Test: cropped Zuiko 75mm 1.8 better than a good consumer zoom (Lumix 45-150) from 75 to 150mm

Astrotripper wrote:

That shot from 45-150 looks a lot like it suffers from shutter shock. Try to repeat your test at 1/500s and see if you get the same results.

Nevertheless, it's an interesting idea. I'll try this with my 45/1.8 and 40-150 R.

Yes, I will definitely do that tomorrow! (or with the anti-shock)

greg57 wrote:

photofan1986 wrote:

Interesting! I might give my 75 1.8 a try against the Oly 40-150 5.6 and my newly acquired Panasonic 45-175

Please do I'd like to see if these findings can be confirmed or if my tests were botched. Trying tomorrow again with the anti-shock on my side!

I recently did a similar test comparing the 75 f1.8 against the lumix 35-100 f4-5.6.  There was no doubt in my mind that at a comparable 100mm the 75 easily won.  Frankly, I didn't expect otherwise.  So I left the 35-100 at home on a recent vacation.  I do wonder about 150mm however.  That would seem to be a stretch but who knows?

Since my 40-150 R, 75/1.8, and 60/2.8 Macro were sitting nearby, I decided to try a quick practical test to compare. I shot handheld and let ISO and shutter speed fall where they would in actual use with the 75 @ f/2, and 60 @ f/2.8, and the 40-150 @ f/5.6 and 150mm. I then scaled the 75 and 60mm images in photoshop.

I did the raw conversion with my default E-M5 II preset but reduced the sharpening and noise reduction on the 75 and 60mm images to look about what would be acceptable.

On a tripod with low ISO, the 40-150 would look pretty good, but in practice handheld and working quickly on the fly, using the 75 or the 60 and resampling to the same resolution would indeed produce better results.

75/1.8 @ f/2; ISO 2000//40-150/4-5.6 @ f/5.6; ISO 6400//60/2.8 Macro @ f/2.8; ISO 250

Thanks for sharing your test!

Others already mentioned this, I was writing a post earlier but was interrupted...

Looking at the 45-150 shot at 150 it is pretty clear it is suffering from "shutter shock". You can visually see the double images in the numbers on the clock face. The E-M5 definitely can generate shutter shock and the 45-150 is susceptible to it. Shots are at 1/180 which is right in the range of shutter shock causing problems. Setting 1/8 delay can help, but it won't completely remove the problem.

Now this doesn't invalidate the practical question of your test - on your camera at these shutter speeds clearly the 75/1.8 is doing better because it doesn't suffer from shutter shock the way the 45-150 does! But shutter shock probably explains how the 2x resize on the 75 managed to best the 45-150 at 150. That really shouldn't be possible optically in most cases, even as good as the 75/1.8 is.

Since that was a little unfair to the 40-150, I lowered the ISO to the same value (2000), which was also the lowest ISO where I could not get significant motion blur (1/50th second @ 300mm equivalent, which is still pretty good). This is a fair representation of how good the 40-150 can be, I think. Still, the 75 or 60 could extend the shooting envelop by a couple of stops and still get the same IQ with up-sampling, I think.

75/1.8 @ f/2; ISO 2000//40-150/4-5.6 @ f/5.6; ISO 2000//60/2.8 Macro @ f/2.8; ISO 250

Looking at the results from a more controlled test at Photozone { same camera , same methodology}. The 75mm @ F/5.6 peaks at 2786lw/ph while the 45-150 @ F/5.6 and set at 150mm peaks at 2566 lw/ph which while lower than the 75mm { go figure  } however this is nowhere near enough of a difference to get your results.

kenw wrote:

Thanks for sharing your test!

You're welcome!

Others already mentioned this, I was writing a post earlier but was interrupted...

Looking at the 45-150 shot at 150 it is pretty clear it is suffering from "shutter shock". You can visually see the double images in the numbers on the clock face. The E-M5 definitely can generate shutter shock and the 45-150 is susceptible to it. Shots are at 1/180 which is right in the range of shutter shock causing problems. Setting 1/8 delay can help, but it won't completely remove the problem.

Yes that seems to be what happened.

Now this doesn't invalidate the practical question of your test - on your camera at these shutter speeds clearly the 75/1.8 is doing better because it doesn't suffer from shutter shock the way the 45-150 does!

Well yeah in practical terms it's still a valid observation on my em5 at these shutter speeds indeed!

But shutter shock probably explains how the 2x resize on the 75 managed to best the 45-150 at 150. That really shouldn't be possible optically in most cases, even as good as the 75/1.8 is.

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Ken W
See profile for equipment list

jim stirling wrote:

Looking at the results from a more controlled test at Photozone { same camera , same methodology}. The 75mm @ F/5.6 peaks at 2786lw/ph while the 45-150 @ F/5.6 and set at 150mm peaks at 2566 lw/ph which while lower than the 75mm { go figure } however this is nowhere near enough of a difference to get your results.

The point is that you don't need to use the 75 @ f/5.6.  At f/1.8 or f/2, the 75 is even sharper, and for this kind of application, shooting more wide open is very often acceptable and the shooting envelope is widened greatly using the primes.  Holding ISO and shutter speed in check is often even more valuable than resolution.

But, yes, there is something wrong with the OP's zoom results.  They should be much sharper unless there is SS or motion blur occurring.

