jlehet wrote:
The 50/2 has a somewhat wacky aperture calibration. It doesn't track the other two lenses. It gets more off as the lenses are stopped down. So the Loxia at f5.6 in this scene (center focus of house) is 1/200 sec, while the OM 50/2 is 1/500. Both with the same EV setting. The OM 50 1.4 is closer to the Loxia.
Huh, that's weird. I wouldn't be surprised if there was some difference at f/5.6, even if you were going it right and using spot metering on a specific point - 0.33-0.66 stop less transmission for older lenses than modern is pretty common, just older, less efficient coatings. But a stop and a third is pretty weird.
Yeah, I found it surprising. But same scene, same focal length, on the tripod so same field of view, and going through the stops click by click. The Loxia I might suspect might alter the exposure due to some camera calibration firmware voodoo -- I don't know. But the OM 50 1.4 tracked the loxia, both off from the OM 50/2.
By the way, that frozen waterfall image back a few days that I said was the OM 24 2.8 was in fact not that lens. I will post some from that lens, which as I have said came out brilliantly in that situation.
This is through the OM 50 1.4, probably at f2 or 2.8. This statue was over the crackers and cheese at an opening in which my work was featured. The opening was dreamlike; I was a bit overwhelmed, I photographed as a nervous habit.
Then the next morning, drinking coffee at the bar of the cafe in Boston's Museum of Fine Arts also Zuiko OM 50 1.4, maybe f2.8. Such a wonderful, lightweight, versatile, inexpensive lens.
Still testing the 50/2, lately mostly as a macro. At close distances I haven't been able to get particularly bad bokeh stopped down -- I guess that is more of a mid/distant thing with this lens. However at f2.8 I saw this yesterday: the bokeh balls go to gear shaped at just that aperture:
This is like the Bokina at f4 but a little weirder. Often one stop down and the bokeh gets a little better, in general, and flaws don't show up this soon.
I don't have any OM Zuiko glass left as I went autofocus for ease of use, but it's awesome to see this thread continue on. When I started it I didn't think it would have this level of longevity.
Yesterday I continued my comparison of the OM 50/2 macro against other lenses: the OM 90/2 and also the OM 50 1.4 MC with the Olympus MCON-35 close focus lens on it.
In that run of images I definitely saw that by f5.6 the 50/2 can start to get a bit ugly. The bokeh is nicest toward wide open. And of course the 90/2 is hard to beat, period. The 50 1.4 with the close-focus lens was interesting. Not very versatile without fiddling, as the front lens has to be removed unless it is really close. That lens is almost the opposite of the 50/2, in terms of bokeh/aperture. The 50 1.4 has potentially wild/funky bokeh at 1.4, also iffy at f2, but it gets better and stays smooth when stopped down beyond that -- while the 50/2 is nice at f2. Both are good at f2.8, though a bit different. These rules aren't very strict though: the 50 1.4 can have good bokeh at 1.4 and 2 -- only sometimes does it get wild. And the 50/2 might be smooth even at f8 -- it only gets ugly when there is a lot of contrast/detail when stopped down.
If one were willing to keep both these OM 50s in a bag along with the MCON-35 and swap between them and fiddle based on knowledge of what would work where, it could be a really nice 50 + macro, but I'm not so sure I would go there on an ongoing basis.
dthrog00 wrote:
I don't have any OM Zuiko glass left as I went autofocus for ease of use, but it's awesome to see this thread continue on. When I started it I didn't think it would have this level of longevity.
