{"id":2024,"date":"2009-09-04T14:25:57","date_gmt":"2009-09-04T04:25:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/?p=2024"},"modified":"2009-09-04T16:44:54","modified_gmt":"2009-09-04T06:44:54","slug":"some-lens-resolution-tests-on-the-gh-1-at-135mm-focal-length","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/?p=2024","title":{"rendered":"Some lens resolution tests on the GH-1 at 135mm focal length"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>With the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/?p=1956\">Canon 7D<\/a> coming out with almost the same sensor photo-site density as the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/?page_id=1510\">Micro Four Thirds<\/a> and the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/?page_id=1513\">Four Thirds<\/a> sensors (which equate to ~48 megapixels on a 35mm full frame sensor), I thought the 7D may be pushing the Canon lenses given they are not specifically designed for this density as are the Olympus ZD lenses.<\/p>\n<p>Now that I can test my Canon lenses on the same sensor (the Panasonic GH-1) as my Olympus and Panasonic lenses, I thought it is time for a quick test.<\/p>\n<p>So I thought, let&#8217;s start at one of their best prime lenses &#8211; the <strong>Canon 135mm f\/2.0 L- if this can&#8217;t cut it, then Canon users can forget about getting any resolution benefits from the 7D and their zoom lenses!<\/strong> <\/p>\n<p>I won&#8217;t bore you with the charts, but I tested it by setting the GH-1 at ISO 200, IS off, default settings in manual exposure (with same metering for each exposure), on a tripod with magnified live preview manual focus and 10 sec self timer. Photos were taken at the same distance and focal length of a lens resolution chart at 10 meters. No lens filter in place.<\/p>\n<p>I only looked at resolution, not other aberrations.<\/p>\n<p><strong>In order of resolution (best to worst):<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Canon EF 135mm f\/2.0 L lens at f\/2.8 and f\/4.0<\/li>\n<li>Canon EF 135mm f\/2.0 L lens at f\/2.0 and f\/5.6<\/li>\n<li>Olympus ZD 50-200mm f\/2.8-3.5 SWD at f\/5.6<\/li>\n<li>Olympus ZD 50-200mm f\/2.8-3.5 SWD at f\/3.3<\/li>\n<li>Canon EF 135mm f\/2.0 L lens or Olympus ZD 50-200mm at f\/8<\/li>\n<li>Canon EF 135mm f\/2.0 L lens at f\/2.8 but HAND-HELD at 1\/500th sec<\/li>\n<li>Lumix 14-140mm HD f\/4-5.8 at f\/8<\/li>\n<li>Lumix 14-140mm HD f\/4-5.8 at f\/5.8, f\/6.3<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There was not a lot of difference between them all, but there was a definite difference, and the results are much as you would expect, with the top of the range Canon L prime lens just edging out the beautiful, versatile Olympus ZD 50-200mm lens.<\/p>\n<p>As was suggested by dpreview.com&#8217;s lens test of the Lumix 14-140mm lens, whilst this lens gives really excellent results at 18-50mm, it is a little soft at the long end, and this was born out in my tests.<\/p>\n<p>Certainly it suggests that <strong>diffraction limitations cause resolution to be impaired at f\/8<\/strong> compared with wider apertures, although the Lumix actually was best at f\/8 as it was a touch softer wide open at f\/5.8.<\/p>\n<p>NOW, to put the cat amongst the pigeons.<\/p>\n<p>I took the camera off the tripod and did some <strong>hand held tests<\/strong> as ISO 800 (in order to keep some sort of shutter speed for what is really 270mm focal length reach in 35mm terms). Checked that using ISO 800 in itself didn&#8217;t impair detail &#8211; and it didn&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p>First, I tested the Canon 135mm L lens hand held at 1\/500th sec &#8211; surely that should be sufficiently fast with my reasonable ability to hand hold a camera.<\/p>\n<p><strong>WOW, 1\/500th sec, f\/2.8 and sharpness of the Canon lens dropped off to the level of the Lumix lens at f\/8!!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>So, then I put my Lumix lens back on and tested it hand held at ISO 800, f\/5.8 but now, I had to drop shutter speed to 1\/100th sec in the same lighting &#8211; result with image stabiliser &#8211; AWFUL &#8211; converted the 12mp image into a 1-2mp one in terms of detail.<\/p>\n<p>Turned the image stabiliser on in the Lumix lens, re-took the photo, and as expected, MUCH better, but still not quite as good as the results on the tripod!<\/p>\n<p><strong>MORAL of the story, the Canon 135mm f\/2.0L lens is really sharp even wide open, but even better at f\/2.8 and f\/4, BUT if you hand hold it at shutter speeds 1\/500th or slower, you may as well be using it on a 5-10mp camera because you lose detail, and unfortunately, Canon and Nikon still refuse to put an image stabiliser into their bodies.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I would suggest that if you are going to hand hold the Canon 135mm f\/2.0L lens at less than 1\/500th sec, and you are happy to use it at a fixed aperture and in manual focus, then <strong>the sharpest images will not be from a 18mp Canon 7D but from a 12mp Olympus E-P1 with it&#8217;s in-built image stabiliser!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>If you want more than 12 mpixels of details out of your camera, then unless you use a very fast shutter speed, you need to put it on a tripod<\/strong> &#8211; perhaps the Sony full frame dSLRs with their in-built IS will give much more detail hand held than a Canon or Nikon full frame?<\/p>\n<p>Camera shake effectively converts your expensive lens to a cheap lens and in the process could convert your high megapixel sensor into a low megapixel sensor but with big file sizes.<\/p>\n<p>See some of my hand held photos taken with the GH-1 and EF 135mm f\/2.0L combo <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/gary\/JAlbumAll\/ByLens\/PanasonicGH1\/Canon135mmF2L\/index.htm\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With the Canon 7D coming out with almost the same sensor photo-site density as the Micro Four Thirds and the Four Thirds sensors (which equate to ~48 megapixels on a 35mm full frame sensor), I thought the 7D may be pushing the Canon lenses given they are not specifically designed for this density as are [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[44,149,14,15],"class_list":["post-2024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lenses","tag-canon","tag-lens-tests","tag-olympus","tag-panasonic"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2024\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}