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A brief retrospective on camera and lens pricing – today’s cameras and lenses are ridiculously cheap compared with 1982 prices

Monday, August 6th, 2012

I was prompted to search out an old photography magazine I bought in 1982 in an attempt to solve a reader’s information request.

The photography magazine contained RRP pricings of nearly every lens available at the time, plus my own notes of pricings for some Olympus OM gear I was considering purchasing to expand upon my little system.

So I thought I would share my findings to create some perspective on relative camera and lens pricings from then and until now in $AUS (although in 1982 as is the case now, $A = $US approximately)

Here are a few prices regarding Olympus OM gear in $A (1982):

Olympus OM-10 chrome body = $236
Olympus OM-1N black body = $398
Olympus OM-2N black body = $575
Olympus OM-4 black body = $848
Zuiko 8mm f/2.8 fisheye lens = $1,120
Zuiko 16mm f/3.5 fisheye = $618
Zuiko 18mm f/3.5 lens = $618
Zuiko 21mm f/3.5 lens = $369
Zuiko 21mm f/2.0 lens = $575
Zuiko 24mm f/2.8 lens = $250
Zuiko 24mm f/2.0 lens = $560
Zuiko 28mm f/3.5 lens = $158
Zuiko 28mm f/2.8 lens = $170
Zuiko 35mm f/2.0 lens = $315
Zuiko 35mm f/2.8 lens = $181
Zuiko 50mm f/1.8 lens = $90
Zuiko 50mm f/1.4 lens = $145
Zuiko 50mm f/1.2 lens = $467
Zuiko 50mm f/3.5 macro = $250
Zuiko 55mm f/1.2 lens = $286
Zuiko 35mm shift lens = $697
Zuiko 85mm f/2.0 lens = $386
Zuiko 100mm f/2.8 lens = $217
Zuiko 135mm f/2.8 lens = $250
Zuiko 180mm f/2.8 lens = $770
Zuiko 200mm f/4 lens = $250
Zuiko 300mm f/4.5 lens = $493
Zuiko 350mm f/2.8 lens = $5,500
Zuiko 400mm f/6.3 lens = $1,120
Zuiko 500mm f/8 mirror lens = $620
Zuiko 600mm f/6.5 lens = $1,334
Zuiko 1000mm f/11 lens = $1,652
Zuiko 35-70mm f/4 AF lens = $841

If you wanted Bronica SQ medium format lenses in 1982:

NB. only the professionals or the rich could afford Hasselblad cameras and lenses and the magazine did not publish their prices (“price on request”)
Zenzanon-S 40mm f/4 lens = $$1,175
Zenzanon-S 50mm f/3.5 lens = $875
Zenzanon-S 80mm f/2.8 standard lens = $500
Zenzanon-S 150mm f/3.5 lens = $895
Zenzanon-S 200mm f/4 lens = $875
Zenzanon-S 250mm f/5.6 lens = $999
Zenzanon-S 500mm f/8 lens = $1,850
note that Bronica gradually replaced the S versions from 1983 onwards with their PS versions and in the late 1990′s before they were discontinued by their new owners, Tamron, their retail pricings were generally in the $2000-$4500 range excepting the 80mm standard lens which was $1660 – see my Bronica wiki page.

But how does this compare with today’s pricings?

While 35mm film cameras are generally worth almost nothing now (most can be bought 2nd hand under $100 for a body) with notable exceptions of sought after models such as the Olympus OM-3Ti, Leica’s, etc, most of the OM lenses can be bought on Ebay in good condition at 50-75% of their original retail value in 1982, but in current dollars. In other words you can buy a OM 24mm f/2.8 lens for about $100 now.

The Bronica picture is quite different, the S lenses on Ebay usually sell for under $200 now – very cheap indeed, as it has been difficult to mate the Bronica SQ cameras with digital backs and thus demand for them is minimal.

The Bronica system does make a very cheap entry point into high quality medium format film though – hence I bought up a system in case I had the urge to do some 120 film work.

But how does the dollar in 1982 compare with the dollar in 2012, some 30 years later?

My best way of illustrating this is that a block of land in Melbourne, Australia in 1982 selling for $15,000 would now fetch $250,000 (~17x growth) after the real estate market went through 2 major boom periods (1983-1989, and 1996-2007) with 2 recessionary periods of flat /zero growth in the interim periods. In another suburb, a block of land sold for $31,000 in 1982 and now would be valued at over $700,000 that is a 23-fold increase!

I am not sure how much average salaries have gone up in that period, but I would think it would be at least 10 to 15 fold.

Now photography generally is not a great way to invest your cash, and purchasing $15,000 of camera gear in 1982 is never going to give you $250,000 30 years later, in fact, you would be lucky to get $7,000 for it if it was in excellent condition.

Let’s look at today’s camera and lens pricings:

The Olympus OM-D E-M5 black body sells for ~$1250 in 2012 – only 50% more than an OM-4 body in 1982 and it packs a LOT more functionality (although it may not last as long).

