On 10/23/2020 12:22 PM, Ken Norton wrote:
Philippe, just to circle back around to the lens camera combination
again, I wanted to talk a little more about it.
As some of us have the GX85 (GX80 or GX7 ii), we sometimes get a
little frustrated with the color and tonality we get from the camera
in Lightroom. There are some lighting conditions and subjects that can
cause difficulty. However, there is one particular kind of lighting
that I think all Panasonic Lumix cameras excel in and that's flat,
overcast lighting. There is a gentleness to the tones that gives the
images a look much more like that of a medium or large-format camera.
This isn't usually present in harsh lighting, but for soft lighting,
the subtleties are amazing. I don't know of any other camera brand
that uniformly is as good at it as Panasonic. I see it in the DMC-L1,
and I see it in the GX85.
The Lumix G 25/1.7 lens is an odd-duck lens. I bought mine on sale for
around $100 USD and it is easily among the best bargain-priced lens on
the market in any mount or in any format. I likely get the sharpest
pictures with this camera-lens combination of any camera-lens
combination in my entire kit! Focus is sometimes a little slow, it's
all plastic, it isn't waterproofed, and is about as well-built as a
Walmart toaster. Wide-open, it still performs well, but I find that
the lens is engineered to a type of usage that the bokeh is very nice
but doesn't present flaws that make it interesting. Unlike most "nifty
fifty" lenses, the background doesn't get nervous.
The general sense from review tests is that the Oly 25/1.8 is a bit sharper, esp. away from center, and has admirable
levels of contrast. One review even commented on micro-contrast.
Robin Wong seems to me the best of the intuitive reviewers, eschewing tests in favor of taking lots of photos and
looking carefully at them. He says:
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" The new Olympus M.Zuiko 25mm F1.8 lens is VERY sharp. . . .
There is something interesting about the contrast rendering of this M.Zuiko 25mm F1.8 lens. It does seem like the images
come out more punchy with higher contrast. This was especially noticeable when I switched lens immediately from the
M.Zuiko 14-42mm F2.5-5.6 EZ Pancake Zoom lens. In fact the only time I remember seeing this kind of contrast level was
when I was shooting with the Olympus M.Zuiko 75mm F1.8 lens. I admit that the 25mm F1.8 is not as sharp as the 75mm F1.8
(one of the sharpest lenses around in the market) but the look and feel of the images somehow came out with similar tones."
----------------------------
The three fast primes I took to Bhutan in 2017 were Laowa 7.5/2 and Oly 25 and 75 mm f1.8s. As it turned out, they
didn't get much use,, as shooting in temples was generally not allowed, but I was quite pleased with the shots I did
take with them.
But where this lens really shines is the "micro-contrast". The weakest
link is not the lens, it's the camera, and in this regard, the camera
itself is remarkable (at ISO 200). I think it's pretty obvious that
Panasonic learned something from their relationship with Leica and it
wouldn't surprise me if this lens was actually designed by Leica!
It may not make much difference. The collaboration has become pretty tight. There are those who see a patent application
as proof that the Panny team designed the Leica SL 24-90mm f/2.8-4
I couldn't find a useful comparison of the two lenses. It would be nice to have
one.
Apples and Oranges Moose
--
What if the Hokey Pokey *IS* what it's all about?
--
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