Oly 45mm 1.8 vs Nocticron vs Sigma 56mm vs Olympus 75mm

Interceptor121 wrote:

TorsteinH wrote:

Interceptor121 wrote:

TorsteinH wrote:

Interceptor121 wrote:

TorsteinH wrote:

Interceptor121 wrote:

TorsteinH wrote:

I find it strange that highligtes can be more overblown with one lens versus the others as in your sample with 45 f/1.8. How can that be?

Regarding skin tones, I consider that more a matter of what you do when prosessing your photos...

They are not processed at all they are shot using the same profile for all shots so if the colours are different it depends on the lens and the situation ambient light.

Different lenses react different to flare and highlights mostly depending on how coating and antireflection is dealt with. Consider that the camera was also Panasonic in all shots with the same picture profile applied and none of those shots is clipping on black nor highlights on the histogram, despite what someone else may say the shots are all correctly exposed in camera with nothing blown out. What I can see is that as the brightness goes up some lenses keep more details than others.

There was a very interesting youtube video in Japanese talking about how lens and camera interact in the digital age most concepts are black box undisclosed so it is hard to know exactly what drives what.

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I realise that I did express myself unclairly.

My intent was not to say that you had done any different processing of the photos to change color cast, but that it's something that is easy to fix when process your photos at the computer.

Not really when you have an highlights taking the shape of a spike in the background is very nasty to fix

That is not color cast, but a question of how lens handles highlightes and perhaps how well tuned sensor and lens ate together. ( It's well known that Panasonic and Olympus has different cut of in colors among other things.)

Olympus tweaks the highlight protection almost by camera model. My EM1MKII has 0.8 Ev but the EM1X has 0.3 Ev. This comes at expense of noise in the shadows though.

You need to consider that generally lens control of bright scenes depends on coating. So here where Leica makes the difference with their black box recipe. The flare control you get is superior to sigma and olympus lenses in all conditions so you get more details in the bright area. you can try to recover those details when they are off but the contrast and resolution is gone. This is not something you find shooting a test chart

The same performance happens on olympus body which I have so in general I prefer how the leica coating manage bright areas if that makes sense. Some sigma lenses are also good for example the 56mm works much better than the 30mm and also the 16mm is solid

It's more to this than lens coating.

Even if it's the same basic sensor in many Olympus and Panasonic cameras there are differences in sensor cut of in the colour spectre. ( and probably also other differences. ) Remember the purple flare issue with Pana 7-14.?

In addition the lens coatings have changed over time, the Olympus 12 -45 has a newer coating than the 12-40 with better flare control. I can imagine that this also will influence the rendering of bright highlights.

The UV filters have an impact on the backlit longitudinal CA but despite all you read since the EM1MKII there are no material differences between the two brands (I have tested it)

I have the 17mm 1.2 pro lens the best of the set together with the 45mm but even so I do not like how it renders certain scenes and I am planning to sell it if you are interested!

If I had the money I would certainly be interested, but business is not at it's in this Corona times.... 😉

The best way to compare lenses is to do it in a controlled setting. All 3 lenses on the same test subject, using the same lighting & same camera/lens settings. Then compare the images side by side. You can't fairly tell anything with just random images from each lens. Have you ever noticed how testing is done by the media?

Even tho these lenses you have picked are of different focal lengths, you can move the camera/tripod to where each lens displays the same approximate size, of your test subject, in the viewfinder & make that your comparing image.

After taking photos from each lens, do the comparison WITHOUT any further image processing, ie... no sharpening, color correction, or any other post processing. It's also better to shoot the images as raw files so there is no in camera cpocerssing from the camera.

Good luck

That was not my objective thanks for your input in case I want to change job in the future

Interesting comparison, thanks.  I used to own both the Oly 45 and the Noct, and I have to say that although the Noct is a wonderful lens, what surprised me the most was just how well the little Olympus held up.  I took a number of side-by-side shots, and in that kind of direct comparison, you could certainly see some differences.  But for most practical purposes, I would have been perfectly happy with either one.

These days, m43 is no longer my primary kit, but I kept one camera body and a few lenses.  The Noct went up for sale, but the Olympus stuck around.

Yes for the price point the IQ is excellent and also the backgrounds look nice

today the portable lens for me is the 56mm 1.4