At SoJo's Oxford.
Olympus E-P3, Carl Zeiss T* Planar 50mm f/1.7. Handheld.
For some reason this photo appeals to me, perhaps due to some film-like quality in texture. There's a mirror behind the bottles which is where the marks come from.
Recently after much deliberation I sold all my Canon EOS x0D gear and purchased an Olympus PEN kit to replace it. By writing this series of articles I'm hoping to cover some of the more practical aspects of owning a PEN kit that the more spec-heavy reviews don't cover, especially for those contemplating replacing a DSLR.
The kit I've bought replaces most of the functionality that I used to have with my old EOS series. In this article I'll be concentrating on my choice between the two kit lenses available in the E-P3 kit.
If you're thinking of buying an E-P3 with a single kit lens you'll be presented with two options.
They call it a "pancake" lens due to its extremely flat dimensions. It's ideal if you're keen to have a camera that slips into a medium sized jacket pocket, as the lens barely extends past the hand grip of the camera.
The fixed focal length of 17mm gives it an equivalent Field Of View (FOV) of 34mm on a 35mm film camera or 21.5mm on an APS-C camera like the Canon EOS 60D (from now on I'll refer to these in the short form like so, FOV equivalents: 35mm/Film = 34mm, APS-C = 21.5mm). This makes it a classic wide angle lens which is good for general purpose and not wide enough to create distorted portraits.
This covers the 'traditional' range of standard zooms (FOV: 35mm/Film = 28-80mm, APS-C = 18-55mm) which covers most common subjects sensibly but with more flexibility than its prime counterpart. This too is a very small lens, but it's large enough to force you to use the camera in a very different way to the pancake. You definitely cannot fit this lens with the E-P3 into the average jacket pocket.
The pancake lens lets you carry the camera in more situations, offers a faster aperture and is typically sharper than a zoom. But the zoom lens gives you more significantly more versatility in framing your photographs. For me the choice came down to two issues, the image quality and the fact that after being used to much larger cameras I did not care about the size difference.
If you read detailed comparisons from dpreview, photozone etc you'll see that the 17mm doesn't perform fantastically in terms of image quality despite being a prime. If you then compare the prime to the zoom (sometimes regarded as the best kit zoom currently on the market), you'll see similar or better performance from the zoom. So it then begged the question: if I don't care about the size, the aperture difference is negligible and the image quality was equal or worse than the zoom, why go for the prime? And so my decision was made.
A bunch of people have been asking me what lenses and accessories I've bought to build my Micro Four Thirds kit, so here it is!
After nearly a decade of using Canon film SLRs, digital SLRs, prosumer compacts and even the odd 'L'uxury lens, I've ditched the lot of it in favour of a new Olympus Micro Four Thirds kit. In the coming weeks I'll be writing about my experiences with the E-P3 hoping to provide a review more focussed on the practicalities of using it rather than the more spec-sheet heavy reviews.
Why such a big change? Well for one thing I've been rather frustrated by my EOS 40D for sometime now. The control interface doesn't work with the way I think and it's entirely lacking in serious customisability. Over the years I've grown used to new innovative user interfaces as provided by tablets, phones and new desktop operating systems. And although the new Canons appear to be bringing the odd idea over to its camera line, I don't believe they are really keeping up to provide good value for their price point. The 40D has had three firmware updates, all fixing issues as opposed to providing any new functionality. In a day and age where the software can be updated to provide far more functionality than the hardware was originally designed for, I can't help but feel ripped off. Other annoyances with the 40D include the large but low resolution screen which makes it hard to judge if an image is sharp, the lack of remote flash triggering and so on. There are of course many pluses to the x0D system, excellent build quality, superbly fast focussing, excellent lens choices and pretty good overall image quality.
There are various other reasons to switch, not least the cost staying current/upgrading to a decent equivalent (at the moment an EOS 7D), the relative uncertainty of which lenses I'll need to own in the long term due to the three possible sensor sizesand of course the weight. My usual travel kit comprised of the EOS 40D, 17-40mm f/4 L, 85mm f/1.8, 580ex II flashgun, a beanbag and a bunch of spare batteries and chargers. With a bag capable of carrying these safely, this turned out to be about half a carry-on cabin baggage allowance. The weight and size also inevitably meant that I don't carry it in as many situations as ideal.
