The 20mm F1.4 Pro is the first M.Zuiko lens released under the new OM System brand. Does it live up to its heritage of Olympus Pro-series glass? Chris puts it to the test to find out.
The micro 4/3 is perfect if you stay with the small prime 12, 17, 20, 25 45 75 and the very good zoom 12-32, 12-40 2.8 12-100 4.0 100-400 etc. Up to this point there is no competition in my opinion with any other system. But that's where the problem with the Olympus Lumix begins. Precisely because they have met most of the needs for small lenses they now get the expensive composite lenses called pro. Let me know no professional who uses the micro 4/3 system. so which professionals are we talking about? It is essentially a marketing ploy to drive profit and better sales. Nothing else. If I want a heavier lenses than the 20 1.8 or 17 1.8 I will go for the full frame so much out there with prices almost from an old EM1ii. I do not buy this new olympus policy. There may be a need for better quality lenses but they are heavier and more expensive and out there there is the ff nikon that is waiting for prices below cost. https://www.flickr.com/photos/186746339@N02/albums
I would live to own this lens. However, could it replace my 12-40 f2/8 PRO? No way. Not wide enough, not long enough, magnification of only 1/3 of the 12-40. Could it replace my 17mm f1.8? Performance wise, most definitely but price wise, it's in another league.
Do you think that if I spend 700 euros for this lenses, I would see any better IQ vs my lovely 180$ Laowa 17mm 1.8 which is very close to 20mm? Perhaps a slightly better IQ and a small amount of more light. I understand that the OM system wants the best of the best of IQ but first we have to see a new sensor. As someone wrote to a post "OM is going to be a very specialized camera maker. Be prepared for it. So it will look to be overpriced compared to others... they do not have volumes so their products need to be overpriced. The question is if they can deliver something special what others can not."
There are many options for getting a 17 or 20 or 25mm field of view in good image quality onto a MFT sensor. This new lens is not just about IQ or aperture, it is also about ruggedness, about moisture and dust protection, about fast and silent AF including good video AF. You may not need any of that personally, but a lens that checks all those boxes does not tend to be cheap for any camera system or format.
Speaking as a former M43 shooter, I would love to see some F/1.4 lenses in the M43 system that pushed the limits on size/weight a bit more. This is not massive or heavy by any means, but it's heavier than the Panasonic 25/1.4 while being 5mm shorter. It's heavier than both the Samyang 35/1.8 & 45/1.8. A Pen F + 20/1.4 and Sony A7C + 45/1.8 are roughly the same size and weight.
It would be great to see M43 makers push for low size/weight the way that Samyang (and to a lesser extent Sigma and Tamron) has been to stand out more from the FF systems. Tiny lenses are where they can differentiate and I don't think they've done that very well with these 1.2/1.4 primes and 1.8 zooms. That 12-45/4 is small, but barely any lighter than Sigma's APS-C 18-50/2.8.
Ah well, if you're married to the M43 system and looking for a 20/1.4, I'm sure it's a nice lens.
It is ok to request smallish low quality lenses from third parties but why do you compare one of the highest quality OEM lenses to the one of the cheapest and with poorest qualities OEM lenses? With this logic Samyangs are overpriced junk compared to old Soviet Helios lenses that you can have for 20-50$! Not very strong logic right?
Well, in a sense what I am asking for is tiny, fast, but "lower quality" lenses. Hear me out. It would be great to see some lenses that:
- Are F/1.4 - Used lightweight plastic, I don't need a metal vanity shell over a mostly plastic lens like this OM, these are more likely to get damaged - my 12-40/2.8 was damaged very badly when dropped from a few feet but many other "cheap" plastic lenses have survived similar abuse - good plastics are often more durable than metal casings - Had barebones features, I don't need an aperture ring or pull-back manual focus ring - Not optically perfect, I don't need sharpness into the corners wide open. If I need sharp corners I'm stopping down to at least F4. If I'm shooting wide open the corners are very likely not in focus. A bit of distortion can be corrected for in post, as can lateral CAs
I understand this is blasphemy to some and that the test chart types would say it's garbage, but such lenses are very useful tools to everyday photographers
As to vintage Helios vs Samyang - I'm not sure if you've used Samyang's recent lenses, but the 24/1.8, 35/1.8, 45/1.8, and 75/1.8 are all very good lenses, not perfect or Otus like, but they have a great balance of good (not exceptional) build, good features, good optics, while being exceptionally small, light, and inexpensive. The 18/2.8 is worst of the tiny series - not great at 2.8 but quite good at F4, but that's fine because I rarely need a fast aperture with an ultra wide anyway.
Also, again, we have lenses from Sigma like the 85/1.4 which while not a tiny lens, is extremely small for its class. And its optical performance is on par with 1st party lenses.
Cheap isn’t necessarily the goal. Small, light, and fast certainly is possible though, especially with a small sensor system like M43.
For instance, the Sigma 30/1.4 is about the same weight as this OM 20/1.4 while being 10mm longer and covering a sensor area nearly twice as large. Even if only considering focal length it's a credit to the Sigma, that's an aperture opening of 21.4mm vs 14.2mm, which is significant.
1st parties like Sony have been successful in miniaturization lately as well. Their new 35/1.4 GM is lighter and better than the older CZ35. The new 50/1.2 GM is the same weight and better than the CZ50, while being half a stop faster.
Samyang’s 50/1.4 MK II is considerably lighter than their MK I. There’s a number of other examples of lenses getting smaller for larger format systems. Small-ish bodies and lenses for FF are pinching APS-C and M43 out of existence.
While those lenses are an excellent answer to the thread starter's general question (I agree that a complete assortment of such lenses might increase the systems attractivity, but there might not be enough profit in it for the manufacturer if they don't want people complaining about those plastic lenses being too expensive), hardly any of them check all three boxes, and it will become even more difficult if we really add that fourth box titled "sharp". And I wouldn't call $800 "cheap", either.
The 25/1.8 fits the bill, while it is also cheaply made. Same goes for the 45/1.8. The 56/1.4 is the only lens here that perfectly fits the bill. It's a marvel.
The 12/2 is neither cheap nor, for that matter, all too sharp. The 17/1.8 fits the bill only if we get a good sample that is sharp enough. The 20/1.4 is not cheap. The 30/1.4 is not small (while it is a nice lens, I really like mine). The 75/1.8 is not cheap.
Ok and how many of this plastic fantastic lenses are actually sealed? " Optically, it features a combination of ED, HR, and aspherical elements and there are ZERO and fluorine coatings that improve contrast and help keep the front element clean. Physically, the lens is expectedly durable, with dust- and splash-resistant sealing when used on a weather-sealed Olympus camera body." Also actually I have checked most of the Samyang's MTF/resolution tests and they are just this - cheap lens, not bad and usable BUT incomparable to any top OEM lens! And far away from build quality, sample variation and etc. So basically you compare TATA SUV to Toyota Land Cruiser, just because both will move you from A to B and have 4 wheels, windows and similar weight.... Jokes eh? Stop comparing incomparable things!
I've recently purchased a Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 and a Panasonic 14mm f/2.5, used from reputable dealers, both (together) for less than half the price of this new OM systems lens. These two will be used extensively on my Pen F and E-M5 bodies.
bokeh seems nice, also with subject more distant and foliage in background. Good to see smooth bokeh being a design criteria more often. I'd rather have a slower lens with nice renedering than faster with harsh brackground. What do i need a fast lens for if it doesnt render out of focus areas nicely.
