent advent of faster slide film with great grain and almost
no reciprocity effects whatever, like E100VS, E200 pro and Fuji Provia.
A related aspect of the 50/1.2 is that it's nice and mushy-soft away
from the center down to about 2 to 2.8. This can be good news, though.
When combined with the improved bokeh provided by its 8 aperture blades,
instead of the 6 in the other normal lenses, low-light no-flash photos
like environmental portraits can be quite dramatic.
Now for the best news. From F/4 or F/5.6 on down, it'd be difficult to
find a sharper, clearer, contrastier lens in my bag or anyone else's for
that matter. When it comes to landscapes in this focal range, I'll use
this lens over anything else I've got. The color and contrast is
superb. I've had only a few photos published, but one of those,
published by National Geographic, was with this lens. The editor
actually called me to ask what equipment I'd used, exclaiming the slide
was one of the sharpest he'd ever seen. If interested, here is a link to
a scan of a Ciba print I made of that slide. Well, not that exact
slide, but one taken within minutes, using the same equipment.
http://www.whitneygallery.com/html/banner_peak.html
I hope there's some useful info in here for you. Small repayment for
the great info I get from your mag.
George
Mike Johnston wrote:
>
> Dear Zuikoholics,
> I'm in need of comments about the 50mm f/1.2 Zuiko. Has anybody used one
> of those? Anything you can tell me about it? You can reply on the list
> or directly. All comments much appreciated.
>
> TIA,
>
> Mike
>
> Mike Johnston, Editor
> _PHOTO Techniques_ magazine
> www.phototechmag.com
>
< This message was delivered via the Olympus Mailing List >
< For questions, mailto:owner-olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >
< Web Page: http://Zuiko.sls.bc.ca/swright/olympuslist.html >
|