I bought the 15mm lens really cheap! Perfect for zone focussing.

Sergey Borachev wrote:

GX9 vs GR. I think I will remove that shiny metal ring around the lens.

This 15mm lens makes the GX9 more pocketable, though still not as small as the GR. It is clearly softer but it can focus just as fast, if not faster than the GR's lens, or any lens you can find. The GX9 has something none of the various versions of GRs has - a tilt screen.

I would like to get the 15mm (I have had the 9mm since 2012), but wouldn't pay much for it. The black one runs close to 10,000 yen ($95). The white and silver one is a bit under 6000 yen ($55), and the red one is under 3000 yen ($29). I would prefer a black one that costs under 3000 yen though.

I would sort of like one as a no focus point and shoot lens for street photography in reasonable light. I have my 14mm f2.5 though and it is almost as small and I could set it to f8. A bit more trouble to set the hyperfocal distance though.  A much better lens than the 15mm.

Loga wrote:

but it can focus just as fast, if not faster than the GR's lens, or any lens you can find.

I am not sure what do you try to tell here. The 15mm bodycap lens is a fix focus lens, therefore we can't speak about focus speed. The GR has a fix focus mode too, so we try to evaluate 0 sec vs 0 sec. Or did I misunderstand you?

It's a joke.  If a lens has AF, then it is slower than a lens that is pre-focused.

-- hide signature --

Webpage: http://peterdegay.wix.com/photos
Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/156293126@N06/

1. Henry Richardson wrote:

Sergey Borachev wrote:

GX9 vs GR. I think I will remove that shiny metal ring around the lens.

This 15mm lens makes the GX9 more pocketable, though still not as small as the GR. It is clearly softer but it can focus just as fast, if not faster than the GR's lens, or any lens you can find. The GX9 has something none of the various versions of GRs has - a tilt screen.

I would like to get the 15mm (I have had the 9mm since 2012), but wouldn't pay much for it. The black one runs close to 10,000 yen ($95). The white and silver one is a bit under 6000 yen ($55), and the red one is under 3000 yen ($29). I would prefer a black one that costs under 3000 yen though.

I would sort of like one as a no focus point and shoot lens for street photography in reasonable light. I have my 14mm f2.5 though and it is almost as small and I could set it to f8. A bit more trouble to set the hyperfocal distance though. A much better lens than the 15mm.

You're right, reasonable light is needed for this lens, esp if there motion.

I was using the GX9 for zone focus street shooting with a Laowa 17mm set at f/8, while thinking about the Panasonic 15mm all the time.  Then the idea hit me.  Why not try the 15mm body cap lens and have some fun, since it is set (permanently) at f/8, and it is so thin and light?  The IQ from this is not so important for street images and it's IMO as good as photos taken by many of the early masters. 😀

Sergey Borachev wrote:

1. Henry Richardson wrote:

Sergey Borachev wrote:

GX9 vs GR. I think I will remove that shiny metal ring around the lens.

This 15mm lens makes the GX9 more pocketable, though still not as small as the GR. It is clearly softer but it can focus just as fast, if not faster than the GR's lens, or any lens you can find. The GX9 has something none of the various versions of GRs has - a tilt screen.

I would like to get the 15mm (I have had the 9mm since 2012), but wouldn't pay much for it. The black one runs close to 10,000 yen ($95). The white and silver one is a bit under 6000 yen ($55), and the red one is under 3000 yen ($29). I would prefer a black one that costs under 3000 yen though.

I would sort of like one as a no focus point and shoot lens for street photography in reasonable light. I have my 14mm f2.5 though and it is almost as small and I could set it to f8. A bit more trouble to set the hyperfocal distance though. A much better lens than the 15mm.

You're right, reasonable light is needed for this lens, esp if there motion.

I was using the GX9 for zone focus street shooting with a Laowa 17mm set at f/8, while thinking about the Panasonic 15mm all the time. Then the idea hit me. Why not try the 15mm body cap lens and have some fun, since it is set (permanently) at f/8, and it is so thin and light? The IQ from this is not so important for street images and it's IMO as good as photos taken by many of the early masters. 😀

Several years ago I would sometimes use my Sony A700 + Sony 11-18mm f4.5-5.6 and Canon 60D + Sigma 10-20mm f4-5.6 in manual focus mode for street photography. I would usually set the focal length to around 15-18mm, the aperture to f5.6-8 (depending on available light), set the focus to about 1.5 meters, and then most things would be in focus so I could point and shoot.

