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My 12-40 F2.8 has arrived...

etrigan63

Active member
My heart bleeds for you. We have six months of rain and winds and grey skies in front of us. So Exhilirating :ROTFL:
True that my winter clothes only see action when I travel, Jim and I have to travel to see fall colors. Down here, the leaves fall all year in tiny bits and are blown away or mulched by the lawnmower.

This isn't helping me, is it?
 

tashley

Subscriber Member
A little update people... I shot a full aperture series this morning along with quite a few other frames and I urge you: if you have an EM-1, run to the nearest dealer with stock and buy this lens. Pawn your children, sell the car, cash in your pension. And if you don't have an EM-1, buy one and then buy the lens. It is a good lens.

I will be writing this all up soon-ish.
 

iiiNelson

Well-known member
Hmm. I keep jonesing for that Panasonic-Leica Macro-Elmarit 45/2.8. I think I'll fit the Summicron-R 50/2 for my walk today and see what I see with it.

G
The 45 Macro was one of my favorite three M 4/3 lenses when I owned it. The Olympus 12-40 looks like a winner for most as well.
 

dhazeghi

New member
Any comments on close-focus performance? Will this work as a poor-man's (!) macro for things like flowers? Thanks!
 

scott kirkpatrick

Well-known member
Re: Tim Ashley's top score for the 12-40 "pro" 2.8 M.Zuiko

Olympus has made really first-rate zooms for some time. I picked up an 11-22 plain 4/3 Zuiko f/2.8-3.5 to use with the new Pen and E-M1. It cost less than half of the cost of the new lens. I showed some images from the 11-22 at all focal lengths over in the E-M1 thread, and they are just as sharp and contrasty as I remembered, definitely up to the requirements of 16 Sony megapixels. Focusing on a Pen is awkward, however; I hope the E-M1 fixes this.

In response to the last two posts, I checked close focusing. The 11-22 focuses down to .25 meters, which leaves the lens shade a few inches away from the object being focused on. At 22 mm I saw no distortion, but at 11 mm there was a considerable amount of barrel distortion. For flowers, this would probably not matter, but for copying there are better solutions.

scott
 

k-hawinkler

Well-known member
I have just published the review and have added a brief word on macro just for you ;-)
Many thanks Tim. I didn't know you could write so enthusiastically! :)
I am looking forward to my copy of the lens whenever it will arrive.
Hopefully soon. Until then I will do with some Leica glass. :rolleyes:

Tim Ashley Photography | Olympus 12-40mm F2.8 Pro M.Zuiko Review: "The Hammer"

There has to be quite some processing going on in the E-M1 with that lens.
Fine with me. I could also attach that lens to E-M5 and E-P2 and look for differences.
Interesting could also be how that lens does on a non-Olympus camera.
That should shine some light on the E-M1 in-camera processing as well, I would think.
 
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Annna T

Active member
Many thanks Tim. I didn't know you could write so enthusiastically! :)
I am looking forward to my copy of the lens whenever it will arrive.
Hopefully soon. Until then I will do with some Leica glass. :rolleyes:

Tim Ashley Photography | Olympus 12-40mm F2.8 Pro M.Zuiko Review: "The Hammer"

There has to be quite some processing going on in the E-M1 with that lens.
Fine with me. I could also attach that lens to E-M5 and E-P2 and look for differences.
Interesting could also be how that lens does on a non-Olympus camera.
That should shine some light on the E-M1 in-camera processing as well, I would think.
Hopefully, Olympus will offer a firmware update for older bodies like the E-M5 and E-P5 to make them fully compatible with the new zoom.
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
Re: Tim Ashley's top score for the 12-40 "pro" 2.8 M.Zuiko

Olympus has made really first-rate zooms for some time. I picked up an 11-22 plain 4/3 Zuiko f/2.8-3.5 to use with the new Pen and E-M1. It cost less than half of the cost of the new lens. I showed some images from the 11-22 at all focal lengths over in the E-M1 thread, and they are just as sharp and contrasty as I remembered, definitely up to the requirements of 16 Sony megapixels. Focusing on a Pen is awkward, however; I hope the E-M1 fixes this.

In response to the last two posts, I checked close focusing. The 11-22 focuses down to .25 meters, which leaves the lens shade a few inches away from the object being focused on. At 22 mm I saw no distortion, but at 11 mm there was a considerable amount of barrel distortion. For flowers, this would probably not matter, but for copying there are better solutions.
The 11-22 is one of my all-time favorite lenses, bar none. It's not intended for flat art copy work so corrections in the near field are likely not optimized there. The rectilinear distortion at 11mm was measured at 3% for architectural uses and goes to near 0% by 15-16mm.

If you want flat art copy, a 35 Macro or 50 macro is designed for that. The 35 Macro also has a bit of barrel distortion (more than the 11-22 in general), the 50 Macro has almost none.

The good news is that both the 11-22 and 35 Macro barrel distortion at close range is simple, entirely spherical in nature and is very very easy to remove in post processing if you're doing critical work. Olympus image processing software contained corrections and did it for you automatically in the past if you wanted to use it. The E-M1 is supposed to have all the image processing corrections for all Olympus FT and mFT lenses built into it, so you may not see any of it with either lens using the E-M1 ...

