Am I wrong on Panny 14-45?

14-45 is my first M43 lens which was bought with G1 back in early 2009. It had delivered very consistent result so far on various generation of bodies from G1, GF3, GX1, GX7 and GX85. Fast and accurate AF, IQ never raise alarm bell, unlike the low light wired performance of 12-32, it is an all round player... After upgraded to 12-35 f/2.8, it is generally stayed inside the auto dry cabinet.

IMHO it should be one of my best standard zoom lenses, equally good as 12-35 f/2.8, 14-140 f/3.5 mk-I, marginally better than 12-32 and on top of 14-42PZ.

Recently, it was recalled, mounted on G85 always on my desk (I have a habit of having a camera always ready for me to test it, or to take a picture if anything appearing interest). A couple of days ago, saw a beautiful rainbow after raining, took a few AEB shots for HDR.

The following is one of those AEB snapshots, SOOC jpg:

After I merged the shots into HDR, I found quite poor resolution of the shadow sections. Hence, I picked up one of those original shots, lifted the shadow, and my...... it was looking like an oil painting...

A dirty shadow lifting in FastStone

A crop of the above:

I am shocked... This is not the 14-45 I ever know.

The above was taken at jpg setting NR=0, so, basically it should have a good deal of fine detail been retained. On the shadow lifting, no NR been applied.

I had tested this lens on exact same body G85 on a sunny day and the result was very different:

I expect the IQ should be as below:

???

Am I wrong that 14-45 indeed also has its own problem when lighting condition going bad (I shot it at night time without issue so far)?

Or its age has started taking its toll?

The only proper way to test it is with a raw file. Settings, like application of lens profiles, noise reduction... get applied differently in jpg engines and may mask the full potential of the tested lens.

Thank you.

I know RAW could get the best.

However as I had tested, particularly on G85, jpg NR setting at 0 could preserve fine detail very close to NR=-5 but having noise in control. And in another shot under good lighting condition the result is not best, but is far better.

For heavy shadow lifting in PP a lot of noise will be expected for that sereve underexposed image. Never expected that poor outcome...

Lasse Eisele wrote:

Your lens is fine. The mushy foliage is most likely a result of heavy-handed NR. I know you had set NR to 0 but some NR seems to have been applied anyway.

By the way, I can see some mushy foliage in the other picture as well (outside of your crop).

You should really try shooting raw. It will solve these problems.

The Pana 14-45 is an extraordinary kit lens, just as good as my Oly 12-40 except for the extreme edges. I would use mine a lot more if it could go to 12 mm on the wide end.

Regards
Lasse

Thank you.

I know RAW could get the best.

However as in another shot under good lighting condition the result is not best, but is far better.

For heavy shadow lifting in PP a lot of noise will be expected for that sereve underexposed image. Never expected that poor outcome...

No dear friend, that poor image is a single shot, being the -1 stop shot out if a 5 Auto Exposure Bracketing sequence.

However thank you for participation.

alcelc wrote:

14-45 is my first M43 lens which was bought with G1 back in early 2009. It had delivered very consistent result so far on various generation of bodies from G1, GF3, GX1, GX7 and GX85. Fast and accurate AF, IQ never raise alarm bell, unlike the low light wired performance of 12-32, it is an all round player... After upgraded to 12-35 f/2.8, it is generally stayed inside the auto dry cabinet.

IMHO it should be one of my best standard zoom lenses, equally good as 12-35 f/2.8, 14-140 f/3.5 mk-I, marginally better than 12-32 and on top of 14-42PZ.

Am I wrong that 14-45 indeed also has its own problem when lighting condition going bad (I shot it at night time without issue so far)?

Or its age has started taking its toll?

Lenses age?

Dick

Gnine wrote:

Dick Barbour wrote:

Dick

I've had OIS go bad on me. Age=usage=wear on mechanical components

Yes, but he had just got it out of a cabinet where it had a rest:

"After upgraded to 12-35 f/2.8, it is generally stayed inside the auto dry cabinet."

So I guess what I'm saying is the answer to his query as to whether age had caused his observed problem, is "probably not".

Dick

Dick Barbour wrote:

Gnine wrote:

Dick Barbour wrote:

Dick

I've had OIS go bad on me. Age=usage=wear on mechanical components

Yes, but he had just got it out of a cabinet where it had a rest:

"After upgraded to 12-35 f/2.8, it is generally stayed inside the auto dry cabinet."

So I guess what I'm saying is the answer to his query as to whether age had caused his observed problem, is "probably not".

Dick

Also the shutter speed is 1/640 which doesn't completely eliminate bad OIS group but makes it less likely.

Also the ridge line in the middle of the frame looks just fine as does the writing on the road surface.

I'm really suspicious of shadow NR being at work here and the root cause.  It's an underexposed shot with blurry shadows from an in camera JPG engine.  Just the kind of thing that takes out foliage detail typically.

