Olympus-OM
[Top] [All Lists]

[OM] The Case for Really Wide Angle lenses

Subject: [OM] The Case for Really Wide Angle lenses
From: Moose <olymoose@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2020 15:23:31 -0700
Note: Yes, there are photos, starting about half way down.

On 4/20/2020 4:20 PM, Mike Gordon via olympus wrote:
Wide Eyed Moose writes:

<<Don't need one for my A7, what with my new Voightländer Hyper-Wide Heliar
<<<10/5.6 to play with. (MF, but with EXIF)

Hmm, what prompted this lens acquisition? I thought the panny quenched most the 
ultrawide needs.

Perhaps you missed my post "How Wide is Wide?" (repeated below the double line) 
and the subsequent thread?

     It is a very cool lens though and CV has a knack of producing well liked 
superb niche products.  (Only one I haven't liked is the 10/.95 for MFT)
I don't see where it has anything really  to do with a true Heliar, like some 
of their real Heliar offerings, with 13 lenses in 10 groups with two aspherics. 
 I think it sometimes used by the marketing to denote slower  but compact   
well made lenses of this ilk.

This means nothing to me. It could be called the Goober 10/5.6, for all I care. 
It's what it does, not what it's called.

IIRC there is  less sample variability then the 15--which is great if can get a 
good copy. the 10/5,6  has nice sun stars if you like them

Nah, I never did get the interest in that. To me, it's like grain/noise. It's not part of the subject, but an artifact of capture. If it trips one's artistic trigger, sure; but doesn't mine.

  and I think vignettes quite a bit, but one of the compromises of the design.

Yes, it does, but one never sees it, with the default correction in ACR/LR and 
DxO.

Oh, one thing cool about CV is that
not only do they transmit exif but there is a distance encoder so that the IS 
works 5 axis if the cam can do that---unlike the Loxia line.

Don't got no IBIS here. :-) Don't much matter with a 10 mm lens.

I haven't figured out how to use this wide a lens well and too slow for astro.
 From my limited experience 14-20 seems the sweet spot for astro-landscapes, at 
least for me.  I don't really think well below 24mm and have used the OMZ 
24/2.8 10 times as often as the 21/2

On 4/20/2020 7:27 PM, Wayne Shumaker wrote:
I have the 12/5.6 version. I was thinking 10 might be too much to handle. At 
this wide, manual focus is all I need.

Yup. It's the EXIF that I like. I really like knowing which lens it was, at 
what aperture.

==> Not as wide eyed, Mike and Semi-Wide - WayneS,

I admit to being somewhat perplexed when I got the 21/3.5 and then the 18/3.5 
for OM. I seem to have recovered. ;-)

LR (Mike, get with it and load the gallery!) saith I took 480 shots with the Tammy 17-35 @ 17 mm on 5D. Browsing them (A BIG reason to get your images into the Gallery, Mike!), I see many, many that I think are great, and that couldn't have been made without an UWA.

This, inside the "room" within a dwarf oak in the Elfin Forest of the Los Osos Peninsula, could have benefited from a wider lens. <http://galleries.moosemystic.net/MorroBay/ElfinForest/slides/_MG_1141ptl.html>

Virtually all the shots in this set of photos of the Hearst Castle at San Simeon were taken @ 17 mm <http://galleries.moosemystic.net/MorroBay/HearstCastle/index.html>

I want to go back to both pools with the 10 mm lens!

For this photo, I turned the 17-35 vertical, for a stitched panorama. What with the water moving, the stitching was a LOT of work. A 10 mm would likely have caught the whole thing in one shot. (It's a very wide falls.) <http://galleries.moosemystic.net/MooseFoto/index.php?gallery=California/Miscellaneous&image=MossBraeP116oof40.jpg>

This one too, was a B**ch to stitch. <http://galleries.moosemystic.net/MooseFoto/index.php?gallery=IATMS&image=_MG_6861-62ia.jpg>
10 mm, 122° AoV to the rescue? That little girl is probably in high school now. 
;-)

Finally, the cover shot for my book "Mount Desert Island and Acadia National Park" <http://galleries.moosemystic.net/MooseFoto/index.php?gallery=Travel/NorthEast_2009/MtDesert/Misc&image=_MG_7928n.jpg>
---------

Now, on to 7 mm on µ4/3, or 14mm eq. to 24x36.

LR tells me that I've taken 425 shots with the Panny 7-14 mm lens. Of those, 286, 67% were 18 mm eq. wide or wider. 54%, 231 shots have been @ 7 mm, 14 mm eq. So I can say that I am finding appropriate subjects.

Notice how the falls and the last shot above don't obviously say "Look how amazingly 
wide this lens is!"