D Knisely wrote:

jim stirling wrote:

Looking at the results from a more controlled test at Photozone { same camera , same methodology}. The 75mm @ F/5.6 peaks at 2786lw/ph while the 45-150 @ F/5.6 and set at 150mm peaks at 2566 lw/ph which while lower than the 75mm { go figure } however this is nowhere near enough of a difference to get your results.

The point is that you don't need to use the 75 @ f/5.6. At f/1.8 or f/2, the 75 is even sharper, and for this kind of application, shooting more wide open is very often acceptable and the shooting envelope is widened greatly using the primes. Holding ISO and shutter speed in check is often even more valuable than resolution.

This is true however even at its absolute best setting the 75mm simply does not have enough of an advantage to outweigh its shorter focal length. I would be shocked if it was possible especially considering they are both shooting on the same 16mp camera.

Try it indoors with flash. No shutershock then!

Jamesie wrote:

greg57 wrote:

I have just purchased the Olympus 75mm 1.8 and, although I got it brand new for a cheap enough price thanks to grey market imports, it's still £495 and my goal these days is to go for less lenses, of better quality and preferably not spend much money. Thus I might sell my 45mm 1.8, which is now a bit redundant between the 75mm and the long end of the 12-40. I will also probably sell my Panasonic 45-150. However I wanted to check in a kind of "scientific" way wether or not I'll be losing reach by doing so.

The idea basically is that if the 75mm is significantly sharper than the 45-150, I might be able to get similar magnification by cropping pictures and upscaling them.

Let's see how the comparison went (all pictures shot with an om-d e-m5 @ 400 iso).

Conclusion: the 75mm is sometimes criticized as a lens lacking flexibility but these tests prove that it can readily replace a good quality consumer telezoom from 75 to 150mm at least (between 45 and 75mm, I will use crops from the 12-40 )

Conclusion (bis): I am putting my 45-150 on eBay tomorrow

Hiya Greg

I have been thinking of making a similar move myself, shooting with the Lumix G6 and GX7.

My current lens line-up includes:

Oly 45

Lumix 45-150

Lumix 100-300.

I have been thinking about letting the 45-150 go and replacing it with the Oly 75.

The 45-150 performs very well but is restricted in aperture.

I would use the Oly 75 at 16MPX and cropped for a little more reach.

Going to the 75, I would lose OIS, of course, but that is less of a worry with the GX7 and in any case, not that much of a worry at all in general. OIS and IBIS are terrific, but in general shooting, not necessary most of the time.

The fly in the ointment is the Lumix 35-100 -- widely reported on this forum as being of seriously top quality. At f2.8 it offers one stop and a bit less aperture than the 75 and it costs about 50% more but offers a bit more adaptability and has OIS for when I need it.

Sigh! The decisions are all too hard.

I nearly bought the 35-100. I'm sure it's a great lens but I know that if I'd bought it I would have been left still wanting the 75mm. I believe zooms are tools you use to get a job done from moderate to good light. They're flexible and that's great. My 12-40 is a stellar lens and I worship it. I'll be using the 75mm in combination with the 12-40. In practical terms:

• 35-40mm fl is natively covered by the 12-40
• with some acceptable cropping, let's say that the 40-60mm fl range is also covered by the 12-40
• I got the 75mm and it opens up down to 1.8!
• with some acceptable cropping, I'm also nearly covered up to 100mm, and that's with a f/1.8 lens!

So... I'm not actually losing any fl coverage and I have a f/1.8 prime. Since I decided to go 100% micro 4/3, my priority is fast lenses so to actually not to lose too much on other systems

Frasier Krane wrote:

Again, the result of the zoom is clearly much better, and it always will be unless there's something wrong with the test or the lens.

Comments?

Thanks for doing this testing and sharing. Despite being different lenses it demonstrates exactly the results we'd expect from any test between a "excellent" prime and a "decent" zoom in which the zoom has a 2x optical advantage. There is just no way to expect the cropped prime to keep up unless there is something horribly wrong with the shot from the zoom. Now, if you try the same thing with a really crappy zoom sure you might get the excellent prime to get close or keep up - but neither the 45-150 nor the 45-175 are crappy zooms, they are quite good actually though both can suffer problems in certain cases...

In this case as already mentioned earlier in the thread it seems pretty certain the 45-150 shots were suffering from shutter shock and that's why the OP's results look like they do. Having shot with an E-M5 for a number of years I can attest to its ability to absolutely destroy the image quality of lenses susceptible to shutter shock when shot at exactly the "wrong" shutter speed! It is a real frustration shooting with that body and I am so happy to now be shooting with the E-M5II that has ways to completely alleviate the problem.

Sounds like the OP was going to retest at some point at higher shutter speeds and I suspect at that point his results will look very similar to yours.

Thanks again for taking the time to do testing and share the results!
--
Ken W
See profile for equipment list

greg57 wrote:

.... when you look at the the 100% side by side comparison, there is close to no texture showing on the bricks at all and no amount of sharpening could possibly change this:

vs

Ah, this view gives it away. The second image has shutter shock IMO. See how the curly bits of the '9' appear to have a ghost? That's vertical displacement. Shutter shock manifests as one-directional ghosting of exactly this sort.

So I looked at your original-size 100% view, and can confirm that the vertical ghost is evident all over the clock. The more-horizontal hour hand appears more blurred than the more-vertical minute hand. Even the bricks, their vertical edges are sharper than their horizontal edges.

Well done to Robiro for mentioning this.