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14-35mm f/2.0 full-size sample with spectacular detail

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philosomatographer

philosomatographer

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Thumbnail of full-size image. 25mm, f/4.0, Olympus E-5.

Thumbnail of full-size image. 25mm, f/4.0, Olympus E-5.

Download the full 7MB JPEG image here.

Having recently finally found a 14-35 to round out my 7-14 and 35-100 (SHG) lens range, I have to say that the 14-35 is so good it's ridiculous. I wanted to share the above image (which has just about no artistic merit) to share this - it's a simple RAW conversion (using RawTherapee on Arch Linux).

Does any of the full-frame trolls on this forum care to post a sample from your favourite 24-70 / 28-70 at f/4.0 that competes? ;-)

At f/2.0, performance almost does not drop at all compared to f/4.0, it's simply a perfect lens - a true vindication to Olympus' vision for this system compared to non-telecentric lenses. I also appreciate the handling and instantaneous, silent focusing of this lens over and above the 7-14 and 35-100, it's lovely to use and behold. A perfect balance on the E-5 body.
 
But there is some very weird like pixel sharpening going on. Or is it just pure noise? No, these pixels are damaged. Just look into the shadows, or anything darker than off white.

Here is 100% crop of what I am talking about. My first impression was that you took several images with the phone cam and then stitched them all together. It's that familiar,




148793284.TWcWnwYq.full_size__l_crop.jpg


Seriously, I just do not see this kind of stuff coming from dSLRs these days.







--
-sergey
 
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Where do you see it Sergey? I see nothing of sorts at 100%. Looks very clean, crisp detail, good transitions, amazingly sharp.
 
Too bad you so extremely over-sharpened the image; sort of defeats your point.
 
pris said:
pris wrote:

Where do you see it Sergey? I see nothing of sorts at 100%. Looks very clean, crisp detail, good transitions, amazingly sharp.
Click to expand...
If you can't see something wrong with those pixels, there's something wrong.




Its riddled with artifacting. Its got a texture in the shadows that really does look like a noise layer has been superimposed in photoshop via an opacity layer, and even the power lines have something strange going on ... look at the left hand third, it looks as if there are segments MISSING in what should be continuous wires crossing the screen!!

Smacks of the same processing Marin applies to his images, they initially look sharp, but on examination, you start to see its gone WAY over the top, and all sort of artificiality creeps in.
 
I grabbed the 14-35 refurbished from Oly when the price dropped to $1161 cdn for a couple of days prior to Christmas.

It blows my mind. So nice.

These are OOC jpegs, so Sergy, please tell me what is wrong with these. I know there not full from images so they have no merit. They are just some studio flash gun tests.

I also included a shot at 70mm, heavily cropped and processed, showing Jupiter and 3 or 4 of its moons.















 

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Big Ga said:
Big Ga wrote:
Big Ga said:
pris wrote:

Where do you see it Sergey? I see nothing of sorts at 100%. Looks very clean, crisp detail, good transitions, amazingly sharp.
Click to expand...
If you can't see something wrong with those pixels, there's something wrong.

Its riddled with artifacting. Its got a texture in the shadows that really does look like a noise layer has been superimposed in photoshop via an opacity layer, and even the power lines have something strange going on ... look at the left hand third, it looks as if there are segments MISSING in what should be continuous wires crossing the screen!!

Smacks of the same processing Marin applies to his images, they initially look sharp, but on examination, you start to see its gone WAY over the top, and all sort of artificiality creeps in.
Click to expand...
if he posted the image unprocessed then it would be a better indication of what is actually going on.
 
GBC said:
GBC wrote:

I grabbed the 14-35 refurbished from Oly when the price dropped to $1161 cdn for a couple of days prior to Christmas.
It blows my mind. So nice.
These are OOC jpegs, so Sergy, please tell me what is wrong with these. I know there not full from images so they have no merit. They are just some studio flash gun tests.
I also included a shot at 70mm, heavily cropped and processed, showing Jupiter and 3 or 4 of its moons.





Click to expand...
Sergey was commentating on the OP's image which is full of artefacts, there is a big difference between the I.Q. of the different sets of images shown. He wasn't criticising the lens.





--
The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.
 