The expensive new micro Zuiko 75mm f/1.8 lens sells for $999 – only double the price of the Zuiko 85mm f/2.0 but the 75mm lens is a far better lens optically and it has the world’s fastest auto-focus where the old Zuiko was only manual focus.

The biggest downside of current technology is that it devalues current cameras so fast that cameras become almost worthless in a financial perspective (but not photographic unless it dies) within 5 years of purchase, while a similar fate also may hit the financial value of our lenses as new technologies are introduced such as new AF mechanisms.

Hopefully with Micro Four Thirds, their will be little need to update AF mechanisms for a while as the new ones are so fast already (EXCEPT for fast moving subjects – that may introduce new technologic fixes requiring new cameras and new lenses).

Canon and Nikon dSLR users may end up with a double hit in devaluation of their lenses – first new versions needed to be made over the last few years to improve optical quality to match the new sensors, and now, the issue of fast CD-AF will hang over them, and most likely require new lenses again – although Canon’s 1st attempt, their STM AF lenses do not seem to have resolved the AF speed issue as everyone had hoped.

We are so very lucky that we have all this wonderful technology available to the masses, not just the professionals, at much, much cheaper prices than what was available in 1982 when you take into account the value of the dollar changing.

Now when is the 75mm f/1.8 lens hitting the shelves in Australia???

Final moral of the story:

DO NOT BUY AN EXPENSIVE CAMERA IF YOU ARE NOT GOING TO GET ENOUGH USE OUT OF IT WITHIN THE NEXT 2-3YEARS – BAD INVESTMENT!!

BUY the cheapest camera that will do what YOU need it to do, and then save the spare cash for an upgrade in 5 years time or get a better lens which will make a difference to your photography.

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Tags: Bronica, Canon, lenses, Olympus

Canon updates it’s pro lenses, adds a weird fisheye zoom, and introduces a mid range dSLR – the 60D

Thursday, August 26th, 2010

Following Canon’s announcement this week that it had produced a 120 megapixel, APS-H 1.3x crop sensor (for research only at this stage), it has predictably updated several of its pro lenses to match the current high resolution sensors as I predicted it would need to do 2 years ago (see here).

The updated lenses include:

version III of both the EF Extender 1.4x and 2x
version II of each of the EF IS USM L lenses: 300mm f/2.8, 400mm f/2.8, 500mm f/4 and 600mm f/4 – the latter 2 are still in development
and a more affordable L lens – a 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM

The updates include Sub Wavelength Structure coatings are employed to minimize flare, water-repellant Fluorine coatings on the front and rear elements, new IS mode has been added that activates stabilization only during exposure, and a ‘Power Focus’ mode for video shooting.

A real surprise is yet another extreme lens – this time a world first full frame 8-15mm f/4 USM L fisheye zoom lens – not sure the world needs this but perhaps I am wrong! I would have thought circular fisheye images were a bit passe! See dpreview.com.

The Canon EOS 60D APS-C cropped sensor dSLR is a rather predictable evolution of Canon’s mid-range dSLR series which has the following specs:

18mp sensor
flip out 3″ LCD – finally they have adopted a similar LCD to Olympus and Panasonic – about time!
full HD movies with manual control as per Canon 7D
5.3fps
9 point cross-type AF
iFCL metering with 63 zone dual layer metering sensor
integrated Speedlight transmitter for infrared wireless TTL flash
EyeFi wi-fi file transfer
SDXC memory card support

Unfortunately, still no built-in image stabiliser, but I can only hope Canon bring this is in sometime this decade because I really want it – I miss this functionality which I take for granted on my Olympus dSLR.

See more at dpreview.com

Posted in lenses | 3 Responses »
Tags: Canon, lenses

Fast 50mm lenses

Sunday, August 15th, 2010

I have started a resource page of 50mm lenses for 35mm and Micro Four Thirds cameras as these lenses are likely to be considered as portrait lenses on cropped sensor digital cameras and many might find it useful to have a list of lenses with some links.

Feel free to add your comments to this post here – but spammers forget posting comments on my website – I have a super intelligent spam processing system which will delete spam type comments that do not contribute to other readers.

The page on 50mm lenses is here.

Hope it is useful to some of you.

By the way, the term “fast” in this context refers to wide aperture lenses – and I have restricted it to lenses f/2.0 or wider aperture.

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Tags: Canon, Four Thirds, Four Thirds Micro, lenses

Micro Four Thirds to get world first twin digital interchangeable 3D lens

Wednesday, July 28th, 2010

Panasonic has just announced it will be developing a world first twin digital interchangeable lens – a compact, twin 3D lens for instant 3D video and still photos.

The 3D lens will be similar to that on its new 3D HDC-SDT750 camcorder and will project dual images onto the sensor and allow instant creation of 3D video compatible with its 3D VIERA televisions and 3D Blu-Ray TM disc players.

In the camcorder version, the 3D images result from capturing the right and left images (each with 960 x 1080 pixels) that enter through the lenses and are recorded using the side-by-side method.

If this same method is used in M43 cameras, one would assume new cameras or at least new firmware would be needed to record this, and still images perhaps would be limited to 960×1080 pixels.