Hmm. Time for another test. ;-)

G
 

tashley

Subscriber Member
Many thanks Tim. I didn't know you could write so enthusiastically! :)
Thanks Karl Heinz - it came as a surprise to me too!

Regarding processing in-camera, I think there is possibly a little bit of sharpness falloff correction going on even to the RAW file. Quite subtle and it might not even be there but in one or two files I felt there might be a touch more noise towards the edges. I will be looking into this more when I review the EM-1 itself...
 

k-hawinkler

Well-known member
Thanks Karl Heinz - it came as a surprise to me too!

Regarding processing in-camera, I think there is possibly a little bit of sharpness falloff correction going on even to the RAW file. Quite subtle and it might not even be there but in one or two files I felt there might be a touch more noise towards the edges. I will be looking into this more when I review the EM-1 itself...
That could well be.
Also you observed a total lack of chromatic aberration.
That's easily and much cheaper corrected in firmware/software than through better but costly optical means IMHO.

For example Nikon didn't bother with correcting CA in their new 80-400 mm lens.
My copy shows quite a bit in typical situations but is easily correctable.
It was fun though shooting hummingbirds with that lens on my E-M5 manually.
On my D800E the new 80-400 mm lens focuses and tracks hummingbirds extremely well after Nikon successfully repaired the left autofocus issue. That combination now only needs a +1 micro focus adjustment.
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
Thanks Karl Heinz - it came as a surprise to me too!

Regarding processing in-camera, I think there is possibly a little bit of sharpness falloff correction going on even to the RAW file. Quite subtle and it might not even be there but in one or two files I felt there might be a touch more noise towards the edges. I will be looking into this more when I review the EM-1 itself...
My curiosity was piqued. I set up the E-1 on a tripod, leveled it, and targeted the vertical blinds in my office at 5' 5" distance. I set the camera to +1 exposure on A mode, ISO 100, f/3.5, and AWB. In sequence, I fitted the 11-22 and made exposures at 22, 18, 14, and 11mm, then the 35 Macro, then the 25mm f/2.8. With each exposure, I forced the camera to refocus. I repeated the same settings and capture sequence with the E-M1.

Some interesting results looking at the .ORF files in Lightroom 5.2:

A - Regards the rectilinear correction, at least using Lightroom to look at the files, they are virtually identical between the two cameras. Whether there is a difference in the JPEGs I didn't look as I forgot to set the E-M1 to capture JPEG+raw.. doh!

B - The AWB from the two cameras returns very different results! The E-M1 did not filter our the somewhat greenish cast from the windows, the E-1 corrected that out to a neutral color. Very interesting.

C - The sharpness and detailing across the field with both the 11-22 and the 35 Macro seems almost identical, up to the limit of the 5Mpixel E-1's resolution limits. The 25mm, however, appears to image with more sharpness at corners and edges with the E-M1 compared to its performance on the E-1.

D - Some later CA was apparent with all of the three lenses and exposures. Turning on Lightroom's "remove chromatic aberration" correction manually removed it entirely. No fringing was apparent.

I opened the files in Olympus Viewer 3 as well. Geometric correction looks the same. The white balance difference is apparent there as well, and to the same degree. So is the*apparent sharpness difference with the 25mm lens. The chromatic aberration seemed less apparent.

I'm not expert in Viewer 3 as yet so I don't know if I enabled the correction filtering properly. Really should read the help for it...

That's all I have time for today, but it is very interesting to see how similar (and how different!) results using the very same lenses on the E-1 and E-M1 can be.

fun fun fun,
G
 

mazor

New member
ooo exciting!! I am waiting for the kit Em1 with 12-40mm. Show us some hand held low light images!
 

mmbma

Active member
Will this make you give up your MFT primes? I already more lenses I can use but want a zoom.. but then I fear the zoom will make me give up on the primes I love...
 

mazor

New member
I know for me there is a place for zooms and a place for primes. Sometimes having a good quality zoom ,can be real handy when on the run, or travelling where changing lens all the time may not be appropriate. If I just want to carry a camera on me on an relaxing outing, a prime is preferable as it is usually smaller, and has faster apertures, which allows broader creativity.
 

Brian Mosley

New member
It's a good question... especially if you already have a good range of prime lenses, but the flexibility, build quality and weather seals make it the pro kit lens to go with the E-M1, simple, no nonsense performance.

Very desirable!

Brian
 

aragdog

New member
A couple of weeks ago I had the use of the 12-40 demo with the Em-1. The light was very flat and took 49 photos. I wish there was more contrast and if I could figure how to put these up in full I would. I am a Nikon 800E user but a trip to DisneyWorld with Granddaughter ended me as an old man. It was like boot camp, so I now have the Em-1 and will use the Nikon sparingly. I love the camera and will await the new lens.
 

mazor

New member
A couple of weeks ago I had the use of the 12-40 demo with the Em-1. The light was very flat and took 49 photos. I wish there was more contrast and if I could figure how to put these up in full I would. I am a Nikon 800E user but a trip to DisneyWorld with Granddaughter ended me as an old man. It was like boot camp, so I now have the Em-1 and will use the Nikon sparingly. I love the camera and will await the new lens.
think keep D800e for the studio and portraits, and the OMD for anything to do with daily travel ;)
 
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