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Fun with the Lumix/Leica 45 macro

jonoslack

Active member
HI There
I've been asked to post some pictures and give some thoughts - I've only had it for a few hours myself, but it seemed that as we have a thread for the 20, it'd be worth starting a thread for this lens too.

I'll try and get a gallery up later on today (unfortunately I've got some work to do as well). In the meantime, some preliminary thoughts.

Sharpness
It seems to be excellent - I'm not shooting charts though, but at the very worst I would have thought that it was right up there with most macros of that focal length. I guess my yardstick here would be the 4/3 Zuiko 50, which may have the slowest focusing mechanism in the world, but was wickedly sharp. It's too early to know whether it's that sharp.

Focusing
Hmm - well, on full range it can sometimes struggle to deal with close objects until it's 'got it', then it's pretty good. Manual focusing works well, but there seems to be a very VERY long focusing throw - especially when you're trying to get back from infinity! Of course, there may be tricks to learn here.
If you set it on the limit (0.5m to infinity) then it seems to be quick and sure (allowing for the slow old focusing on the EP-1). Nobody around here wants their picture taken, but I think it'll make it into an able portrait lens.

Bokeh
This is where the lovely old Zuiko let itself down - barbed wire bokeh it always seemed like to me. Having said that, I don't think I know any lens which never produces nasty bokeh. No worries like that here though, out of a couple of hundred shots taken yesterday, some were quite lovely, and all seemed reasonably good.

General Thoughts
Well, the build quality is panasonic standard - which is pretty good (i.e. like the 20 f1.7). The manual focus ring is wide, and possibly a little too firm, but the real point about this lens is that it's really small. Hardly any bigger than the Oly kit lens, and it easily fits in the slimmest coat pocket.
The depth of field can be remarkably small - it always makes me laugh when people write off 4/3 because of lack of DOF 'control'. Using full frame a lot these days my personal feeling is that 4/3 represents the 'sweet spot' unless you're trying to do nose out of focus portraits. (which would probably be possible with this lens anyway).

I was wondering about the whole concept of macro on a m4/3 camera (I don't believe that telephoto works that well on these little cameras) - but I've been pleasantly surprised.

To be honest, I haven't been looking for problems, and so it would be surprising if I'd found any - and my reservation with respect to getting to focus from distance to close may be due to the EP-1 body rather than the lens. Or, indeed, due to my incompetence!

Seems to me that for the prime devotee, this lens, together with the 20 f1.7 and a 10 or 12mm f2.8 would make a lovely and pocketable kit.

I'll put up a few shots in the next post, forgive me that they aren't all wonderful - I was trying to show a variation rather than wowing you with my (undoubted) photographic talent :ROTFL:

Everybody please join in - I assumed everybody already had this lens, so I'm a bit surprised to have got in at the top.
 

jonoslack

Active member
I think it's de-rigour to do a pet shot first - so here is dixie, who is no longer a spring chicken (14)
she can still move around pretty quick though, so the AF kept up here


Now a couple of 'distance' shots - I think that this lens has to work as a medium telephoto as well as a macro to earn it's keep:

Looking for Blue!


Now for a couple of Redgrave Church:





This shot shows an impossible bokeh situation - but I think it's handled it with some gracefulness (of course, it's all rather subjective)



More in the next post
 

jonoslack

Active member
Now for some more standard outside stuff - mostly trying to look at the Bokeh and detail:

Here's another tricky shot, which I took deliberately to try and provoke something nasty


Stuck Ladybird (you can't hide from this lens!)


Old fence post (this shows you how small the DOF can be)


Ivy on the Gravestone


a couple more bokeh shots - showing how nice it can look in normal circumstances:





I think this one begins to give an idea of the detail that's going to be possible



Some indoor shots in the next post
 

jonoslack

Active member
Finally some pictures in the kitchen

Pepper and sunlight



Glasses (Emma will kill me for not washing and polishing them properly first!)


I have a felt phobia (can't touch the stuff), so I don't know how these felt flowers got into the house . . . it makes my hackles rise just looking at this brrrrrrr



I haven't got the point of focus quite right on this, but I liked it anyway



All of these were shot RAW, and processed in LR3 beta - not really my choice of converter. They were then output to jpg. Processing was minimal, and none of them was cropped more than a very small amount (for compositional purposes).

Again - they were an attempt to give an honest impression of what the lens could do, and not to say anything about my patchy photography:)

Also worth mentioning that all of these were hand held with IS on (I'm not going to use a tripod with a m4/3 camera . . . EVER!)
 
L

Lupo

Guest
Thank you, lots of great pictures :thumbs:

very much stuff we like to see! :clap:
 

Brian Mosley

New member
What's missing for me with this lens, is a balance between enough super sharp foreground detail, contrasting with super smooth out of focus background... I'll be watching intently for more examples Jono, you're doing a great job!

Thank you :salute:

Cheers

Brian
 

Amin

Active member
:thumbs:

Thanks Jono! These are the best examples I've seen yet from this lens. The "test chart" performance at DPR was disappointing, but it isn't surprising to see this lens perform in your hands.
 

Terry

New member
Good morning Jono.
Thanks for posting these. I have the lens on pre-order and I just couldn't bring myself to cancel the pre-order at Amazon. Glad I didn't do it. I think it will work out just grandly for me and how I want to use it. A fast portrait lens is still very welcome but I think I can manage with this and my 50 lux and a 40 f1.8
Now I just wish Panny.com would get this lens in before Amazon as through my company we get great deals and the price difference is HUGE.
 

Diane B

New member
Thanks Jono. Think you hit all the types of shooting I would expect with this and it did pretty well. I checked all the EXIF and was surprised to see you only shot 2 wide open--a lot at f/3.2 and 5.0. Looks quite good to me. Now--if we ever get it here I'll have to make a decision.
 

pellicle

New member
Jono

echoing everyone's thanks I'd like to ask how you felt about the IOS on this lens assisting hand held. I'm commonly using my macro lenses at about f16 and so IOS would seem to be a great asset when in close (even if the AutoFocus isn't) and shooting at 10th of a sec
 

Joan

New member
Jono, want to add my thanks here, too. Very much appreciate your thoughts and all the examples. :thumbup: Please post more as you go along with this lens. By the time I've managed to save up for this one, it's possible that the projected Olympus m4/3 50 macro will be out to compare it to, LOL. (2011, right?)
 

pellicle

New member
Ohh

say ... can you enable the LENS IOS in your PEN? I have read that you can have one or the other ... if you wouldn't mind could you test with the lens based IOS if the Pen can drive that (I have a G1 mate ; - )
 
L

Linh

Guest
Looks very promising. The only downside I see right now is the price tag. I could do w/o the Leica name and macro, but given it's the only ~45mm prime that is likely to be around for the next couple of years, I may not have a choice.

Here's a random question, is the AF loud? Or a better question, have you tried it in video mode? I know it's not meant to be used for it, but since we have it, I like to play with it.
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Jono this shot here looks like a 35 cron Version IV when it gets a little wonky looking. I agree a tough bokeh test shot here, otherwise it looks pretty good.
 
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