As with the falls, many of my UWA photos are shots that could have been taken with a longer lens, were it not for the limited distance from subject available.

Here, the light, shadow and juxtapositions of ancient and modern are obvious to the eye, but my back is against a wall, so only a very wide lens can capture them. <https://photos.app.goo.gl/8Sg9HPEEkbc5aspT7>

Here, there's a vast space behind me. But, it's full of people milling around. Also, the fence would rise, visually. <https://photos.app.goo.gl/L91Mvn76xvgvgMG56>

Same central subject, but the UWA AoV gives a sense of the vast space. 
<https://photos.app.goo.gl/WohHjadyTRKaxSvz6>

Another vast space that impresses eye and mind, but can't be captured with a longer lens. <https://photos.app.goo.gl/RST9fLS8dNBTkBX79>

Yeah, I know, UWA can be dull for landscapes, making everything too small. But what about intimate landscapes, where one in on a boardwalk through a swamp, and can't back up? <https://photos.app.goo.gl/uHogP38KaEtPD1Ei7>

Then again, I think this is a pretty darn good landscape, a de-fished fisheye shot, perhaps a tiny bit wider than the 10/5.6 would have captured. <https://photos.app.goo.gl/yNBJP31zYYpNfEGD6>

Sometimes, there's only one place to stand with an unobstructed view. 
<https://photos.app.goo.gl/H5JpKARzjNQkFNW78>

This panorama is another example where, without a 15 mm eq. lens, I don't get the shot(s), because of obstructions. <https://photos.app.goo.gl/p7QKtdriLrVgFxVF9>

Here, back against the wall, I'd have liked something wider than 14 mm eq. 
<https://photos.app.goo.gl/dmp6QrpbTty3UpbR6>

I thought I'd nailed this one, backed up against a balustrade with a long, vertical drop on the other side. But, as Wayne mentioned, the camera needs to be level, and I couldn't get the building all in that way. With perspective distortion corrected, the AoV isn't sufficient. 10 mm would have nailed it. <http://www.moosemystic.net/Gallery/tech/Lenses/Panny_7-14/UWAPerspective.htm>

I rest my case for wider than 20 mm. :-)

How else do you get the shots that all the folks with phones and ordinary 
cameras and lenses can't? ;-)

Go Ultra or Hyper wide, the subjects are out there!  (Or don't, and let me hog 
them. :-) )

Wide Ranging Evangelism Moose

==================================
"How Wide is Wide?"

Extra, Super, Ultra, Hyper. Sounds like descriptions of star ship drives. But 
also wide angle lenses.

I used to be envious of those with the legendary specialty super wide cameras, 6x12, 6x17, X-Pan. I loved Brian's custom Obsession 6x17. Somehow, I carried forward their place in film days into the present, imagining how nice it would be to have one. But, in terms of AoV, their specialness isn't much these days.

I've been dissatisfied with my WA tools. From rooms in museums to rooms in Bhutan farmhouses, to slot canyons in Utah, to ancient churches in Ireland, and so on, I find myself always wanting wider. The Panny 7-14 mm is a good lens, but often not wide enough. I've used the  8 mm Fishy to good effect, "de-fishing" it for wider angle shots. But there's always residual distortions unless cropped to a panorama format. (Look at the corner of my neighbor's deck, lower left, in the below example; no curves!)

So, I'm trying another solution, the Voightländer Hyper-Wide Heliar 10/5.6 for Sony A7. this led me to actually look at the other alternatives I (used to) dream of.

Sequestered as I am, I don't have much in the way of suitable subjects, so my test is not deathless art. Leaving aside the film/sensor format, looking just at the AoVs, here's my
comparison. 
<http://www.moosemystic.net/Gallery/tech/Lenses/Heliar%2010-56/HWAoV.htm>

Sure, there are comparisons about resolution to be argued, but for my purposes, as a practical matter, they are moot. If I need more, and the lens can take it, an A7R IV is bound to win over not so flat film and scanning.

I haven't tried the Heliar vs. my Fishy lens. But I did so some research and calculations. I had guesstimated horiz. coverage of an un-fished image at ~150°. It looks like it's probably more like 130°, vs the 122° of the Heliar. Not much practical difference.

Of the standard projections, the only one that comes close to 180° diagonal with 8mm on a 4.3 sensor is Equisolid. At that, it calculates 170° diag. and 130° horiz. AoVs.


--
What if the Hokey Pokey *IS* what it's all about?
--
_________________________________________________________________
Options: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/listinfo/olympus
Archives: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/private/olympus/
Themed Olympus Photo Exhibition: http://www.tope.nl/

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