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Tags: 3D, Four Thirds Micro, lenses, Panasonic

Micro Four Thirds with Leica-D 25mm f/1.4 plus Olympus WCON-08B 0.8x wide converter

Sunday, July 25th, 2010

Ok, perhaps I was a bit silly, but I just couldn’t resist the opportunity to buy a superb Olympus WCON-08B 0.8x PRO quality wide converter which was designed for the Olympus E-20 when it came out in 2001.

In the USA, they come up on Ebay regularly for the price of a good polarising filter, but they don’t come up much on Ebay in Australia so I snapped it up.

Here is the combination on my Panasonic GH-1 Micro Four Thirds camera (but it would also work on a Four Thirds dSLR and you would get image stabilisation as well):

Why, oh why would I buy something like this in this day and age??

Number 1 – it was a reasonable price – albeit twice the price of a good polarising filter here.

Number 2 – it is said to be one of the BEST wide converters you can get – although it is big and heavy for a wide converter

Number 3 – it’s rear thread is 62mm – perfect for my superb Leica-D 25mm f/1.4 lens, and the unique Panasonic Lumix 14-140mm HD lens for Micro Four Thirds.

Number 4 – it may save me carrying around my heavy and expensive Olympus 7-14mm lens, if it gives me just that little bit more width.

Number 5 – it looks good with the Leica-D and makes an interesting talking point while impressing those who know little about photography – after all, the whole idea of Micro Four Thirds is to be under-stated and look more like a casual camera belying it’s awesome image quality for its size, but sometimes you need to give people some confidence in your photographic capabilities

Why it may end up being false economy:

Number 1 – while it converts the Leica-D 25mm f/1.4 to a 20mm f/1.4, it is very soft on the edges at f/1.4 but pretty good at f/2.8, but I suspect I will be much better off buying the far smaller and lighter Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 pancake lens one day when I can afford the $A700 for it.

Number 2 – while it converts the Lumix 14-140mm lens to a 11-110mm lens, I would be much better off getting the very nice Olympus 9-18mm lens for Micro Four Thirds which still allows me to use ND gradient filters, etc and is much smaller and lighter.

So, I took it out for a test run today at one of my favourite Melbourne locations, the old artist colony at Montsalvat:

at f/2.8, it performed very well, first, without the wide converter, no sharpening just a little extra contrast added to the jpeg:

and with the wide converter ON – showing almost no vignetting or barrel/pincushion distortion and reasonable but acceptable loss of sharpness at the edges – remember, I am pushing the image circle of Four Thirds lenses here by using native 16:9 image aspect ratio which is a wider sensor than a normal Four Thirds sensor!

I think that is a very acceptable result indeed!

But at f/1.4, the edge softness becomes quite noticeable, although depending on your image, this may not be an issue:

Indoors into the window light is often problematic for many lenses, but even at f/1.4, this combination did a wonderful job of controlling flare:

More photos here.

I think this wide converter will be useful and fun to play with – as long as I don’t drop it while screwing it on!

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Tags: Four Thirds, Four Thirds Micro, lenses, Olympus, wide converters

Cine or movie camera lenses on Micro Four Thirds cameras

Sunday, July 18th, 2010

One of the main attractions of the Micro Four Thirds camera system is that you can use almost any lens ever made on it, so that your creativity and fun is maximised.

This is possible because the MFT system has a short sensor to lens mount distance which allows adapters to be made which will allow many cine lenses to focus to infinity, and the cropped sensor of the MFT system means many of these lenses will give reasonable coverage across the frame, although most will cause substantial vignetting – this problem is MUCH more pronounced on larger sensors such as the APS-C size Sony NEX camera system.

Cine lenses offer users of Micro Four Thirds an opportunity to experiment with very small lenses (perhaps a 1/4 of the size of 35mm format lenses) with wide apertures and short focal lengths at often very reasonable prices, and thus allow images with a different “look” without breaking your bank, or your back. The most popular focal lengths to use on Micro Four Thirds are 25-75mm.

Cine lenses are often very simple lenses and include newer Closed Circuit CCD TV lenses which are generally not designed for high image sharpness as with photographic lenses, but also include very expensive, high quality lenses such as PL prime lenses.

16mm movie film dimensions are 10.26mm x 7.49mm, while Super-16mm movie film is 12.52mm x 7.41mm – both MUCH smaller than Micro Four Thirds sensor size of 18mm x 13.5mm (hence the possible vignetting and peripheral smearing of details).

Lenses with a 22mm image circle will give full coverage on a 4:3 Micro Four Thirds image, while a 20mm image circle will cover a 16:9 cropped Micro Four Thirds image, and 16mm image circle (for Super 16) and 14mm image circle (for regular 16) will cause vignetting even on 16:9 cropped Micro Four Thirds.