Then there's the National Geographic photographer. Many years ago before the days of mainstream digital, I listened to a lecturer by a National Geographic photographer I don't recall the name of, who carried a Leica M rangefinder and a handful of prime lenses. The images he produced were, as you would expect, utterly stunning. He said the first step to taking beautiful photographs was to make sure you had your camera all the time.
So weight was an issue, but also volume as I wanted to carry it in more situations than I could currently carry my DSLR. In short, this meant moving to a mirrorless interchangable lens camera, also sometimes known as a 'Compact System Camera'. So after deliberation between the various options out there including the Sony E Mount, Samsung NX Mount, Ricoh GXR, Micro Four Thirds, and a fleeting yet longing look at the Leica M series, I settled on Micro Four Thirds. Not least because there were two major manufacturers making good lenses for this mount but also a handful of third party companies such as Voigtlander. It certainly seemed like the system with the greatest long term potential and user base. There are various downsides to the Four Thirds system however, the sensor size is relatively small compared to Sony's NEX but then the camera sizes are smaller too. The system, as with all compact systems is fairly imature and whichever system I were to choose would have some element of risk that one would not have if choosing Canon or Nikon.
There are currently two manufacturers, Olympus and Panasonic who make cameras for the 1/4th 35mm 'full frame' sensor size Micro Four Thirds format. Both have excellent models, with fast focussing and good user interfaces. A number of things drew me to the Olympus PEN range, including the number of customisable buttons, the excellent solid build quality and of course the style inherited from their 1960s-1970s film counterparts which the E-P3 simply exudes. I have thus far purchased a kit comprising of the E-P3, FL-36R remotely triggerable flashgun, M.Zuiko Digital 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 II, 40-150mm f/4.0-5.6 and the new and beautiful 12mm f/2.0. I also purchased an E-PL1 body for my fiancée and a mount to convert an old Contax fit Carl Zeiss Planar T* 50mm f/1.7 lens to Micro Four Thirds.
With today's release of Apple's Digital Camera RAW 3.8, I have been wondering if it's good enough in terms of colour reproduction and distortion correction to replace using either the Olympus Viewer 2 (very *very* slow) or JPEGs (and thus move to shooting RAW full time).
Below are comparisons taken from Aperture showing the differences in rendering between the E-P3's JPEG output and Apple's rendering of its RAWs (the info boxes refer to whichever image is on its side).
Lens: M. Zuiko Digital ED 12mm f/2
100% Crop. Here the JPEG on the left seems to have more realistic colour reproduction of the champagne muselet.
Lens: Carl Zeiss T* Planar 50mm f/1.7 lens for Contax fit.
25% Crop. Here the right hand JPEG has more accurate colour reproduction (the swan and sign seemed closer to black).
Lens: Carl Zeiss T* Planar 50mm f/1.7 lens for Contax fit.
25% Crop. Here the JPEG (left) has a more accurate colour reproduction.
Lens: M. Zuiko Digital ED 12mm f/2
33% Crop. The pinkish bar of soap towards the bottom of the frame here has been turned neon by Apple's RAW interpretation (right).
Lens: M. Zuiko Digital ED 12mm f/2
To fit. I think the meat on the left has a better colour tone to that of the camera JPEG on the right.
Lens: M. Zuiko Digital ED 12mm f/2
100% Crop. It's evident here that the right hand RAW has maintained more detail in the mushrooms than the JPEG, yes there is more noise but I don't believe it to be all that distracting.
Lens: Voigtlander 25mm f/0.95 Micro Four Thirds
100% Crop. Although the RAW on the left's colours are more pleasing, the JPEG to the right was closer to life.
Lens: M. Zuiko Digital ED 12mm f/2
50% Crop. This is quite interesting as the bokeh on the JPEG on the right is smoother thanks to the default noise reduction present.
Conclusion
It's a mixed bag. The Aperture RAW renderer certainly doesn't do a bad job and it seems to be pot luck as to whether it's better than the camera's JPEG or vice versa. I'm personally going to continue shooting in RAW+JPEG for the time being but I can certainly see myself dropping the JPEG for Aperture's RAW. Of course Olympus is renowned for its excellent colour reproduction and I'm keen to see a few more shots before ditching their processing entirely.
Konica Minolta DiMAGE A200
Panasonic LUMIX DMC-G3
Panasonic LUMIX DMC-GF3
Samsung NX11
Samsung NX100
Sony Alpha NEX-C3
Sony Alpha SLT-A35
Today I went to one of the last far reaches of the British Empire
(Gibraltar), it was raining there too.
