Olympus-OM
[Top] [All Lists]

[OM] New guy fishing for info ...

Subject: [OM] New guy fishing for info ...
From: Reuben Acciano <rubydoomsday@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 04:10:02 -0400 (EDT)
Hi guys.

I am a new signatory to this list so please bear with me as I muddle through
my first post. One thing is certain though - I am a committed Zuikoholic and
will be til the day I die. I am 27, live in Perth, Western Australia, and my
name is Reuben Acciano. I would class my experience as semipro/beginning pro
- I get paid for my stuff occasionally, but I can't live off it. Yet :)

First the tale of woe - I was a Zuiko user in the past, then spent two years
lost in the EOS wilderness, but am now back in the fold. Of course, when my
Zuikoholism went into remission (and being a photo neophyte back then) I
sold off some gear that I would give up family members to have back now.
Sigh. Still, I presently possess some very nice gear, and will be adding to
it in the coming weeks.

When I started in photography, it was as a staff shooter/writer for my
university paper. Being young and primarily concerned with pop-culture, we
shot a lot of live gigs/music related stuff. For low light and for the most
versatile flash options, I believed autofocus to be a necessity, so invested
in EOS gear - a 100 a 5, 430EZ flash etc. And took a lot of great shots with
it, many exhibited, a few sold. The only thing I miss to this day with my
Oly gear is the absence of second/rear-curtain synch (obviously impossible
with
only 1 curtain!!!!) which enables some beautiful combined ambient/flashlit
shots that are PERFECTLY suited to band/performance photography. BTW - I
have MASTERED this technique IMHO, and if anyone still involved with other
systems (surely not ... that would be like cheating on your wife now,
wouldn't it) would like to discuss this, I would be happy to oblige.

OTOH, the longer I do this, the more I understand the power of pushing film
to its limits and dispensing with flash altogether. Also, my Road to
Damascus moment came when I did a big spring clean one year and marvelled at
the higher percentage of relatively sharper shots produced on the OLY gear.
Of course. See, during the high-turnover, deadline driven environment of
publishing, simply getting the workload away meant no real time to peruse
the print/tranny quality. They were all good enough for publication, as
newsprint is a crap repro medium. But upon further inspection, the overly
expensive EOS gear (continually being updated and therefore depreciating my
gear) was really, performance wise, no-better than my OLY stuff.

Which led me to sell it all off. These days my kit is: an OM4Ti champagne
body, 50mm 1.4, 35mm f2, 65-200 f4, Tokina 24mm 2.8 (soon to be rectified)
and F280 flash. I shoot predominantly performance, travel and portraiture
these days, though I'm by nature an experimentalist, so my tendency to stray
from the comfy travel publishing industry fascism of Velvia-or-die has
disgruntled a few editors. Sigh. In a couple of weeks I will have a 24mm f2
Zuiko and 85mm f2, for a paltry $Australian 470 (about 290 US, I think).
Don't cry guys. I can't reveal my source either. Hey, that's not the worst
of it> My biggest Doris Fang (your term?) is a $20 16mm f3.5 full-frame
Fish, sadly now
sold.

My reason for posting is thus: can anyone give me some "in use" appraisal of
the 85mm f2's performance and sharpness? I have been searching for a
dedicated portrait lens for some time now and - though I obviously drool at
the thought of a 100mm f2 - have been left high and dry by the small local
used OLY market.

OK - The Fisheye. I went into Cash Converters one afternoon in 1995. I see a
bog-standard OM-10 w/out man adapter for $AUD 215 (145 US). Sitting on the
front, and included in the price is a fairly scratched 16mm fish. I (being a
born horse-trader ... thanks, Dad) maintain composure, talk the sales guy
down to 195 because he is completely oblivious to it's value, and walk out
of the shop. I didn't need the OM-10 (at the time I had an OM4 and an OM2
for backup) so I sold that for 150 bucks the following week. Scarcely able
to believe my luck, I shot a bunch of stuff with the fish. Though the front
element scratching was fairly pronounced, the rear element was pristine and
thus the images came back absolutely
fine. I'm sure if I'd bothered to do any huge blowups I might have noticed
some extra softness in the centre, but for all usable purposes, they were
spot on.

Sadly I had a Canon relapse in 1996 and sold off my whole OLY kit (fish,
winder 2 and 24mm f2.8 come BACK !!! - all is forgiven. Sigh). But am happy
with my present kit. I heard a viciously inflated price-list thingy about my
imminent acquisition (24mm f2 drool, drool droooolll!!!!) whose current NEW
replacement price was quoted as ~$AUD 2000. Can this really be so? Are OLY
the Leica of the new millenium?

Anyway - just an introduction. I will post some images somewhere easily
accessible as soon as I have all my archived stuff in a digital format. I'm
really looking forward to some INFORMED feedback from the readers of this
list. I've sort of been watching without posting for a little while now and
the standard of knowledge is admirably high.

Anywho - 85mm f2 - any info appreciated.

Cheers,
Reuben Acciano.


______________________________________________
FREE Personalized Email at Mail.com
Sign up at http://www.mail.com/?sr=signup


< 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 >


<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
Sponsored by Tako
Impressum | Datenschutz