In general, C mount lenses with focal length less than 25mm will generally have substantial vignetting, and the bokeh is often characterised by a circular, swirling appearance, for instance, this image taken with a Tokina 16mm TV lens and posted on the net by Ben Bammens:

Longer focal length C mount lenses give more classical image appearance as in these images by Yu-Lin Chan:

The main mounts for cine lenses are:

D mount – 0.625″diameter thread, 12.29mm flange distance, designed for 8mm movie film – NOT useful for M43 cameras
CS mount – 1″diameter thread, 12.52mm flange distance, designed for 16mm movie film – NOT useful for M43 cameras
C mount – 1″ diameter thread, 17.5mm flange distance, designed for 16mm movie film
Arri PL mount – breech lock mount for 16mm and 35mm movie film
Panavision PV mount – breech lock mount for 16mm and 35mm movie film
Arri Maxi PL mount – mount for 70mm movie film

Issues with C mount to MFT mount adapters:

some lenses, especially TV lenses do not have aperture ring and thus you will not be able to stop them down
some lenses may require a little machining (eg. Sony TV 16/1.8)
Lenses with max. inner diameter of 37.2mm (lenses with max. near-thread diameter of 37.2mm all can fit well without any modification)
Lenses with near-thread diameter larger than 37.2mm but smaller than 49.2mm still can fit, but will not focus to infinity!

Examples of C mount lenses:

Kern-Paillard lenses for Bolex movie cameras
Schneider 10mm f/1.8
Kodak Cine Ektar 15/2.5 – vignetting
Schneider Kreuznach Xenon 16/1.9 – vignetting
Kern Switar 16/1.8 H16 RX – vignetting
Som Berthiot 20mm F1.9
Wollensak Cine Velostigmat 1:/1.9
Kodak Ektar 25mm f/1.4 – corner vignetting
Taylor & Hobson
SOM Berthiot 25mm f/0.95 gives full coverage but requires machining
Angenieux types M1 or M2 25mm f/0.95 give 95% coverage
Angenieux 75mm f2.5
a Micro Four Thirds compatibility table can be found here
a more extensive listing of C-mount lenses can be seen here

To get ideas of what you can achieve with these lenses, surf the net, for example:

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Tags: Cine, Four Thirds Micro, lenses

10x zoom lens comparison – Canon, Nikon, Tamron, Olympus and Panasonic Micro Four Thirds

Saturday, July 3rd, 2010

Many people are looking for a travel or general use / walkabout camera with higher image quality than point and shoots but with a single 10x zoom lens.

So I thought I would amalgamate the lens review results over at the excellent dpreview site as they appear to have relatively good standards for testing which should allow reasonable comparisons of their results. In doing so, I have tried to estimate values from the charts for each lens at their widest aperture, and compared them at approximately equivalent field of view focal lengths – not their native focal lengths.

I have chosen the 5 common zoom lenses likely to be considered for cropped sensor cameras (none of these lenses are applicable to full frame dSLRs):

Olympus M.ZD 14-150mm f/4.0-5.6 ED for M43
Panasonic Lumix G 14-140mm f/4.0-5.8 OIS HD for M43
Canon EF-S 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 IS
Nikon DX 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR
Tamron 18-270mm f/3.5-6.3 VC macro for EF-S or DX

Clearly from these tests, if you want a light, compact lens with very good image quality and the sharp macro image quality with minimal aberrations, the stand out lens is the new Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 14-150mm f/4.0-5.6 ED, although if HD video is critical to your needs, the heavier, more expensive, and even sharper, Panasonic Lumix HD G HD 14-140mm F4-5.8 OIS may be the better option, particularly if you choose a Panasonic Micro Four Thirds camera instead of an Olympus one.

Note that the Panasonic M43 cameras use in-camera optical corrections and the CA results with the Lumix lens is actually neglible after correction (the figures in the table are uncorrected and would apply if the lens is used on an Olympus camera).

Both Panasonic and Olympus cameras are correcting the barrel distortion of their lenses and the table shows the corrected values.

Compared to the Canon, Nikon and Tamron EF-S/DX lenses, the Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 14-150mm f/4.0-5.6 ED lens is:

half the weight
significantly shorter
uses a nice 58mm filter thread instead of more expensive 72mm filters
is MUCH sharper edge-to-edge at practically all focal lengths at wide open apertures
has much nicer macro image quality
nicer bokeh quality
no zoom creep (although the zoom is a little stiffer)
has comparable levels of CA
neglible distortion due to in-camera corrections.
importantly, for the rapidly increasing use of these cameras for video work, the lens has been optimised to reduce AF noise being captured by the camera microphones.

This Olympus lens shows that you can have your cake and eat it too!

Of course, it is not going to give the same results as a pro quality f/2.8 zoom lens, but these lenses are a totally different size, weight and expense category.

Perhaps now you can understand why I am loving the Micro Four Thirds camera system – you can take more lenses and cameras with you for the same size and weight, which means, more fun!

Furthermore, with the new firmware hack for the Panasonic GH-1, this camera will now give the highest quality HD video of all the dSLRs.

When you want really small and light, you have the options of the excellent Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 pancake lens or the cheaper Olympus 17mm f/2.8 pancake lens.