EZGritz wrote:

How did you get that image out of that crappy lens? I have one, only use it for in-car racing video.

Maybe I'm selling myself short, should use it more on my PM2.

Good job, Sergey!

Confession. The photo is not straight out of camera. I did use DXO Photolab to enhance it, nothing too manipulative like local adjustments, just exposure and colour and lens distortion correction. I only just got the lens and that was like the 15th photo I took with it. I believe photos taken at a distance should be even better than this one. Thanks.

The max aperture is not a big problem. Snce no one expects very high resolution for this use case, I won't hesitate to use ISO 800 or 1600, to get motion freezing shutter speeds and then rely on PhotoLab Deep Prime to deal with any noise.  I actually think the slightly soft images are good for some types of street images.

Henry Richardson wrote:

Sergey Borachev wrote:

1. Henry Richardson wrote:

Sergey Borachev wrote:

GX9 vs GR. I think I will remove that shiny metal ring around the lens.

This 15mm lens makes the GX9 more pocketable, though still not as small as the GR. It is clearly softer but it can focus just as fast, if not faster than the GR's lens, or any lens you can find. The GX9 has something none of the various versions of GRs has - a tilt screen.

I would like to get the 15mm (I have had the 9mm since 2012), but wouldn't pay much for it. The black one runs close to 10,000 yen ($95). The white and silver one is a bit under 6000 yen ($55), and the red one is under 3000 yen ($29). I would prefer a black one that costs under 3000 yen though.

I would sort of like one as a no focus point and shoot lens for street photography in reasonable light. I have my 14mm f2.5 though and it is almost as small and I could set it to f8. A bit more trouble to set the hyperfocal distance though. A much better lens than the 15mm.

You're right, reasonable light is needed for this lens, esp if there motion.

I was using the GX9 for zone focus street shooting with a Laowa 17mm set at f/8, while thinking about the Panasonic 15mm all the time. Then the idea hit me. Why not try the 15mm body cap lens and have some fun, since it is set (permanently) at f/8, and it is so thin and light? The IQ from this is not so important for street images and it's IMO as good as photos taken by many of the early masters. 😀

Several years ago I would sometimes use my Sony A700 + Sony 11-18mm f4.5-5.6 and Canon 60D + Sigma 10-20mm f4-5.6 in manual focus mode for street photography. I would usually set the focal length to around 15-18mm, the aperture to f5.6-8 (depending on available light), set the focus to about 1.5 meters, and then most things would be in focus so I could point and shoot.

That's the idea.  It makes any small M43 camera lighter, smaller and cheerful.

EZGritz wrote:

You have to have something good enough to work with. I agree not every image needs to be tack sharp. Some look better soft. I like 720 line track video with this lens, low resolution and soft. Looks more like film than video. I'm a film, not a video guy. I like it this way. I care about how it makes me feel more than how dazzled I am by the tech. The latter wears off after you've seen it once. Content and action is always important. An old great film is still great even though CGI and video can dazzle. Story and acting is more important than how many lines it is.

I recently took some photos between ISO 3200 and ISO 6400 on a gloomy day with an EM5.3. they look excellent. No problem with high ISO, so you are right. You can do a lot with f8. Some old DSLR lenses need to be shot at f/8 to sharpen them and the DOF is good for a lot of compositions. For some shots you want more content in focus. Most people think it makes a better photo. Thin DOF is not universally preferred.

I won't copy and paste here, but my post awhile back in a different thread on a different subject is relevant, I think, to your comments:

Radical Transformation: Magnum Photos into the Digital Age

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/64481441

No text.

Thanks EzGritz.  Very interesting story and photos.  Your 5050Z is even older than my 5MP Olympus 5060W Camedia.  Those were the days. People were taking great photos with such basic cameras.

My problem is that at 15mm f8, a decent phone cam is still a stop faster in equivalent terms and the lens is significantly sharper with no vignetting or corner blur. It also is easier to carry in my pocket. And it is something that I already carry anyway.

DutchBoy17 wrote:

Objectively the BCL 15/8 is a terrible lens:

• Sharp? At f/8 it's already in diffraction territory on an m43 sensor
• Noisy: At f/8 it's probably pushing your ISO and making things worse
• CA? Enough already: you've made your point!
• Pixel peeping: ok, lotta mush there...