Thrilled to see that people engage in a discussion on glass rather than the 111th 'device must have a new sensor and at least 444 sillypixels' rambling. Great and reasonably sized gear was the major reason why I complemented my Nikon FX kit with m43 in the first place and never looked back. The Panny 20mm 1.7 that is mentioned by some is a terrific lens - looking at the DPR sample pictures it seems that OM has managed to create a product offering even higher quality. One distinction I found between very good and fabulous (comparing Olympus portrait lenses) is the fact that the PRO line is able to a) remain tack sharp and b) literally without vignetting when shooting fully open. Looking at the sample photos I must say that OM did it again (assuming that they were not corrected).
Just checking if I get you right: Rambling about camera bodies and sensor tech is nonsense. Rambling about MTF, vignetting and border sharpness is a great thing to do.
The whole think with comparisons and requests for new sensors is really based on misunderstanding! And it is fueled by marketing and pseudo reviewers which repeat 100 times equivalence theory but never actually use it for EXPOSURE EQUALISATION/EQUIVALENCE! Even same 135 format sensor with shorter exposure show more noise! What about smaller sensor? So people compare sensors at same ISO and see almost 5-10% sometimes here and there. Then they compare different size sensors but do not equalize exposure ( use same ISO ) and conclude smaller sensor is noisy bigger sensor is cleaner ........... WOW/LOL/WHOAAAA, REALLY? And what about all sensors have almost same noise but you are using different exposure? Which is kind of not very technically correct, and purely ignorantly. But hey DPR also does it. They set same ISO and conclude, ok, big sensor is cleaner .......... There you go fuel for nonsense wars..........
Ok you both, can you some something technical related or you will have only personal notes? Do you actually understand what is exposure and how it works?
Not only the sensor but also the ergonomics. But yes, the feminine men of today don't want to carry cams over 200 gramms. It gonna hurts them... Or don't fit in the hands bags ;]
No. You don't have to carry full frame equipment. But you can. A A7 is lighter than some late M43 gear.. I'm just tired of the whining on "it weights too" much. We don't speak about carrying a fuji gx680. We speak about gear lighter than a kilogram. Even the old nikon or Canon are only a few hundred grams.
Where are all real photographers gone? Use your smartphone and don't break your back with it.
Hmm. You call that photos? Hmm. Mine are mostly from customers, so I won't share. But I spoke with another person anyway... So you have 2 accounts to thumb up the other? Would explain quite a lot.
I have an A7, Leica M, 5DSR and my lovely OM-D E-M5ii. Where else can I get equiv. focal length of 18 to 300mm in two lenses that fit in my pockets. After a 12 mile or so hike over the roughest terrain the UK can throw at me having my m43 kit is just total LUSH. Especially when I am already carrying a good deal of mountain kit and safety kit, every gramme saved means less fatigue. Less fatigue means less risk of accident. So I have very good reasons to use m43.
Haha. Nice try. The second account was there 20 seconds later, liking the first rude comment. So if you got an A7 you should know it's nothing about size to have fullframe. Now troll on. CU. "pro". %)
Boring landscapes and an overused fisheye. Really, you are proud of this? No more to say. Use a smartphone, very light and good enough for your "art". No, I won't show you mine, there are contracts or rights on it. Nice try.
You simply aren't good enough, you're just another tog. You cannot win this game and your work is not bad but nothing special at all. Get some knowledge and less gear than you may come close to a photograph. And now you're getting boring... Bye. See you in another gearthread. Bye darling.
m4/3 is the best format for my needs. It's light, meaning I can slap a few lenses on my bike and go mountain biking with it. I've tried doing the same with my FF and APS-C gear and nothing does it as well as m4/3. m4/3 always keeps me tweaking and trying different lenses. Which in turn inspires me to go out and shoot more images. Olympus cameras are also beautiful and fun to use. I still marvel at how pretty my Pen F is after 4 years of owning it.
I understand not everyone appreciates the same things I do. But there are very good reasons to use m4/3 over anything else.
When I go fell walking I don’t want to take my FF gear, I use my OM-D E-M5ii. I can hike for miles without feeling the weight of the camera kit. Last year when in the Lake District I took a telephoto lens (equiv 80-300 in FF) for the first time ever. That was a revelation! Really enjoyed using it and grabbed some good shots. Can’t really do that with FF without mountain rescue on standby lol. With my m43 kit I can slip three lenses in my pockets and go all day in the mountains. When I want to do bokeh, I use my FF kit.
Right, because street photography is such a popular trendsetting genre these days...
40mm is popular because it's very close to a true normal perspective, but couldn't be made as small or inexpensive as 50mm lenses on SLRs due to their flange distance, so 50mm became the de facto normal.
"get close to people" - Well, unlike creeps, photographers don't need to "hunt" people. You can talk to your subjects, like a normal person :). Or you just pick a spot, compose and wait for people to get into your shot. Attacking people with your camera isn't street photography. It's disturbing and probably illegal too.
"Sounds to me like you hate American level of freedom" - Actually, it sounds like you hate it and you would rather break the law and deny this freedom to people around you. Typical troll.
Thank you for your take on the new lens. It’s nice to hear from someone who can actually take photos, beautiful photos. I don’t think M43 is going away anytime soon. More depth of field in low light situations cannot be replaced by larger sensors. It is imo the sweet spot.
Equivalence policy once again is taking over and trying to educate people. But are they educated enough? Lets set some exercise: What is equivalent photon gathering exposure: - Lets first set our “favorite equivalent lens exercise” with equivalent FoV/DoF: 135 format: 50mm/f4 lens m4/3 format: 25mm/f2 lens - These lenses have SAME aperture of 12.5mm so they will pass/gather the same amount/volume/number of photons for SAME TIME PERIOD/exposure for same FoV and DoF. - Now we have both 135 and m4/3 format cameras set at base ISO. Let’s say ISO 100. Wide open ( to be equivalent ) and we are shooting same subject with 9.67 EV: For m4/3 camera we have this settings: 1/200, f2, ISO 100. For 135 camera we have this settings: 1/50, f4, ISO 100. - Continue......
From the equivalence lens above we said f2 and f4 lens are equivalent but from the exposure triangle now we have MUCH SHORTER EXPOSURE on the m4/3 camera!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AND THIS IS WHERE WE GET THE NOISE FROM! We literally cut photons to reach the sensor because of the exposure shortening and this results in SHOT NOISE. To get equivalent photon gathering exposure we need to either lower the m4/3 camera ISO or raise the 135 format camera ISO. We can also shoot more frames on the m4/3 camera to collect more photons and blend them if the subject allows. - To get equivalent amount/volume/number of photons we need to have situation like this: - For m4/3 camera we have this settings: 1/50, f2, ISO 25. For 135 camera we have this settings: 1/50, f4, ISO 100. Or For m4/3 camera we have this settings: 1/200, f2, ISO 100. For 135 camera we have this settings: 1/200, f4, ISO 400. - Continue.......
- Now we have the same exposure - same time, which will result in the same number of photons gathered from the lenses and registered from the sensor = no shot noise difference! So for noise performance the only thing that matters is exposure. And why our favorite japanese companies are setting base ISO 100/200 for smaller sensors is very hard to understand. So smartphone vendors are setting ISO 25 but “real camera brands have been sticking to ISO 100/200 since decades” ?!?!?! Only thing I could see is they are pushing for more expensive products with fake superiority arguments! - In reality in P&S and small sensor MILC signal is boosted/gained to get ISO 100 level brightness and this of course cuts DR and adds shot noise. And based on the same technology 135 format sensors are even with negative gain to get on ISO64 for example. Which is a ridiculous and fake push for high profit! At the same time no such issue with smartphone sensors!