There are a couple of caveats however:

if your main aim is capturing fast moving subjects, the Micro Four Thirds system does not currently auto-focus fast enough, and thus you will have to resort to pre-focusing, or resorting to a dSLR such as a Four Thirds Olympus E-30 or E-3 (lenses will be relatively compatible with your Micro Four Thirds camera), or a higher end dSLR from Canon, Nikon, etc. However, all of these 10x zoom lenses are a bit sluggish to AF at telephoto end on moving subjects, so you would probably need a lens better designed for sports anyway.
if you also want to use large f/2.0 or f/2.8 zoom lenses, you need a bigger dSLR to make them easier to hold.

If you do decide to go with Canon or Nikon cropped sensor dSLRs, the Tamron lens offers 15x zoom with reasonable image quality.

NB. MTF-50 is an indicator of sharpness, the higher the figure, the better it is.

NB. 10x zoom lenses should not be expected to give nice smooth bokeh quality, and these lenses show this, however, it would appear that the Olympus lens gives the most pleasing bokeh of the five lenses.

	Oly M.ZD	Pan M43	Canon	Nikon	Tamron
focal range	14-150	14-140	18-200	18-200	18-270
aperture	4.0-5.6	4.0-5.8	3.5-5.6	3.5-5.6	3.5-6.3
Price	$US600	$US790	$US699	$US680	$US629
weight (g)	280g	420g	600g	560g	560g
length (mm)	83-142	83-142	102-162	97-162	101-190
Filter (mm)	58mm	62mm	72mm	72mm	72mm
35mm eq. zoom (mm)	28-300	28-280	29-320	27-300	29-432
close focus (m)	0.46m	0.5m	0.35m	0.5m	0.42m
macro mag.	0.25x	0.2x	0.31x	0.26x	0.32x
MTF-50 at max. apertures
28mm centre	1550	1900	1200	1300	1200
28mm corner	700	760	400	725	650
100mm centre	1450	1450	1450	1100	1500
100mm corner	850	1000	750	450	750
200mm centre	1400	1200	1000	750	1125
200mm corner	700	750	400	460	650
300mm centre	1125	1250	1125	1000	1100
300mm corner	650	700	700	650	600
max. CA at corners
28mm	0.13%	0.12%	0.11%	0.14%	0.08%
200mm	0.14%	0.08%	0.09%	0.10%	0.02%
300mm	0.11%	0.16%	0.22%	0.16%	0.16%
distortion 28mm	+1.2%#	+1.6%#	+3.4%	+2.8%	+3.5%
max pincushion	nil#	nil#	-1.9%	-2.3%	-2%
best native focal lenth	25mm	25mm	50mm	24mm	50mm
bokeh	the most pleasing	ok?	ok bokeh	harsh bokeh	ok bokeh
macro IQ	nice macro IQ	nice	soft macro	soft macro	soft macro
zoom creep	nil	nil	?	yes	yes
notes	HD video silent AF IS via camera	HD video silent AF IS Stepless aperture	IS	IS	IS

Other 10x zoom lenses:

Ricoh GXR P10 lens kit 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6 VC – but only a tiny sensor in this lens
Samsung 18-200mm OIS / F3.5-6.3 for its NX mirror-less cameras – not yet available ? 2011
Sony NEX 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 OIS for the NEX mirror-less cameras – not yet available
Olympus ZD 18-180mm f/3.5-6.3 ED - consumer grade Four Thirds lens gives 36-360mm coverage and weighs only 440g and costs $US499
Sigma 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 DC OS HSM – cropped sensor lens; less distortion and CA than the Canon, Nikon and Tamron lenses displayed in the table above, but not as sharp as them, and with less effective IS.
Sigma 18-250mm f/3.5-6.3 DC OS HSM – cropped sensor lens; not as sharp as the Tamron but faster AF and better build.
Canon EF 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6 L IS USM – pro grade full frame introduced in 2004 but weighs 1.7kg and costs $US2420
Sigma 50-500mm f/4.5-6.3 OS HSM full frame - introduced in 2010, available in Canon, Nikon, Pentax and Sony versions but uses a 95mm filter, weighs 2kg and costs $US2400! There is an older non-IS version of this lens. Personally, I would go for a smaller, lighter 4x telephoto zoom with better image quality, but some people may need such a lens.

Another alternative – wide aperture 3-5x zoom lens with 2x teleconverter:

Olympus ZD 50-200mm f/2.8-3.5 with EC-20 2x teleconverter
- provides 100-400mm range at f/2.8-3.5 and 200-800mm range at f/5.6-7.0 image stabilised with Olympus camera bodies, pro grade and weighs only 1kg excl. tripod mount and EC-20
- ie. equates to 100-800mm f/2.8-7.0
Olympus ZD 90-250mm f/2.8 with 2x teleconverter
- provides 180-500mm range at f/2.8 and 360-1000mm range at f/5.6, super pro grade and weighs over 3kg but that is much less than anything in the Canon or Nikon line up for similar telephoto reach.
- ie. equates to 180-1000mm f/2.8-5.6
Canon or Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 IS/VR with 2x teleconverter
- provides 70-200mm range at f/2.8 and 140-400mm range at f/5.6 image stabilised but weighs 1.7kg
- ie. equates to 70-400mm f/2.8-5.6 or 112-640mm on a 1.6x cropped sensor Canon

