My only complaint is that the hood seems hard to find! Weather sealed and a focus distance switch just makes it perfect. Hardly any LOCA or CA even in high contrast metal surfaces.

Will be adding a ringlight kit to my bag in the near future and really see what this thing can do.

Pentax can’t make a full frame camera that everyone wants.

Sony Alpha can’t not have a light robbing possibly sharpness reducing SLT mirror.

Sony NEX has shitty corners in their flagship camera for WA lenses. Sony has only made 1 great lens, ONE for the whole damn system… so far.

MFT is being championed by a JENGA teetering colonoscopy company.

Canon forgot how sensors are made.

Nikon can’t seem to work out bugs before releasing a camera (D600 dust, D800 focus, etc) that has a too strong AA filter.

Leica can’t even update a damn LCD screen on a new camera. It will come in new colors and stupid luxury brand tie in editions though. Great.

Samsung, seriously they make cameras now?

Ricoh, where’s our 16mpx M module? It’ll probably arrive when everyone else has moved to 24mpx and that is the new normal. Also, update the damn EVF.

Fuji, amazing ideas, incredible bodies, horrible execution.

Sigma, hire some software engineers and stop turning every file into an over sharpened mess by default.

I think that about covers it.

I used the Panasonic Leica 25mm F1.4 and M.Zuiko Olympus 9-18mm here.

Inside Grand Central Station.

From a friend’s rooftop.

The Chrysler Building

This lens came with the OM-2N I purchased. Serial is 291952. I believe you can find these lenses for under $100, there appears to be several variants of this lens on OM mount. This is an early version without multi-coating.

I shot it using a NEX-7. It has very interesting rendering characteristics over the normal Zeiss lenses I’m used to. It has much less of a heavy touch in terms of global contrast and it has smoother bokeh.

Read below for a ton of photos and impressions.

UPDATE: I’ve replaced most of the post processed images at F1.4 with similar lighter processing from the stopped down images.

At F1.4 there is quite a bit of spherical aberrations and is generally soft with a bit of haze. There appears to be more resolution for distant to infinity objects at this aperture. If you were going to take my portrait, I would want it at this aperture since it gives a sort of dreamy feel and not every nuance of imperfection on my face would be revealed. The bokeh is a bit crazy with hard rings. There is also a strong amount of chromatic aberrations on dark light edge borders.

At F2, the bokeh calms down a bit from F1.4 and smooths out. It looks almost eggy. The aberrations also are dramatically reduced at this aperture and things start looking a bit sharper and more resolved. Highlight bokeh on the borders start becoming a bit shaped.

At F2.8, additional sharpness and resolution is added. The borders also sharpen up quite a bit more.

At F4, we start seeing the optimal peak of this lens. It’s quite sharp across the frame and when you can induce bokeh, it’s not bad.

At F5.6, we see more of the same.

At F8, we start seeing the effects of diffraction on the NEX-7.

Overall, it’s a quite a different lens than a Zeiss normal but it’s just as nicely made. It takes a lighter hand in global contrast but starting at F2.8, we see a healthy amount of micro-contrast. It’s also physically very small which is a nice bonus when using it with a small mirrorless camera.

It’s hard to believe this lens costs so little. I’ll be exploring more of the OM line as I think they’re very undervalued. It does seem to perform better at infinity to far distances than closer up. On a full frame camera that can take an OM lens (I believe just Canon), this thing will punch way above it’s price class.

The F1.4 and F2 settings lend themselves well to a dreamy look that you can take advantage in post if you want to apply a lot of effects.

All vignetting was added in post. Perhaps it’s greatest weakness is that the bokeh circles are almost never perfectly circular in specular highlights. It has a mostly neutral color profile with it leaning towards warmer tones.

All the color shifts are from post.

There is no significant color change when stepping down.

F1.4

F2

F1.4

F2

F1.4

F2.8

F1.4

F2

F1.4

F2

F1.4

F2

F1.4

F2

F1.4

F2

F2.8

F1.4

F2

• Super-Angulon 14 mm/2.0 wide angle lens (10 lenses with 4 aspherical surfaces, 1:10 to ∞)
• Xenon 30 mm/1.4 universal lens (7 elements with 1 aspheric surface, 1:10 to ∞)
• Macro-Symmar 60 mm/2.4 highly open Macro Lens (8 lenses, scale 1:2 to ∞)

Too bad they’re not till Q3 and Q4, NEXT YEAR!

Keep in mind that the Schneider macro is 1:1 in 35mm terms because it’s MFT.

These are all AUTOFOCUS.

Looks like I might be selling my PL25 F1.4 for the 30mm if it proves amazing.

This is the Google Translate from German:

[quote]BAD KREUZNACH, 17 September 2012
at Photokina in Cologne has Schneider-Kreuznach announced its new series of lenses for mirrorless system cameras of the Micro Four Thirds standard. For the third quarter of 2013, the first objective of the series will be commercially available: the 14-mm wide-angle.

In the fourth quarter of 2013, followed by a 30-mm universal lens and a 60-mm macro-variant. “We are pleased with the very strong interest in our MFT commitment,” says Harald Barth, head photo by Schneider-Kreuznach.

The new lens series offers ambitious users mirror-less system cameras with high precision and powerful high-end optics – Made in Germany. The lenses have a high speed and very high resolution over the entire image field. The use of aspherical lenses to correct promises perfect results without image correction camera side. The compact lenses are technically the same standard, with even full-frame lenses are manufactured in Bad Kreuznach.

An electronic interface between the lens and the camera makes it possible to use the aperture control and accurate autofocus and the image enhancement of the camera. The high quality aluminum housing, the robust mechanics and the hydrophobic coating of the outer lenses provide protection from dust and water. The new optical design with high-index lenses special is optimized for the characteristics of the mirror-less system cameras.
[/quote]

This time, I just took my OM-D.

An interesting observation is that at least up to 2000×2000, I can’t tell much of a difference in quality between the Panasonic 14-45mm and the modern 4/3rd Olympus ZD 50mm F2 Macro for this distance. Of course the Olympus can go to 1:1 (in 35mm terms) which is much closer but 14-45mm… I mean I can’t complain about the resolution.

If Olympus comes out with a F1.4 or F1.2 16mm that is amazing, I’m not sure how I can justify keeping my NEX-7 ZA 24mm combo.

Now some with the Oly 50mm ZD F2 Macro

Hey and a Sub shot.

It looks like it’s going to be a mostly metal weather sealed FULL FRAME camera slightly bigger than a D7000. Packing a 24mpx Sony FF sensor, my bets are that it’s going to be a low light high ISO monster with very good dynamic range. In my head, I’m imaging what if they took the NEX-7 sensor, iterated it a generation and then stretched it over a much larger surface.

It doesn’t appear Canon will have anything to go up against it and the closest competitor will be the Sony A99 using the same sensor but hamstrung by an SLT mirror. Reports seem to indicate that the A99 will not have on sensor PDAF like the new NEX cameras do.

While I personally prefer an EVF now to an OVF, I can’t help but think that Nikon has been hitting on all cylinders with excellent new budget full frame lenses (G 50mm 1.8, G 85mm 1.8, G 60mm 2.8 Micro) and if the D600 comes in at $2000 like it’s rumored to they’re going to just dominate.

I haven’t been this excited over a camera with a mirror in so long.

Gear Patrol RX100

Review and comparison coming soon. I’ll be comparing it to a NEX-7 and NEX-C3 and Olympus OM-D E-M5.

Barrows