@Craig from Nevada No it is not! This just proves no new sensor will work wonders with ISO100/200 noise levels because noise is not from the sensor. And also show Japanese cartel and arrogance. It also provides clear examples on how to get better performance from the smaller sensors. Which 135 format advocates said is impossible.....
Of course you can prove me wrong if you think something is wrong or incorrect. And BTW I am pretty much fine with m4/3 noise levels, it could just get better, shut some mouths and end this "my sensor is big" game. I am all for small sensors with small and sharp lenses! But this base ISO levels are pure example of crippling/disabling cheaper products.
"From the equivalence lens above we said f2 and f4 lens are equivalent but from the exposure triangle now we have MUCH SHORTER EXPOSURE on the m4/3 camera!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
You're not discovering anything, this has been explained a million times already, including on DPR.
@s1oth1ovechunk Exposure is time that you expose sensor to the light! If change this time you change the shoot noise. Try to read and comprehend above examples. ISO is just sensitivity of the film or sensor+ gain. You did stop nothing but show you have no idea what you are talking about. I am sorry. Your second comment is correct in practice but do not make clear why! And it is not because the sensor noise as explained above.
@Alex Hanin I am not saying I made biggest discovery in the world! And seems like many people do not understand this and continue to repeat about sensor noise or waiting for newer sensor with better low ISO performance, which is not going to happen. Or senor gathering light, as sensor do not gather the light but the lens. So when you go down and read you see people do not comprehend but just repeat like parrots.
You can spin that however you want, but the fact is that an f/2 FF lens gathers 4x more light than a f/2 MFT lens. Everything else is a consequence of that.
"Now we have the same exposure - same time, which will result in the same number of photons gathered from the lenses and registered from the sensor = no shot noise difference!"
Well obviously, that's why it's called "equivalence".
" So smartphone vendors are setting ISO 25 but “real camera brands have been sticking to ISO 100/200 since decades” ?!?!?! Only thing I could see is they are pushing for more expensive products with fake superiority arguments! "
Looking for a conspiracy where there is none, M4/3 sensors are largely dedicated to the M4/3 ILC market and the sensor makers have no incentive to purposely gimp them, much less the M4/3 camera makers. Setting base ISO is a balance against high ISO needs and the sensor properties, it's pretty moot with highly invariant sensors anyway.
One stop is rarely ever gonna make or break a shot so I don't see what the big deal is or what warranted this diatribe.
@Alex Hanin Exactly it is not the sensor it is the lens which gather the light! But lenses has different speed. Anyway smaller sensors are limited by high base ISO. Because if lens is slow or you need wide DoF you can set longer exposure. But again limiting factor for the longest possible exposure is lowest possible ISO. Otherwise you will get overexposed. And there is no conspiracy, it is clear technical fact! No low ISO on almost any small sensor from "real camera vendor" and we have low ISO on almost every smartphone since decade. So this is not conspiracy this is marketing strategy in cartel between vendors to push everyone in 135 format wagon. All else is just poor crop with silly not professional noise ....... There is no sense in small pixel size and to set high base ISO? Then we have bigger pixels on bigger sensors and lower ISO??? We see no real progress from this Japanese vendors for decade. Then they cry how bad market is...
We also do not have PDAF on most 1" cameras and below, but we have this on almost every phone sometimes on all 2-4 cameras! We do not have IBIS on most Sony/Canon/Nikon APS-C cameras, then same on all 1"and below cameras are lacking IBIS, why is that? Conspiracy again? DR is not really moving 1-2 stops for decade, but we have real scenes with 20 and more stops top sensors reach around 15 stops. This is just no real progress for very long time. Of course it is easier than film and more accessible. But photography for the people is in smartphones and there is good reason for this aside from - always with you, just from pure tech point of view!
More examples: Sony ZV-1, very good camera with maybe fastest stacked sensor, 24 fps raw shooting, leaf shutter, good lens, all cool. Crippled to 4K 30p and 8 bit video..... This sensor could do 4K 120p in 10 bit. So why we should be happy with this products crippled and half baked? Meanwhile Apple is putting 3x cameras and Prores RAW for the same money or even cheaper. All of them could shoot ISO 25 and with HEIF format. If we wait on Japanese we will use 8bit jpg till the end of times :D .
" There is no sense in small pixel size and to set high base ISO? Then we have bigger pixels on bigger sensors and lower ISO??? " -video
Pixel size has little to do with it, FF sensors generally don't tweak base ISO to account for far smaller pixels in a 61MP vs 20MP sensor... They do often have dual gain architectures with what's essentially two base ISOs. Again tho, having ISO 100 isn't gonna transform M4/3 bodies, people aren't flocking to Nikon because they have a base ISO of 64 while other FF bodies are 100.
" We also do not have PDAF on most 1" cameras and below, but we have this on almost every phone sometimes on all 2-4 cameras! We do not have IBIS on most Sony/Canon/Nikon APS-C cameras, then same on all 1"and below cameras are lacking IBIS, why is that? Conspiracy again? " -video
What the heck does any of that have to do with M4/3? Most ILC manufacturers decided OSPDAF was important and implemented it all the way down to their budget bodies, Oly has yet to do it <$1K but that might be the sole exception.
Pana was pretty proactive w/DFD. OSPDAF is just a mask on the sensor and most of the heavy lifting on it comes down to processing and logic that doesn't happen at the sensor level...
Sony still put their best C-AF and tracking implementation on all it's APS-C bodies and even it's compacts, they and Canon have more resources to throw at that challenge so they've got more cameras w/OSPDAF & DPAF, what a shock.
Nearly all M4/3 bodies have IBIS and most newer Fuji bodies have it too, why are you ranting about that here? Yeah that might be something Sony & CaNikon have purposely kept from APS-C, so what? You've got options, buy Fuji/Oly/Pana if you want a system more dedicated to sub-FF formats.
IBIS does take up space and adds complexity, it doesn't take a genius to figure out why it's not on more compacts, same reason it's not on my GX850 and it's less effective on an E-PL than an OM-D.
@themountainphotographer I see tons of comments here which seems care about equivalency, and requests for new sensors etc. But based on what I said in the beginning do we will get new 135 format sensor that will have same noise levels in the pictures does not matter of the ISO, exposure etc. Just point the camera, press the shutter and here we go, noise free image? How about that? I can tell you no way with photon registering devices like sensors! To achieve this you need painter or/and AI assistance. So painter could look at some noise dark image and create and joyful, bright and noise free image! Or you can talk to the latest and greatest AI's and talk to them to generate one noise free image for you. BUT If you are using sensor to get the shot you are registering some amount some value generated by photo flux. And how much of this photons will reach the sensor depends from YOUR EXPOSURE SETTINGS!!! Then if possible for the sensor it will read/measure/register/count them. Continue
So if based on exposure settings you literally limit photon flux reaching the sensor, then compare and conclude smaller sensor ( the with not equalized or equivalent exposure ) is noisier, then it seems like you have no idea what you are talking about! And you do not compare apples to oranges anymore. This is like to conclude 135 format camera has more noise on ISO 400 compared to ISO 100!!! It is clear as bright day that exposure triangle and all math behind it is not made for exposure equalization BUT for reaching desirable brightness based on RELATIVE VALUES of the ISO sensitivity and aperture and ABSOLUTE value of the shutter speed! And as we are well educate on equivalence ( thank you DPR and equivalence police ) we know that f2 on 10 mm is not like f2 on 20mm and is not like f2 on 40mm! And no way ( based on science ) to get same photon flux from same FoV from lens with different focal length, BECASUE SIZE DOES MATTER! Continue!