Since writing this post, Nikon released their full frame Nikkor AF-S 28-300mm f/3.5-5.36 ED VR II G lens for €899 or currently about $US999 which gives a great option for Nikon D700 users in particular:

made in Thailand, it obviously provides 28-300mm coverage in 35mm full frame terms but also 42-450mm when used on a DX crop camera.
close focus to 50cm
zoom lock switch to prevent zoom creep, and 9 rounded aperture blades
it is too noisy for recording video while it focuses, but then you probably wouldn’t use a current Nikon dSLR to do high quality video anyway.
2 ED and 3 aspherical elements but no optical performance reports to date
it is said to be sharp and certainly seems much sharper than the Nikkor 70-300mm and the DX 18-200mm but less sharp than the pro lenses or the primes as would be expected
it has lots of distortion at focal lengths other than 35mm – “Distortion is strong barrel at 28mm, none around 32mm to 35mm, strong pincushion midrange and mid-tele, and moderate pincushion at 300mm”.
bokeh seems reasonable
the lens hood looks a bit dysfunctional and I suspect many will leave it at home
77mm and weighs 800g – less than half the weight of the Canon 28-300mm L lens, but still not a light lens to carry all day – it is still twice as heavy as a Micro Four Thirds Panasonic option and almost 3x heavier than the Olympus option!
Ken Rockwell loves this lens but does state: “If you don’t mind the hefty size, this 28-300mm is perfect. I wouldn’t enjoy traveling with it, and it is perfect for use on a dedicated photo trip”
for a full frame user who can’t afford the faster aperture pro lenses, it will give a lot of versatility with somewhat faster AF and better high ISO performance than a Panasonic GH2 with 14-140mm lens, but at significantly more weight, bulk and without the superb HD video capabilities or automatic distortion correction capabilities of the GH2.
at the end of the day though, a substantial point of having a full frame dSLR is not only for high ISO performance but shallow depth of field work, and full frame users are still likely to want their heavy, large 70-200mm f/2.8, 24mm f/1.4, 50mm f/1.4 and 85mm f/1.4 lenses with them as well so perhaps the 28-300mm may in fact be redundant for most, and they would be better suited to having a GH2 with 14-140mm lens instead as a 2nd camera for travel and video work.
I suspect this lens is a wonderful marketing ploy by Nikon which entices new users to a full frame dSLR at a reasonable price point with the delusion that this lens will be all they will need or want, only to find it does not have the aperture they need, nor the AF speed, and so they end up having this lens becoming redundant – too big for carry around or travel and not good enough for their needs. But by then they are committed to the Nikon system and spending more money – a very nice marketing ploy indeed!

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Tags: Canon, Four Thirds Micro, lens tests, lenses, Nikon, Olympus, Panasonic, super-zooms, Tamron, zoom lens

In praise of the Canon EF 135mm f/2.0L lens

Thursday, April 15th, 2010

The last weekend I used the Canon EF 135mm f/2.0L lens almost exclusively – partly because it was the lens I felt would best suit my subjects – in one case for shallow depth of field and background blurring, and the other case to gain telephoto low light performance.

I was invited to help out a friend who had arranged an impromptu urban shoot to help aspiring models develop a portfolio.

Now the best lens for such shoots tends to be a 70-200mm f/2.8 IS L lens as it gives plenty of versatility while allowing good background blurring, and low light performance without having to change lenses and lose photo opportunities. But, as I am not a professional photographer, I do not really have need of such a big, heavy and expensive lens.

The 135mm f/2.0L lens gives me one more stop of aperture for even more background blurring or shallow DOF when I need it, while it is sharper as long as it is accurately focused and you control camera shake – unfortunately, Canon still has not added image stabilisation to its bodies.

Here is an example of what you can do in a dark alley way on a heavily overcast day on a 1.3x crop camera – the Canon 1D Mark III (note contrast and vignetting added via Photoshop) :

model shoot

The biggest problem with this lens in this scenario when used wide open, is the shallow depth of field. It is so shallow that your focus has to be precise – and as my subject’s eyes are rarely anywhere near the centre of my frame, I lock the AF using the rear button, then recompose the camera.

Unfortunately, the depth of field is only a couple of inches for critical focus so while you recompose, movement of yourself or the model may place the model’s eyes out of focus which makes this very challenging and chimping of the image with enlargement is almost mandatory.

A further problem with shallow depth of field camera-lens combinations which use dSLR autofocus mechanisms is that the combination must be calibrated to ensure there is no inadvertent front focus or back focus – fortunately most modern dSLRs allow you to do this using the AF microadjustment setting in their menu.

The main other issue I have with this lens is low contrast when bright light sources hit the front element – for this reason, I find that use of the lens hood is mandatory with this lens.

Now for something totally different – low light telephoto – using the 135mm f/2.0L lens as a 270mm focal length reach lens with light gathering of a f/2.0 lens but depth of field of a 270mm f/4 lens – just what one needs for stage shows at night time!

