FlyPenFly wrote: "To me, it doesn't look as good as the old kit lens. The 12-60mm F2.8-4 looks excellent though! It easily beats even the well regarded Panny 20mm F1.7."
Yes it does. From my 4/3 days I recall the 12-60 as a big lens with horrible bokeh. So, check out a lot of images to see if it does what you want to use it for before buying it.
Good point Tariq, it would be nice if Olympus explained what they meant by that comment, it could be that they simply want to differentiate between the E-5 and the E-M5 so people aren't confused. I'm not sure if anyone thought the E-M5 was a "pro" series body, at least that was not my expectation, the build quality appears to be better than the E-P3 which I thought was pretty nice, of course I haven't dropped it yet
All the old non-"pro" film cameras mentioned delivered the same IQ as the old pro models. They used the same lenses and you loaded a film of your choice. Wasn't that a reason for them to be popular among non-"amateurs"?
I can't find it now, but I saw recently an image of the Oly 300mm f/2.8 mounted on the E-M5 with the battery grip, it looked mighty nice. I'm all for Oly bringing out some fast/prime tele's for MFT
Jonas B wrote:
Yes it does. From my 4/3 days I recall the 12-60 as a big lens with horrible bokeh. So, check out a lot of images to see if it does what you want to use it for before buying it.
It looks exceptionally sharp though for a zoom and it seems to be prime beating. Usually highly corrected zoom designs seem to have really awful bokeh.
FlyPenFly wrote:
I recall reading the shutter is rated for 100,000 on the E-M5.
That's very good if that's the case.
By the way, I owned the 12-60 ED SWD Olympus lens for s short time when I tried the 43'rds system out. Extremely sharp and contrasty. I didn't really check out the bokeh at the time though.
FlyPenFly wrote: "It looks exceptionally sharp though for a zoom and it seems to be prime beating. Usually highly corrected zoom designs seem to have really awful bokeh.
It is weather sealed though."
I owned and enjoyed the super high grade ZD 12-35/2 for a period; great resolution, great bokeh, weather shielded. Then I got some results which were worse than expected. I then made a controlled comparison to the Panasonic D 25/1.4 (the 4/3 version) and found that the prime had better bokeh. Yes, that's often the main difference. OTOH, some zooms have less LoCA. But you seem to expect, and want, just what the 12-60 delivers.
Anyway, it was sold as a kit lens with the E-3 so there are many samples around.
Yakim Peled wrote: "If only this 12-50 would be 2.8-4 and not 3.5-6.3 I could be tempted."
Yup, the only thing talking for that lens is the weather shielding, in my opinion. They should have worked a little more on that lens and we all know they could have done it. Maybe that is part of the non-pro designation?
alundeb wrote:
There must be at least 17 posts on this page only that explains how exposure and gathered light per image is not the same.
Of course that's correct, but lenses have almost nothing to do with it .
Certainly aperture and focal length don't .
It's gotten confusing, but the discussion is still about sensor size and IQ, correct ?
I understand the Sony APS-C sensors are right now the cat's meow for this format, FF sensors are a step ahead still, MF backs are in a different league, and MFT has an issue with both the smaller than APS-C sensor and sensor tech that's a little behind .
I'm talking about the kind of file quality required for serious retouching for professional assignments, not some OOC shots .
At the moment the Nex 5N files are the lowest I can go IQ-wise, and that's still no match for the Canon 5DII , which is good but not that great and a little outdated .
That's just me, though ; I appreciate that many don't look for ultimate IQ, but need high ISO performance, shallow DOF etc. and only use their files for printing without much PP or even just the web .
For me, the bottom line is that the OM-D is super sexy, and part of a great system, but compromized by Oly's commitment to MFT .
Size matters, and I doubt that is going to change in our lifetime .
JonasY wrote:
Haha, ask bifurcator, it's his quote. But I assumed it means that you have an advantage of the perceived "fast" f2 aperture on a 4/3 sensor, overlooking the fact that you only need a "slow" f4 lens on ff to achieve the same shutter speed (given a certain amount of noise).