BUT our exposure triangle do not care about total photon flux! It does care for the relative brightness per area. So based on it we try to get same brightness from different amount of photon flux. But how we can get same brightness from small photon flux? We just amplify the signal! But signal amplification DO NOT GENERATED NEW OR BETTER SIGNAL, it just amplify what we have, and BTW add some noise along the way. Let me explain it like this: Lest say: 50mm/f2 135 format lens focused over solar cell, we expose the cell 1 sec and we generate 2 volt voltage. 25mm/f2 m4/3 format lens focused over SAME solar cell, we expose the cell 1 sec and we generate 1 volt voltage. Ok but 2 volt is more, what we can do, we amplify the signal x2 and here we go we have 2 volts from MFT lens and we are happy ...... IT does not matter the sensor size in this case, we just have 2x less photons, and SENSOR CAN NOT FIX THIS! ANY SENSOR IN THE WORLD CAN NOT FIX THIS! Continue......
So we have two groups of people which are totally wrong and has totally wrong expectations: 1. We wait for better small sensor that will match or outperform same generation bigger sensor - this is not going to happen in this material world! 2. Second group of people which believe that somehow bigger sensor has much lower noise or gather more photons. Which is plain wrong - sensor noise from close generation is very close! And noise in smaller sensors do not come from the sensor BUT from the lower photon flux which get amplified to reach the bigger sensor brightness!!! Which is perceived as noisier image because of the SHOT NOISE. Which become more apparent when your photon flux drops! WOW/LOL/WHOAAAAAA. So why, ohh why we do compare sensor sizes without photon flux/exposure equalization/ equivalence? Why do we apply equivalence only to the focal length, DoF, aperture and etc? And then we are making conclusions???? Like we compare 2 to 1 and found 2 is bigger?!?!?!? Continue....
Ok lets do some comparison based on education and science. Not on relative and artificially boosted values! How we can equalize exposure/ photon flux? Because our REAL aperture on the small sensor is smaller we need to correct the exposure by changing the ISO!!! Lets see how small sensors are performing in reality, when they receive same amount of photons/light/exposure:
Ooops MFT sensor is no different than Z3 and RP higher res sensors, and 1" inch big soap box is very close behind! This is in full resolution comparison mode!
As we can see resolution and noise wise MFT is hard to distinguish even from 28Mpix RP!!! And RX is not so far behind even maybe hitting some diffraction/lens sharpness limit!!!
@Just Another Tog You literally demonstrate illiteracy :). Sorry about that but you are really making yourself looking not well educated and refusing to learn something that you clearly do not understand! I can not help you more, but if you do not like this topic you can go away!
From all examples above we can clearly see: 1. When exposure is equalized different sensor sizes performs very close, if mixed hard to distinguish! And even resolution wise sensors are very close! So no real WOLRD benefit in this resolution range over the 4-5x smaller sensors! If we can stick to equivalent exposures bigger senor with same/close resolution will add nothing!
2. Even 135 format sensors benefit from LOW ISO modes, and multi frame modes also do the same as they collect more photons for the resulting frame:
So if bigger sensor like in D850 benefit from ISO 64 - clearly seen above in exposure latitude test, why we do not use the same tech for lower sensors??? It is the same story with HR mode in OM camera. It not only drop shot noise to no existence, it also add more resolution!
Simplest raw thing that we can have is just to have smaller sensors optimized for LOW ISO. And we know this is very possible as EVERY smartphone from cheapest 8-12Mpix sensors up to most expensive 40-100Mpix sensors does it with ease! And we need this to be able to set longer exposure and really collect EQUIVALENT AMOUNT OF PHOTONS. BUT our Japanese friends like to sell big cameras, with big sensors, for BIG MONEY. Instead of give you optimized, perfectly capable small sensor cameras, exactly as smartphone guys does! It is hard to believe that OM and Panny continue to push products with ISO 200 base ISO. I think in some models Panny has some kind of slightly extended ISO modes. But anyway not sure about OM.
@Just Another Tog I mean if I have some issues why you deal with me? Maybe you have some issues? Do you have something to say about exposure settings or maybe ISO? Do you actually understand what I am talking about? I mean this is useful information directly related to both photography and tech comparisons! So if we constantly equalize lenses why do we not equalize exposure? And make all parts of the equation equivalent not only lens fastness/size/etc???
In regards to my photography you will see nothing from it, does not matter how good or bad it is as I am shooting mostly people, and most of them kids. And I am not going to put them over internet in any way!!! Maybe if I do some land/city-scapes you will have the chance to see something. But for sure it will be not revolutionary in any way. Maybe will be little bit cleaner than usual :).
And BTW when consumers do not have idea about all this RELATIVE things and try to compare them as ABSOLUTE values only benefit is for marketing.
BTW my 6 color printer show more than 2400 pictures printed for the last 2 years! BTW not only my pictures!!! But not only I am shooting but also I am printing a lot! And this really helped me to rethink whole marketing "FF sensor size scam". Meanwhile I am also doing a lot of video shooting, and the only reason I am not shooting with MFT is their reluctance to implement good PDAF! Even with base ISO 200 I am pretty fine with the output IQ in video and in photo mode!!! The reason why I am spending some time to explain, this very simple principle - exposure equivalence, is on the first place to set proper expectations! On second place to push this japan vendors which claim that they listen very careful to their customers, to stop this crippling and allow us to use what we paid for with full potential!!! And I really do not care if this is funny for you or for someone else! :) There are people that will read and comprehend there are people that will laugh, who cares? Be blessed!
@Just Another Tog So now you need to prove this - "The fact you thought typing all of that out was somehow providing useful information is just pure delusion. It’s possibly one of the biggest headsgone rants I’ve seen on here."
Or you are just illiterate t.r.o.l. :), Go ahead use up to 3500 words limit. :) Good luck. BTW people who like to just go take camera and shot some pictures do not care about DPR like sites as they are using perfectly capable smartphones which benefit from all explained above and does something more! People which are reading and fighting in comment does care how things are working, and how to get cleaner images or how to invest smartly their hard earned money! I am sorry you are much more smarter and this does not help you. But now you need to prove your claims. Otherwise you are just attacking personally with no rational arguments. Which is related to trolling!
BTW I am also learning here, this is the place from which I really understand relation between shot noise, sensor noise ISO and exposure! But if you do not understand logic behind you will bash smaller sensors because their ISO is not clean enough ......... And if you do not know how to compare and how to measure what exactly you are doing by looking at test shots? Spending time?
Super, even great! So why you are here in comment section under lens review? And not even this but you are insulting me? You think all this famous photogs above are looking at DPR for Chris and Jordan reviews? But lets focus on you, what you are doing here in tech section arguing and insulting me? When you say you are not interested from tech but from the people pictures....... so you are coming here and just catch someone to insult? Taking down random people for fun? LOL! I am not going to show you any pictures so you can clearly pass, it is clear you have no argument.........
@J A C S "When comparing formats, "same exposure" is not an interesting fcator to begin with. " - OK and what you compare then? ISO? ONLY THING THAT DOES MATTER IN GIVEN SENSOR TECH LEVEL IS EXPOSURE. This is why most expensive Nikons have LOW ISO modes. And it is clearly cleaner, so why not with small sensors???