Dick Barbour wrote:

alcelc wrote:

14-45 is my first M43 lens which was bought with G1 back in early 2009. It had delivered very consistent result so far on various generation of bodies from G1, GF3, GX1, GX7 and GX85. Fast and accurate AF, IQ never raise alarm bell, unlike the low light wired performance of 12-32, it is an all round player... After upgraded to 12-35 f/2.8, it is generally stayed inside the auto dry cabinet.

IMHO it should be one of my best standard zoom lenses, equally good as 12-35 f/2.8, 14-140 f/3.5 mk-I, marginally better than 12-32 and on top of 14-42PZ.

Am I wrong that 14-45 indeed also has its own problem when lighting condition going bad (I shot it at night time without issue so far)?

Or its age has started taking its toll?

Lenses age?

Dick

It was bought in early 2009, so is 11 years old. Was my main standard zoom lens which was used extensively through the years over various bodies until I upgraded to 12-35 f/2.8 in 2017.

Should had produced 200~250K images so far... and been gone through all sort of weather condition from light to heavy rain, very cold, snowing to very hot and dusty...

But my mysterious is that it performed very normal during my last home testing a month before?

alcelc wrote:

14-45 is my first M43 lens which was bought with G1 back in early 2009. It had delivered very consistent result so far on various generation of bodies from G1, GF3, GX1, GX7 and GX85. Fast and accurate AF, IQ never raise alarm bell, unlike the low light wired performance of 12-32, it is an all round player... After upgraded to 12-35 f/2.8, it is generally stayed inside the auto dry cabinet.

IMHO it should be one of my best standard zoom lenses, equally good as 12-35 f/2.8, 14-140 f/3.5 mk-I, marginally better than 12-32 and on top of 14-42PZ.

Recently, it was recalled, mounted on G85 always on my desk (I have a habit of having a camera always ready for me to test it, or to take a picture if anything appearing interest). A couple of days ago, saw a beautiful rainbow after raining, took a few AEB shots for HDR.

The following is one of those AEB snapshots, SOOC jpg:

After I merged the shots into HDR, I found quite poor resolution of the shadow sections. Hence, I picked up one of those original shots, lifted the shadow, and my...... it was looking like an oil painting...

A dirty shadow lifting in FastStone

A crop of the above:

I am shocked... This is not the 14-45 I ever know.

The above was taken at jpg setting NR=0, so, basically it should have a good deal of fine detail been retained. On the shadow lifting, no NR been applied.

I had tested this lens on exact same body G85 on a sunny day and the result was very different:

I expect the IQ should be as below:

???

Am I wrong that 14-45 indeed also has its own problem when lighting condition going bad (I shot it at night time without issue so far)?

Or its age has started taking its toll?

Time to permanently retire the 14-45.   Time marches on.

😥😣

alcelc wrote:

14-45 is my first M43 lens which was bought with G1 back in early 2009. It had delivered very consistent result so far on various generation of bodies from G1, GF3, GX1, GX7 and GX85. Fast and accurate AF, IQ never raise alarm bell, unlike the low light wired performance of 12-32, it is an all round player... After upgraded to 12-35 f/2.8, it is generally stayed inside the auto dry cabinet.

IMHO it should be one of my best standard zoom lenses, equally good as 12-35 f/2.8, 14-140 f/3.5 mk-I, marginally better than 12-32 and on top of 14-42PZ.

Recently, it was recalled, mounted on G85 always on my desk (I have a habit of having a camera always ready for me to test it, or to take a picture if anything appearing interest). A couple of days ago, saw a beautiful rainbow after raining, took a few AEB shots for HDR.

The following is one of those AEB snapshots, SOOC jpg:

After I merged the shots into HDR, I found quite poor resolution of the shadow sections. Hence, I picked up one of those original shots, lifted the shadow, and my...... it was looking like an oil painting...

A dirty shadow lifting in FastStone

A crop of the above:

I am shocked... This is not the 14-45 I ever know.

That is the product of combining shots in which the trees have moved between frames. Nothing to do with the lens. Common issue with HDR bracketing.

The above was taken at jpg setting NR=0, so, basically it should have a good deal of fine detail been retained. On the shadow lifting, no NR been applied.

I had tested this lens on exact same body G85 on a sunny day and the result was very different:

I expect the IQ should be as below:

???

Am I wrong that 14-45 indeed also has its own problem when lighting condition going bad (I shot it at night time without issue so far)?

The issue relates to merging multiple frames containing moving subjects. It has nothing to do with lighting or the lens.

Or its age has started taking its toll?

P.S.: Disregard my comments above. On rereading, I see that I misunderstood your post, but I cannot now delete my post. Never mind.

The original image is only 2 megabytes. It might be that the compression level is too high. I can see the algorithm maximizing the sharpness of the waves and sacrificing the sharpness on shadows (the trees).

Everyone looks back with rose tinted glasses, summers were always hot and winters snowy.

I had the original 14-45, it wasn't bad for a kit lens, but cant expect miracles compared to someghing like the 12-35/2.8