I.e, do you [still] believe that you would be better of hand holding a 75/2 lens on 4/3 than 150/4 on ff in terms of shutter speeds? (of course excluding all other factors as size, weight and IS).
At the same ISO, yes, of course. And that is my interest. I am not interested in equalizing IQ. If I want more IQ, I grab my D3. Aperture does not care about sensor size when used to calculate exposure. The focal length is taken care of by the 75 vs. 150.
FlyPenFly wrote:
If the Olympus omd was apsc I probably would return my nex7. It makes Sony's SLT efforts look like toys in comparison.
This was my original thought as well when I first looked into CSC's, but then I saw the light with MFT. Yes, the sensor is always going to suffer from being smaller, BUT, sensor technology is always improving and at a much greater rate than new lens designs (at least the lenses that matter to me); therefore, if you want the best sensor in a CSC you might be looking at Sony and possibly Fuji now, but in so doing you are limiting yourself in options for lenses and that is what ended up selling me on MFT. If in 3-5 years Sony, Fuji and whoever else enters the market has a super nice lineup of both high quality prime and zoom lenses that are nice and compact... I will consider them; however, we are looking at years to catch up to what Oly/Panny already offer and for me, that was what made the decision because I want something that I can use now, and this was before the OM-D was announced, now that the E-M5 is coming, I am looking forward to even better IQ out of my MFT system. If you want the utmost in IQ then MFT is probably not for you right now; however, if you want the most versatile system outside of DSLR's then I see no other choice, but that's just me; obviously you need to make your decision for what matters most to you.
JonasY wrote:
Haha, ask bifurcator, it's his quote. But I assumed it means that you have an advantage of the perceived "fast" f2 aperture on a 4/3 sensor, overlooking the fact that you only need a "slow" f4 lens on ff to achieve the same shutter speed (given a certain amount of noise).
I.e, do you [still] believe that you would be better of hand holding a 75/2 lens on 4/3 than 150/4 on ff in terms of shutter speeds? (of course excluding all other factors as size, weight and IS).
carstenw wrote:
At the same ISO, yes, of course. And that is my interest. I am not interested in equalizing IQ. If I want more IQ, I grab my D3. Aperture does not care about sensor size when used to calculate exposure. The focal length is taken care of by the 75 vs. 150.
We're still on this sub-topic? OK. carstenw, I think if you had started from a page earlier you wouldn't have made those posts. No?
Yes, I agree, they came up with a goofy way of thinking about it. It's so extrapolated and convoluted - WOW! And it's actually quite flawed in practice as well as there are too many other variables in play - like cost, resolution, human vision acuity, the user's ability to remove noise, display device limitations, and the efficiency of various differing sensors.
Assuming cost is removed from the equation, all sensors are created equal, no NR is performed, and everyone had perfect 1,200 ppi vision at 1m, then: Basically, if they have a FF camera with 32MP then as compared to µ4/3 16mp sensor owners, their only disadvantage is that they have to manually crop to get the same FL/SS/Rez advantage. And our only disadvantage is that we µ4/3 users can't get the FF FL image.
If such a camera doesn't exist or money is an issue and/or human vision is limited, then there is obviously a significant FL/SS/Rez advantage for µ4/3 16mp users - given the same lens on the two different cameras.
For 12mp µ4/3 owners just replace 32mp with 24mp for the FF camera.
You and I both said however that it's not useful to consider it in the way they're thinking. While I still generally think so, I suppose it does help to clarify a few of the formula variables - which is always good. I like clarity of thought at least as much as I like clarity of lenses.
wjmeyer wrote:
BUT, sensor technology is always improving and at a much greater rate than new lens designs...
Umm... I am quite unsure about that.
Sensor technology has some hard constraints imposed on it by good old physics. Pixel density is effectively limited by diffraction. Sensitivity (ISO/noise) is limited by the necessity to catch at least a few photons in a sensel. There are graphs of what's theoretically possible given perfect hardware and the current sensors are already getting close. I don't think there's that much headroom left.