@ Just Another Tog Until you provide PROOF about - "all that nonsense you pasted above" then I can start talking to you on other nonsense topics brought from you IN LENS REVIEW TOPIC! Any PROOF also that some of the "proper" names above is reading or following your "nonsense"? Actually I do not really care, I am waiting YOU to prove your words!
@s1oth1ovechunk Dear, after so many words above + examples you have no idea what is my point..... what I can do, seriously? You ask me what I am saying? Let me clear it out for YOU! IT IS NONSENSE TO COMPARE ISO VS ISO between different formats because exposure is not EQUALISED/EQUIVALENT! Cont........
Go to fist and second post and see the examples! My ears/eyes are tired from reading equivalent comments taking down MFT sensors, but they account ONLY LENS EQUIVALENCE WHICH IS WRONG, NOT CORRECT, IGNORANT!
There is NO WAY small and big sensor will have similar or close ISO performance because as I said many times what you see is SHOTNOISE not sensor noise. As already said both equivalent pseudo police and some MFT owners are illiterate here: - equivalent policy equalize only lens speed and pretend for superiority based on this, but never equalize exposure = illiterate - some MFT owners wait for new sensor with better ISO vs ISO performance = not going to happen with this physics on this planet and with same tech level!
In addition when you to all this if you do equalize exposure you have really hard times to distinguish 1" vs MFT vs 135 format and even 135 format could be worse because of the lens.
@J A C S Not ISO either. Try total light." I do not pretend ISO should be used, I am talking about ISO vs ISO comparisons! BUT BASE ISO is the limiting factor! Total light is related to the lens speed + time = exposure. Nothing to do with sensor size. Max exposure time is limited by minimum possible ISO supported by the sensor. If you do not have low ISO mode you will just over expose....
So it is done with smartphones, it is done with SAME sensors used from Nikon. So it is totally possible! I am not talking about mission to other galaxy, I am talking to tech available right now!
By the lens power yes = this means slower speed. Bigger lens = more light, no rocket science here. And this are extremes for which most people do not care. But there are tons of situations in which you can compensate with longer exposure/flash etc. Then your limit is the base ISO value. And it is absolute surprise that MFT vendors lunch cameras with base ISO 200, when iphones are going ISO 20-25 ....... does not really matter if this is real ISO or blended. Result is cleaner image. Anyway my point is - comparison based on ISO vs ISO , are wrong. And if equivalence guys would like educate us then lets see using same theory for exposure equalization. As you said total light/ photon flux and so on. Because if you provide 2x less light and you conclude ok we have more noise ........ this are very youtuber style comparisons...... - And actually in the real life you can get in situations where you can equalize exposure and get even better results from MFT system!
You are wrong about what the "equivalence guys" are saying. They are NOT talking about comparisons are the same ISO. Comparisons are the same exposure is nonsense as well. Nobody cares what the exposure was - what matters is the final result, and this is exactly what equivalence cares about.
The limiting factor in _good light_ is the lowest ISO, roughly speaking. In poor light, it is mostly the sensor size.
Phones are cheating a lot. They overexpose to lower the ISO, do NR, and compensate for vignetting; at least my phone does - so whatever the ISO (the FWC, to be more precise) is claimed to be, it is that in the center only.
Look at DXOmark and Bill's site. The Z7II has "native" ISO 64. Yet, the FWC is more or less the same as that of the lowly R5...
Thank you for making your position more clear. So this is your position: you can't compare ISO between formats.
This position is wrong. End of story. ISO non-equivalence can be easily measured and estimated to convert at almost exactly the expected conversion factor, e.g. ISO200 performance in SNR and dynamic range on m43 equals ISO800 performance in SNR and dynamic range. Everything else you are saying is just confusing yourself.
Let me try to unconfuse you: Imagine a 3:2 24MP m43 sensor. Now imagine a 3:2 24MP FF sensor. If you have a 20mm 1.4 lens on m43 and take the exact same image from the same location with the same shutter speed and a 40mm 2.8 lens on FF, every single corresponding pixel between m43 and FF sensors will have the same photons striking them. The same number, the same wavelength, etc. The light hitting the sensor is exactly the same.
This is a simplified model, but it accounts for the vast majority of the physics here and controls for all irrelevant variables.
@themountainphotographer Sure thank you for this advise, be we are talking about exposure and sensor/lens performance :).
@s1oth1ovechunk You are not un confusing me as I am not confused at all :)! Confised are equivalent guys which SPAM EVERY MFT topic here! Also Confused are SOME MFT owners waiting for better ISO performance and requesting better sensor to fix that noise .... So as I said it clear several times and as you can go and read all the comments, below and all over the place THIS ARE FACTS. This is not something that is going on purely in my mind and dreams! Your example above is correct exactly as mine BUT! BUT! BUT! You can set bigger sensor MILC to ISO 100, you can set your Olympus to base ISO 200 or extended ISO 100. And at that point exposure is not equivalent anymore. Now you have more photons coming over larger sensor. Now go above and read my first two post and tell me how they are different VS you example. Continue ........
So if you few guys which trying to read what I am saying and also you are literate, active in forums and etc... And you are having hard times to agree and saying the same with different example or just from different side, what is going on with people fighting all the time under this topics? One says all is the sensor which is nonsense, other side says we will get better sensors one day, or computational photography will improve the things. But in reality at same and close tech level noise level/DR is EXPOSURE dependent. So when you equalize it you see sensor is not noisier and DR is almost the same. And actually in the 20 Mpix range you are having hard times to distinguish or get even better resolution, which is somehow expected from bigger sensor. Yes you have range of equivalent faster lenses but most people do not care about that. And don't get me wrong I am not talking down MFT! I am pretty happy with all smart formats. But we need to know what we are talking about.
@J A C S - "The limiting factor in _good light_ is the lowest ISO, roughly speaking." - This is what I am saying!
" In poor light, it is mostly the sensor size." I do not think this is correct. I would say in poor light fastest lens is the winner. In theory you can go faster with bigger sensor but not always you have every possible lens in the world with you. And we see that even sensor efficiency is not big factor with high ISO - lets say 6400 and above, as shot noise is much bigger factor. This is why crap-iest RP/6DII sensor is performing not so bad at ISO 6400 for example. At base is ISO its performance is close to the 1"/MFT sensors.
So to compensate for bad exposure = shotnoise = more apparent noise with smaller sensors we need lower ISO - if we use exposure triangle. And small sensors are not noisier, they just receive low amount of light per ISO setting. As we can see here PowerShot Pro 1 had ISO 50 setting - back in February 2004, 8MP Sony 2/3in CCD sensor!
Comparing different sensor size on the same ISO has the same sense as comparing same sensor on different ISO setting and conclude higher is ISO setting is noisier :) . Yes there are sometimes big differences between technology levels or second gain stage kick in. But this are just exceptions which confirm the rule = exposure rule over. So at present there is no equivalent mode on MFT systems to ISO 100 on 135 format system so this comparison is not technically correct. Same is for APS-C and 1" sensors. But absolutely different with smartphone cameras which are now going close to 1" sensor size. So this could not be anything else but vendor ignorance/fake competition. And it is really strange why Panny and Olympus which are main players on MFT field are not improving on that. Multishot high res modes are steps in this direction though! And MFT is leading over there. Anyway I think I spend too much time to make my point clear enough. So will drop off from further discussions here.