Yup, I see what you mean. Looks like oversharpening to me. I don't believe that's how it comes out of the camera, if you pull back sharpening a bit or use better sharpening technique it should go away
 
If I added any sharpening (Unsharp mask) there would be halos or "ringing" around edge boundaries, and my image has none of the sort. I added no sharpening to this image, but also *no noise reduction*, something that all commercial RAW developers do, whether you select it or not.

Only by using a very tunable open-source demosaicing engine, and doing absolutely no noise reduction (including no impulse noise reduction, which gets rid of the noisy pixels present in ALL digital images) can one show the true resolution of the lens, which you have to admit is impressive.

What you are looking at, my friends, is the RAW and naked truth of bayer-pattern image sensors, which can never resolve single-pixel detail perfectly. On most other cameras, you would see a smoother, blurry electric wire. The resolution is so high here, that it literally causes problems to the demosaicing engine, hence the slight discontinuity. I could have posted a perfect, smooth, 10MP downsampled image instead, but chose to show what the lens - and only the lens - can do.

If I processed this image in any other way, the clear rendition in, for example the grass, could not be done as finely as this. I did not post this image to be a smooth, noise-reduced, plasticky digital image. I posted it to illustrate the power of this lens.

I am amazed how some people can mistake the *lack* of any processing for sharpening. Sharpening can be spotted a mile away.
 
Hello philosomatographer,


Did you use amaze, or an alternative algorithm? Also, have you experimented with or found any optimum values for green equilibration?

Best wishes,
 
Yes, I use the amaze algorithm. I have not found any general optimums yet, as such - most default settings work well for me. It's only great at low ISO, as it really brings out the noise - but also the true captured detail, without moiré aliasing - fantastic for printed landscapes.
 
Sharp is indeed the word. So much detail in that photo. It appears we've both recently joined the zuiko trinity club!
 
Yes that is a wonderful lens and almost to sharp for my liking as a wedding lens but still want it <grin>

I can't help but notice how quick some are to jump on a thread to tell someone what is wrong with an image but I never see these same people jumping on threads to say how nice an image is or how sharp a certain lens is. These folks are some of the most technically savvy people on this board, and wonderful photographers who's points are usually accurate.

I guess some folks are just more drawn to post technical flaws then they are compliments and yes they are at times helpful to me in noticing things I would not have noticed otherwise. Guess it's just human nature, some half full, others half empty. I must admit that I learn things from the pixel peepers that I otherwise would not have known.

In the above image I would not have thought to blow it up and examine it to look and see if the OP was being truthfull so at times it's almost as if some are looking for things to critisize. Still another glaring point I can't help but notice, is that these people are usually CaNikon shooters but I'm certain that doesn't affect their objectivity. (Sarcasm)
 
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Very true words - thank you for your reply...

Here is the irony - no amount of sharpening or processing can create detail - it's either there, or it's not.
 
Darrell,

if you are familiar at all with my posting history, equipment I use and what I think of Olympus cameras and lenses, you are likely to agree it would be highly ironic to designate me as a troll. In this particular case however, the image was posted with invitation to analyze the IQ, with comment of no artistic value to it - and yes, I do see artifacts in particular areas that do look like effect of oversharpening. I've no idea where they came from, I don't have anything like that on my E-5 files. I'll leave it to others to find the reason - but in this particular file they ARE there.
 
Darrell500 said:
Darrell500 wrote:

Yes that is a wonderful lens and almost to sharp for my liking as a wedding lens but still want it <grin>

I can't help but notice how quick some are to jump on a thread to tell someone what is wrong with an image but I never see these same people jumping on threads to say how nice an image is or how sharp a certain lens is. These folks are some of the most technically savvy people on this board, and wonderful photographers who's points are usually accurate.

I guess some folks are just more drawn to post technical flaws then they are compliments and yes they are at times helpful to me in noticing things I would not have noticed otherwise. Guess it's just human nature, some half full, others half empty. I must admit that I learn things from the pixel peepers that I otherwise would not have known.

In the above image I would not have thought to blow it up and examine it to look and see if the OP was being truthfull so at times it's almost as if some are looking for things to critisize. Still another glaring point I can't help but notice, is that these people are usually CaNikon shooters but I'm certain that doesn't affect their objectivity. (Sarcasm)
Click to expand...
 
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