How do we do this – simple use a sensor with lots of pixel density – in this case I used a Micro Four Thirds camera – the Panasonic GH-1 for still images and HD video of the Sunbury Backroad Music Festival – this one is of Australian 1970′s band, Spectrum:

At dusk, I tested out this combination hand held on the band Falloe:

I thought I would push this lens even further, adding a the Canon EF 1.4x tele-extender which when combined with the Panasonic GH-1 gives a focal length field of view of a 378mm lens at light gathering of a f/2.8 lens but depth of field of f/5.6 just perfect – except, no image stabiliser on my Panasonic GH-1 either:

Carl Zeiss announces new cine lens for videographers using cropped sensor cameras including Micro Four Thirds

Thursday, April 15th, 2010

Carl Zeiss has just announced a new cine lens – the Lightweight Zoom LWZ.2 – which has an image circle of 24.9×18.7mm for ANSI 35mm cine which is just larger than APS-C Canon and DX Nikon sensors, and obviously large enough to cover Micro Four Thirds camera sensors as well.

Interestingly, Zeiss has decided on designing it with interchangeable mounts – in Nikon F, Canon EF and cine PL mounts so that videographers can change their cameras to give a different look or feature set without having to buy new lenses.

Of course, this need for interchangeable mounts did not apply to Micro Four Thirds camera users anyway as they can buy an adapter to use practically any mount lens, including cine PL mount.

Although they call it “Light Weight”, it is 2kg – much too heavy for hand held work with a small Micro Four Thirds camera, but it would be awesome on the recently announced Panasonic professional camcorder for Micro Four Thirds!

This lens has a focal length range of 15.5 to 45mm at T 2.6 aperture

Why spend all that money on one of these lenses when it will only be manual focus anyway?

There is a good reason for the discerning videographers out there who usually do not use auto focus anyway but need the following features which these lenses provide (assuming it has the same feature set of the Compact Prime CP.2 lenses):

easy manual focus via longer focus rotation
consistent manual focus distances unlike dSLR USM lenses which are unreliable in manually setting a focus to the distance scale – a critical exercise in professional videography
ability to attach geared follow focus equipment to manually focus and adjust iris
cine-style housing dimensions for compatibility with existing cine equipment
iris diaphragm has an incredible 14 rounded blades (most current dSLR lenses use 8 or 9) to ensure it remains as circular as possible at all apertures to give circular out of focus images and thus contributes to more aesthetic and “natural” bokeh
T style aperture which presumably is step-less to ensure changes in brightness are subtle
superb image quality, free of distortions with T* XP multi-layer coatings to reduce flare

Carl Zeiss are also revising their Compact Prime CP.2 lenses which cover a 35mm full frame sensor without vignetting, and which have a common maximum aperture of T2.1 – more on these here. A set of 6 prime lenses will set you back $US20,000.

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Tags: Carl Zeiss, lenses, video

Comparisons of dpreview’s lens tests – the 70-200mm f/2.8 lenses

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

The 70-200mm f/2.8 lens is perhaps THE must have lens for many professional photographers.

Although not quite as sharp and aberration free, and MUCH bigger and heavier than a high quality prime lens such as a 135mm f/2.0 or 200mm f/2.8, its wide aperture and zoom combined with image stabilisation allow the pro photographer much more versatility and freedom to capture the shot they want.

Personally, for my type of usage, I am not keen on carrying around a 1.5-1.8kg lens plus another 1-1.4kg body all day, and I would rather use a 135mm f/2.0 L lens perhaps mated with a 1.4x teleconverter if I need the extra reach.

Another major problem with the 70-200mm f/2.8 lens size is that it forces you to limit your camera bag choice to the traditional camera bag which means you need to take it off your back, set it down and then access your gear – not my style at all.

And, of course, on my Olympus dSLR, I have the beautiful Olympus ZD 50-200mm f/2.8-3.5 lens which gives me more telephoto reach and macro performance than the available 70-200mm lenses for Canon, Nikon or Sony.

The legacy 70-200mm f/2.8 lenses from the film days, as excellent as they were then, have now been found wanting when mated with the new high resolution full frame digital SLRs, and thus the manufacturers have released new versions of these over the past couple of years.

The main reason for having a 70-200mm f/2.8 lens is to use it at its widest aperture to give you nice background blurring and bokeh while still giving a sharp subject which will hopefully pop out at the viewer.

Thus in the table below, I will only be using dpreview’s data at f/2.8:

	Canon f/2.8L IS version I	Canon f/2.8L IS II version II	Nikon AF-S VR f/2.8G ED-IF version I	Nikon AF-S f/2.8G ED VRII – version II	Sony f/2.8G
focal length in 35mm terms	70-200mm	70-200mm	70-200mm	70-200mm	70-200mm
weight (kg)	1.57kg	1.49kg	1.47kg	1.54kg	1.5kg
length (cm)	19.7cm	19.9cm	21.5cm	20.9cm	19.7cm
closest focus (m)	1.4m (0.18x macro) pincushion	1.2m (0.21x macro)	1.4m (0.18x macro) BUT corners are soft!	1.4m (0.12x macro)	1.2m (0.23x macro)
70mm MTF	1350 (centre) => 800 => 1200 (edge)		1650 => 850	2100 => 850	2000 centre => 800 edge
70mm CA at edge	0.07%		0.13%	0.06%	0.05%
100mm MTF	1600 => 1200 => 1300		1600 => 750	1650 => 750	1800 centre => 1125 edge
100mm CA at edge	0.05%		0.07%	0.02%	0.04%
135mm MTF	1450 => 1125 => 1150		1600 => 650	1700 => 1800 => 800	1800 centre => 1100 edge
135mm CA at edge	0.03%		0.05%	0.03%	0.04%
200mm MTF	1100 => 800 => 1130		1125 =>1300=>480	1650 => 1850 => 1300	1200 centre => 1150 edge
200mm CA at edge	0.045%		0.04% (0.05% half-way)	0.065%	0.065%
light falloff	2EV		2-2.7EV worst at 200mm	1.3EV	1.3-2EV worst at 100mm
distortion	1.2% barrel 70mm => -1.0% pincushion at 200mm		1.2% barrel 70mm => -1.8% pincushion at 200mm	~0% barrel 70mm => -1.5% pincushion at 200mm	1.4% barrel 70mm => -1.3% pincushion at 200mm
diaphragm blades	8	8	9 rounded	9 rounded	9 rounded
other features	“3EV OIS” white	1 flourite and 5 UD elements; “4EV OIS” white MF ring wider and easier to us than previous	not good for full frame, but great on DX cameras for which it presumably was designed for in 2002. “3EV OIS”; 3 AF stop buttons.	much better for full frame, new nano coating for less flare as well but subject to veiling flare. double-image gives poor bokeh at close focus distances. substantially changes angle of view which gets wider as you focus closer! Thus at closest focus of 1.4m, the focal length is actually 160mm not 200mm! “4EV OIS VRII”	3 focus hold buttons, IS in body
max. telephoto reach in 35mm terms at 200mm focal nength with 2x TC	400mm reach at f/5.6 520mm on Canon 1D 640mm on APS-C	400mm reach at f/5.6 520mm on Canon 1D 640mm on APS-C	400mm reach at f/5.6 600mm on DX	400mm reach at f/5.6 600mm on DX	400mm reach at f/5.6 600mm on DX
filter thread	77mm	77mm	77mm	77mm	77mm
price	$US1700		$US1700	$US2330	$US1800

For further comparison, the Olympus ZD 50-200mm f/2.8-3.5 SWD lens, is also weather-proofed, has a tripod mount, has 3-4EV IS via in-body IS on most Olympus dSLRs, is MUCH cheaper (~$US1000), is MUCH lighter (1kg not 1.5kg), is shorter (a manageable 15.7cm instead of 20-22cm), uses a smaller, cheaper filter (67mm not 77mm), has 9 rounded diaphragm blades for nice bokeh, and has more than twice the macro performance and twice the telephoto reach (can even use it hand held at reach of 800mm f/7 with a 2x teleconverter), making it MY preferred zoom lens.

Although dpreview has not tested the ZD 50-200mm, it has been tested with a different system at lenstip and wide open it was much better than the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 on a Canon 20D – with their MTF50 readings giving 41-44 for the ZD in the centre vs only 31-39 for the Canon in the centre, and the ZD was 32-37 at the edge, while the Canon was a much worse 26-29. Their tests for CA showed worst result was 0.11% at 120mm for the ZD and 0.055% at 200mm, while it was 0.085% at 200mm for the Canon. Both lenses showed some astigmatism. The ZD had the least light fall off across the image and had MUCH less flare and ghosting shooting into the sun. Their tests of the Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 II gave similar resolution wide open to the Canon. I was not able to find their tests of the Nikon 70-200mm vI lens although it apparently was the best of these tested when used on a D200 DX sensor.

Some examples of my photos taken with the ZD 50-200mm lens are here and with a 2x TC are here.

Of course, Olympus users also have the option of the superb but expensive and heavy Olympus ZD 35-100mm f/2.0 lens which, in 35mm full frame terms, gives the focal length reach of a 70-200mm lens but light gathering of an f/2.0 lens and depth of field of an f/4 lens- which at maximum telephoto is perfect for most situations.

Furthermore, it should be pointed out that high quality prime lenses are even better than the zoom lenses for optical image quality – for example, the new Canon 100mm f/2.8L USM hybrid IS macro is even sharper than the previous sharpest lens tested on dpreview (the Olympus ZD 50mm f/2.0 macro), and wide open at f/2.8 it gives MTF 50 of 2000 in the centre and 1500 at the edge with a CA < 0.03%, 1.7EV light falloff and only trivial pincushion – easily beating any of the 70-200mm zooms.

Here is a delightful, quick candid portrait I snuck in while this young lady was having her face painted at a cricket match – taken with the Canon 1D Mark III with EF 135mm f/2.0 L lens and 1.4x TC for very shallow DOF – actually, too shallow for portraits, but didn’t have time to close the aperture down a notch or two (my ZD 50-200mm was attached to 2x TC and my Gh-1 on a tripod in the stadium taking shots of the cricket game):