Smaller sensors pose a more restrictive hard limit on the eq. aperture, as simple as that.
"In theory you can go faster with bigger sensor but not always you have every possible lens in the world with you."
I kinda do. I walk around with a 24-105/4, which is like 12-52/2 on m43, and not even considered fast. I almost always carry an f/1.2 or an f/1.4 prime with me. I shoot sports with my 100-400 which is definitely slower but the best one in the m43 world is 400/8 eq. at the long end. Sometimes I would take my slow 70-200/4. The m43 match is (not really "m") the 35-100/2, a 1,650g monster not on sale anymore. Then my 135/2, etc.
I feel if you tried really hard and worked at it, you could get to your point in no more than 2 sentences. Can you please try?
You are currently punishing us with your verbosity. I feel you don't have the time to write something short so we get nonsense. 2 sentences please. Maybe 3 if you have to. I still have no idea what the hell you are talking about.
@s1oth1ovechunk One sentence especially for you - MFT sensor is not noisier than 135 format sensor when used WITH SAME EXPOSURE! Voila! @themountainphotographer You can go away even without shutting the door behind, no problem! It is little bit arrogantly to get here after tons of comments to mess and advise like this, who need to leave and who need to stay! Maybe first 7 years educations is lacking seriously here? Or maybe this is your forum? I am addressing real concerns which can be found all over the place you point me to the door? HAHAHAH joker?
Actually, it is noisier with the same exposure, to be more precise, it produces noisier photos at the same size. Again, "same exposure" is a poor way of comparing formats.
@J A C S You are making mistake here! What you talk about is same exposure per unit area! What I talk about is same total exposure! Not sure why one should care what is exposure per unit though! As area changes with sensor/film size. It is clear it was made for single area then wrongly adapted to all sizes and created that "equivalence" mess. BTW in forums I see many people which very well understand what is exposure and what is ISO to exposure. But more interesting question is why MFT vendors do not sensors for max exposure, as smartphone guys do???
And again, phones do not really do what they claim. I started a thread in the PST forum, and there is a lot of skepticism there, backed by data, about that. Older threads suggest that there is a practical limit about the FWC with today's sensors.
With my example of the 24MP 3:2 sensor on both FF and M43, if you have the same exposure, that means you have more photons to work with per-pixel for every pixel on FF. This is the signal. You will have 4x as many photons at each pixel, meaning your photon counting operation (that pixels essentially do) of the FF sensor is much less noisy compared to the the m43 that has 1/4th the photons to work with.
Yes, most probably, my English is not from the best in the town! Anyway this is my point, problem comes from the real photon flux/number of photons = signal level = real exposure = photon shot noise which is not equal to sensor noise!!! So even if we have 4 times more effective sensor we will not get same or better performance on MFT camera, just because noise come from the signal not from the sensor. This could make sense for the film where ISO 100 film emulsion will have same sensitivity per square unit. But for digital this is total nonsense, and require much more gain/boost/amplification because of the lower signal. And with current standard and units the only way to go over this and get equivalent exposure is to have LOW ISO setting on smaller sensor cameras.
latest software on my smartphone allow for ISO 40. And I can see pretty big difference in the shadow noise in RAW DNG file between ISO 40 and ISO 100! So if 200$ smartphone could have LOW ISO why 1000$ ILC could not????
And the flame wars continue (yawn). Happens every time m43 gets an article.
The gallery is awesome (50/50 — system/photographer, technically/aesthetically). This lens seems to have ‘character’ (for lack of a better word — it’s hard to pin down or put into words exactly what that means, but it seems this lens has it). Hopefully, that character isn’t just a one-off. Time will tell.
It's Thanksgiving day, here in the US, and that gallery just makes me want to bag the big dinner, pick up a camera and a lens, and go out a get a few shots. Not many DPR galleries inspire that reaction.
Good job and kudos to the OM System, the photographer(s), and DPR.
This lens is very good, very pleasing and natural rendering, very sharp! You can see every skin pore, hair and wrinkle ( Jordan is getting older, and seems to be cold out there :) ). Even every hair on the child face I mean this is SHARP! And when we add PRO ( build to last ) quality of OM actually price is good and nothing in common with cheap 135 format cheap lenses! Most probably this one will outresolve all of them together. As Panny f1.7 zoom does. Manny people below cry out for new sensor or more resolution, but as we know from R3/R6 comments around 20mpix is more than enough :) for the real PRO... What this system need is LOW BASE ISO sensors and good PDAF. Low base ISO and the best IBIS will allow for "equivalent" exposure and will make images cleaner and comparable to 135 "dream team". For me the real show stopper is lack of good PDAF with tracking.
Just for comparison sake. This days I am printing some pictures for friends and I found some shots from someone's wedding. They are shot with my very old P&S 10x zoom panny DMC-TZ1 - 1/2.5 " Type CCD, 5.0Mpix sensor. From jpg, with little corrections in affinity - tone mapping and some local exposure here and there I was able to print excellent 13x18cm prints! Because of the pocketable format and the zoom lens I was able to take very good shots with surprisingly good enough DR and sharpness in summer, bright sunny day and partly shaded. And I have not burned blue sky and I was able to bring out details from under the thick shade ( big trees and tent ). This is about sensors size and ultra mega equivalence comparisons. For sure this is not good enough for most equivalence shooters which are looking pictures at 400% magnification. But for my friends they have just excellent and fun memories because I was able to bring this small camera with me.
"Low base ISO and the best IBIS will allow for "equivalent" exposure and will make images cleaner and comparable to 135 "dream team" Unfortunately, low base ISO and IBIS do not help with moving subjects. Night Mode (stacking + computational technology) is just a workaround : moving subjects are either ghostly or noisy because you cannot stack the moving elements of a scene. Moving elements are everywhere, sports, people in general and even the vegetation in a landscape because of wind.
Yes it does not help with fast moving subjects, this is why big lenses with big and fast sensors ( which are THE MOST EXPENSIVE ONE ) has their own place! And lowest sale volume! But outside from very rare usage cases they are absolutely unnecessary! And cheap 135 format body with cheapest 135 format lenses is useless in the same usage scenarios anyway!
$800 for an M4/3 20mm F1.4 lens that is equivalent to an FF 40mm F2.8 is not cheap... It is very expensive. And don't tell me the Oly is all metal and weather-resistant. It does not really help for the final IQ... M4/3 is only interesting if you use small and light lenses like the Pany 20mm F1.7 to benefit from the smaller form factor of the M4/3 system, or tele lenses for wildlife shooting where a 300mm lens becomes a 600mm lens. But if you want to buy faster lenses like this 20mm F1.4, there is not cost benefit over FF. M4/3 lenses have a focal length that is half the focal length of FF lenses for the same FOV. As a consequence, on the wide angle side, distortions and aberrations are higher and the lens needs more corrective elements to get something as good as its FF equivalent. Also, when you go the wide end, optical designers will have to use retrofocus design sooner than with FF lenses. All this has a cost penalty.
The way I see it it's just filling in the gap. This lens is not going to make someone choose a m4/3 camera, but it's nice now to have another 20mm lens, one that doesn't make loud noises and take a full second to focus. Lenses like compact ones, telephotos or more unique focal length ranges like the 8-25mm f4 are more the bread and butter of M43.
I may end up replacing my 20mm f1.7 with this lens for the focus speed and extra light. If you put an a7c with 40mm f2.5 in my hands I would probably rather spend the day shooting with that, but that would mean giving up my 8-25mm which no one else can compare to.