So what: at $49 (what I paid) or $99, or thereabouts, this lens is gold. You get to stuff your small-bodied camera (GM1/GM5 in my case) in your pocket (with a GM: even Jeans!). I used to take a train, fly, or do both just to get to work every week, and I really liked being able to slip my GM into my pocket with a usable lens for the long commute.

I had a GRII for a while, and it definitely had better IQ than using the BCL15 (I also had it set up with a hyper-focal custom setting). But I couldn't take the body cap off of the GRII and swap the fixed focal length for a PL15/1.7, P42.5/1.7, P12-32, or P35-100 later on (all nice lenses that fit into your other pockets). It's too bad the BCL15 and BCL9 weren't f/5.6 lenses, but at that point they'd probably have been too big and expensive: oh well.

Sure, my iPhone could probably do better, but the 15/8 takes all the pressure off you: the IQ is likely going to be marginal, so no pressure, just relax and have fun.

I love my BCL15: it's barely good enough, but that's plenty good enough for what it cost me.

These are great and they illustrate the point we were discussing about quality of the equipment vs quality of the pictures.

Sergey Borachev wrote:

DutchBoy17 wrote:

Objectively the BCL 15/8 is a terrible lens:

• Sharp? At f/8 it's already in diffraction territory on an m43 sensor
• Noisy: At f/8 it's probably pushing your ISO and making things worse
• CA? Enough already: you've made your point!
• Pixel peeping: ok, lotta mush there...

So what: at $49 (what I paid) or $99, or thereabouts, this lens is gold. You get to stuff your small-bodied camera (GM1/GM5 in my case) in your pocket (with a GM: even Jeans!). I used to take a train, fly, or do both just to get to work every week, and I really liked being able to slip my GM into my pocket with a usable lens for the long commute.

I had a GRII for a while, and it definitely had better IQ than using the BCL15 (I also had it set up with a hyper-focal custom setting). But I couldn't take the body cap off of the GRII and swap the fixed focal length for a PL15/1.7, P42.5/1.7, P12-32, or P35-100 later on (all nice lenses that fit into your other pockets). It's too bad the BCL15 and BCL9 weren't f/5.6 lenses, but at that point they'd probably have been too big and expensive: oh well.

Sure, my iPhone could probably do better, but the 15/8 takes all the pressure off you: the IQ is likely going to be marginal, so no pressure, just relax and have fun.

I love my BCL15: it's barely good enough, but that's plenty good enough for what it cost me.

These are great and they illustrate the point we were discussing about quality of the equipment vs quality of the pictures.

Sure, but they look like they were taken on a 10 year old cell phone.   Why bother with the large sensor body at that point?  Just whip out your phone for shots like this and have some fun editing them afterward with snapseed, etc.

tkbslc wrote:

Sergey Borachev wrote:

DutchBoy17 wrote:

Objectively the BCL 15/8 is a terrible lens:

• Sharp? At f/8 it's already in diffraction territory on an m43 sensor
• Noisy: At f/8 it's probably pushing your ISO and making things worse
• CA? Enough already: you've made your point!
• Pixel peeping: ok, lotta mush there...

So what: at $49 (what I paid) or $99, or thereabouts, this lens is gold. You get to stuff your small-bodied camera (GM1/GM5 in my case) in your pocket (with a GM: even Jeans!). I used to take a train, fly, or do both just to get to work every week, and I really liked being able to slip my GM into my pocket with a usable lens for the long commute.

I had a GRII for a while, and it definitely had better IQ than using the BCL15 (I also had it set up with a hyper-focal custom setting). But I couldn't take the body cap off of the GRII and swap the fixed focal length for a PL15/1.7, P42.5/1.7, P12-32, or P35-100 later on (all nice lenses that fit into your other pockets). It's too bad the BCL15 and BCL9 weren't f/5.6 lenses, but at that point they'd probably have been too big and expensive: oh well.

Sure, my iPhone could probably do better, but the 15/8 takes all the pressure off you: the IQ is likely going to be marginal, so no pressure, just relax and have fun.

I love my BCL15: it's barely good enough, but that's plenty good enough for what it cost me.

These are great and they illustrate the point we were discussing about quality of the equipment vs quality of the pictures.

Sure, but they look like they were taken on a 10 year old cell phone. Why bother with the large sensor body at that point? Just whip out your phone for shots like this and have some fun editing them afterward with snapseed, etc.

Phone shooting is also fun, but thaat's a different.  Using a proper camera with dials and buttons and EVFs is something enjoyable to do.