@Karroly There is no equivalent quality and speed 135 format lens! So comparing just speed of VW Golf and Mercedes Benz C class and BMW 3 with same engine size will give you no real comparison. Same is here, this lens is MB and the cheap 135 format one are cheap Golfs and Toyotas, they do the same job moving you from A to B. But quality is not the same in any way, also the price! Equivalent aperture is just single parameter and many other exist in which there is no match.
"There is no equivalent quality and speed 135 format lens!" In terms of IQ and speed, I do not think so. Here is DPR conclusion about the Canon 40mm F2.8 STM : "the 40mm is impressively sharp wide open, and very sharp right across the frame at normal working apertures (F5.6 - F11). Chromatic aberration and distortion are both very low too. About the only possible criticism is vignetting wide open on full frame, which measures 1.7 stops, and is more than you'll see when shooting faster lenses at F2.8" And again, F1.4 on M4/3 camera is not faster than F2.8 on FF camera. Pictures you take at the same shutter speed but at higher ISO on the FF camera will have the same noise. So no advantage for the M4/3 lens.
IQ is not only sharpness as we know from the Canon F2 zoom lens review and comments! And from what I see in the galleries 40mm is not even close... Also cheap STM focus system, also no bokeh rendering optimization, no weather sealing, no,no, no.......... no VW Golf is not equivalent to BMW 3, even with same engine size, or even with bigger size....... You need to compare apples with apples.
Chris, excellent single lens review. However, the Panasonic 20mm f1.7 ii exists and is currently $270 brand new or can be $150 used like I got mine. Its 7 elements in 5 groups versus OM systems 11 elements in 10 groups. So the actual T-stop, or maximum light transmission of these lenses might be the same.
Please next time to a side to side review. My Panasonic 20mm is sharper than my Panasonic Leica 25mm f1.4 lens. It seems excellent in everything except autofocus. I might be able to manually focus it faster than the autofocus system can.
So since everyone already owns a Panasonic 20mm is there any reason other than autofocus to get the OM version. That would have been nice to know. Even though its slow in autofocus, I like in more than either my 25mm f1.4 or 15mm f1.7 lenses.
the panasonic is a great lens, but im pretty sure it is not excellent in the rain =), and having owned one I am sure the bokeh on the olympus would be nicer.
I regret selling my Oly Pen-F. What a lovely camera and perfect with small primes. That is the M43 sweetspot. And Olympus/ OM makes seriously high quality lenses. For those moaning about the price, you should try how buttery smooth and high quality they are. Wish OM a lot of success.
I agree mate, I bought back into the m4/3 system this year to complement my Z6 and I've found that in use that I'm taking better photos with my m4/3 setup, due to the specific advantages of the system.
I have the Pany 25 1.4, and it is a fine lens. I'd love to try the Oly 20 1.4, but I already have the Pany 20mm 1.7, so that would be a bit too much overlap.
I'd also be interested in some kind of comparison between this lens and one of the Panasonic Leica 25mm f/1.4 lenses. I have the II which is weather-sealed and a pretty great performer optically, but makes a lot of noise when focusing and adjusting aperture. Some call it "rattlesnaking" but bottom line is, it's an experience that's out of line with a fairly premium price point.
My Panasonic 20mm f1.7 is sharper than my 25mm f1.4.
So you may see a difference going with either 20mm. I think you can rent them from Lens rentals and if you like it purchase that copy.
I tested out an Olympus 30mm f3.5 macro from Lens rentals and loved it. But I thought the quoted price was too high. I bought one used from Ebay for 100 less. But wasn't nearly as sharp, but did let in more UV light. So trade off. So if you rent it and like it then thats an option to get a good one.
Lack of MF clutch and L-Fn button does bother me. I use the clutch on my 12-40 for zone focusing. Having the extras like the MF clutch and L-Fn should be one of the benefits of having a Pro lens. It’s partly what you pay the extra for. The utility they provide adds value to the lens.
Sigma have shown that you can do “pro” image quality and weather protection for a lot less with their amazing Contemporary lenses. Is it Oly Pro levels of protection? No, but then a 20mm (40mm) 1.4 is not going up a mountain or into the jungles of Borneo. It’s going out into the city on a rainy evening when the streets are shiny.
So, for £650, what is a Pro without the extras? I kinda feel it’s really just a Premium lens with a Pro price tag and right now not enough to tempt me to upgrade over the Pana 1.7…
If it had the extras I think it would be the perfect 10/10 street photography lens and would more than justify the price.
AFAIK Sigma's f1.4 primes just have a single seal at the mount (and the 30/1.4 has none), better than nothing but it's not much... It's an odd penny pinching practice tbh, tho Oly/Pana keeping sealing mostly for $700+ primes isn't any better (or logical since there's even kit zooms w/robust sealing).
M4/3 sensors are doing just fine, faster than average readout speed and higher than average pixel density, about where they should be for things like noise and DR. If they aren't enough for you that's fine, but in that case no sudden leap or upgrade will ever make the format usable for ya, plenty useful for many.
If anything it's some of the low to midrange bodies at or under $1K that could use an update or would stand to benefit from having the same sensor as the $1K+ bodies like the latest E-M5/1 and G9. The 1/60 readout speed brings a decent amount of value over the slower 20MP Sony sensor and older 16MP Pana/Sony sensors.
Yeah I concur, at anything below iso 1600 the current m4/3 sensor really doesn't lose much to my Z6, and at low ISO I think the m4/3 sensor has better detail reproduction.
@gavinlg > at low ISO I think the m4/3 sensor has better detail reproduction.
I am sorry, but how can it be? MFT sensors are only going up to 20 MP, but the full-frame ones go up to 60 MP. 60 MP will generally give you significantly better detail reproduction than 20 MP.
Well, I did say specifically in comparison to my Z6 which is 24mp. But to directly answer your question, the 20mp m4/3 sensor with the high res shot mode enabled gives a 50mp file (e-m5/em1ii) or an 80mp file (em-1iii) and that gives a very, very high quality file with pretty amazing colour information at the pixel level when used within its limitations.
@gavinlg > Well, I did say specifically in comparison to my Z6 As an owner of both 24 MP Z6ii and 20 MP E-P7 I can not confirm your findings. You can also look at the dpreview studio scene comparison tool and see no meaningful difference in details between these sensors at low ISO values.
As for the high-res mode - you can do it with Z6 too (kind of). Just shoot a dozen of pictures with a steady hand (or better on a tripod) and combine them on PC. It is more laborious than with Olympus, but certainly doable. Anyway, high-res mode is not a feature of a sensor itself, but rather of a particular camera.
Well, I disagree :) I don't think the Z6 is quite as good for high density foliage at base iso personally. And I use my e-m5iii specifically for lightweight landscape stuff, so I'm not going to go simulate high res shot with the z6. You might be able to, but you wouldn't, so thats a moot point. and as far as I'm aware it's actually not the same as the High Res mode - it's algorithmically different to just stitch shots in photoshop.
Thats not how high-res mode works and you need some really specific usecases to make it work. I haven't found a single situation in my day-to-day shooting where I could even use the feature.
High Res mode can be pretty situational, I always viewed it as a fun challenge more then a big value add or format/brand advantage, I'd definitely rather shoot a single 61MP frame than bother with HR, but it's still useful IMO. A lot of it's downsides can be overcome with just a little more post work in masking areas with movement etc.
When it comes to detail retrieval, the presence or absence of an AA filter can have a significant impact when comparing sensors with a similar resolution (eg 20 vs 24MP), as well as the lenses themselves obviously. AFAIK most if not all the current M4/3 bodies have shed the AA filter, my GM1 had one but my lowly GX850 dropped it (and it shows w/solid lenses).
I think a bunch of the lower MP (relatively speaking) FF bodies still have that AA filter, not sure if that comes down to video demands or just a segmentation thing.
Hi-Res mode is indeed highly situational. Also, considering it cranks out an 80MP file, it really only has about 40MP worth of actual detail.
HR gains are huge in shadow detail and overall supersampling. BUT what you lose in the (OMD) Hi-Res mode is your flash sync speed goes down to 1/50th of a second, you lose a ton of highlight latitude, and of course you have to be locked down as HR takes time.
The situations where I use HR mode alot, is in architectural work. The small chip + short lenses, mean I can shoot at f/8 instead of f/16, I can use Profoto B10's instead of my Acute packs on location, and the supersampling of the HR mode means I don't have to fight with moire in post from textiles, screen windows, or other surfaces. That's huge when I'm working against the clock.
Against my D800E, so long as I can keep my DR within range, my E-M1mk2 can output a better file than my 36MP Nikon. But again, highly situational.
In the studio, I'd rather use the D800E into Capture One.
@NoSasaeng - yes Hi Res mode requires a higher resolution Lens. It can improve on a lense than can resolve 20MP but works much better on one thats resolves 50MP.
Agree, its use is limited (especially the Tripod version) - but there's lots of room to improve in Handheld and computational processing in the near future with faster readout sensors. With that I hope it improves the number of situations it can be used. I.e. like phone's which pretty much HDR all the time now, no one even notices. Its something that used to take bracketing, multi exposure - alignment etc, now done in a click.
The lens is just waiting for the other tech to catch up.
that said, my point was more to say that lenses should be too good for the sensor - especially the PRO lenses - which allows better High Res mode results.
Also there will be a 33MP sensor for M4/3 one day - Panasonic has been promising one for years.
I am not afraid of little noise, in fact in some photos it is desirable for my taste. FF can look too clinical. Like on a clean composition it adds some of that nice cinematic like texture. I shot a softball game at 8000 ISO with my E-M1 just last week (8 year old mk1) and got great results. DXO PureRAW Deep Prime did a great job cleaning up the color noise and what was left just looked great, and I found as long as you got the exposure right, the image is fine even at such a high ISO.
I actually just got me a Olympus XZ-1 which I hear has a lot of noise passed 800 ISO. I actually want to experiment with it, purely for the noise and color properties of that CCD sensor.
Just to illustrate that the noise is sometimes desirable, same way more DoF can be desirable.
I wish people treated m4/3 for what it is. A different format. And not how it's being looked at (as a worse version of FF or APS-C).
Personally, I would like being able to switch manual focus to linear, but I don't need a focus clutch. It was a real progress for usability when focus-by-wire eliminated the need to physically switch between AF and MF, and the clutch reverts that progress.
But it also was a step backward right in the beginnings of focus-by-wire when dynamic MF speed was introduced, trying to make by-wire even better. For many applications, it made it worse.
Only recently Panasonic finally recognized that and lets S-system users choose between linear and dynamic MF, which has even begun to trickle back into the G-system, at least for some lenses.
I'd like that to happen to Olympus/OMDS lenses, too. I'd like that much better than I'll ever like the focus clutch, which I always forget to snap back to AF, and then I don't have AF next time I pick up the camera to snap a quick shot, which is a first degree nuisance.
"But it also was a step backward right in the beginnings of focus-by-wire when dynamic MF speed was introduced, trying to make by-wire even better."
I don't think that was a genuine attempt to make focus by wire better, or at least that wasn't the whole intent, I think in some cases the acceleration effects are just masking cheaper sensors that wouldn't work well with linear mapping.
The PL25 had linearly mapped MF over a decade ago, focuses as nicely as any clutch lens, most Sony primes do too, Pana's approach to make it a user option is even better (I think one of the medium format systems features that too?). Tamron made it a user option configurable via USB-C on some recent zooms too.
The lens looks fine but those pinks and reds are like neon signs. The CO conversion seems to be the problem. I downloaded the RAWs, and both the embedded JPEG and the Adobe conversion look better.
It's not the C1 conversion per se but the fact that they purposely left off CA corrections with Capture 1 whereas Adobe auto applies them with M4/3 files and won't let you turn them off.
It's a pink hat, doesn't that just come down to color profiles and subjective preference? Adobe usually has more vivid colors by default, I'm surprised it's the other way around here.
Probably profiles, I do not know. I am just saying that I see neon colors.
It is not the hat only. Also, the gloves and the pink figures on the jacket in #1, 9, 10, 18, 19, 22. You may say that they are a part of the same outfit, maybe neon in real life. But there is also:
#28: The red pops up a bit too much #29: The red rack and fire hydrant, the red SUV, the red jacket - they "jump". In LR or the embedded JPEG, they are slightly subdued. #36: The red is too strong. The other colors are OK. #39: same #40: The glove glows #51: The red truck is an eyesore
That weird pink hat and bright blue jacket? It is due to C1. The jpeg output of C1 does not have traditional Olympus colours. I opened the raw files in Olympus Workspace and I got much more pleasant and natural colours. The jacket is in fact a bit cyan blue and the pink hat looks more natural. The slight glow also vanishes.
Yes, I suspected so. I always liked the Oly colors even though I do not own an m43 camera. Would you upload a conversion with default settings? The first one seems a bit too bright in the JPEG preview; it is OK to lower the brightness by 0.5 stops or so.
I can't upload it to my gallery as that would be against DPR copyright. I instead posted the edits to a thread in the forum. Have a look and judge for yourselves: https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/65687883
Sure is! Haven't you seen photos taken with the Panasonic 200mm, 50-200mm, Olympus 75mm, or even a fisheye like the Olympus 8mm? No bokeh whatsoever. Stick to whatever it is that you shoot. It's the only way to get bokeh.
Alex: Enlighten me - what point is he making? Please do not say "shallow DOF". It takes a lot more than a thin DOF to create good bokeh. For one, lenses that create cat eyes in OOF areas create bad bokeh even if they are designed to resolve a bigger sensor. There's a reason why, for instance, the Pany 200mm has better bokeh than say, a Sony GM 100-400 although both have the same "equivalent" DOF.
" For one, lenses that create cat eyes in OOF areas create bad bokeh even if they are designed to resolve a bigger sensor. " -fauna
While I don't disagree that bokeh itself is totally different from the amount of DoF/blur, singling out cat's eye seems like an odd choice. The vast majority of modern lenses have some degree of cat's eye bokeh, even this 20/1.4, some have more than others or they decrease it quicker as they're stopped down but a certain amount of mechanical vignetting appears to be a very common trade-off in modern lens design.
I've got over a dozen M4/3 lenses (half of them primes) and half a dozen FF lenses and the only ones I recall with next to no cat's eye were my Oly 45/1.8 and (ironically) my Sony 20/1.8 G (which has absurdly pleasing bokeh by UWA standards). My Oly 75/1.8, Pana 42.5/1.7 & 35-100/2.8 all have some visible cat's eye wide open, as did the 17/1.2, 20/1.7, etc. Judging by Lenstip's samples the 200/2.8 does too...
Frankly cat's eye is so prevalent that I've just gotten used to it, there's some edge cases where I think it's not quite as tolerable (eg Sigma 35/1.2 having more of it at f1.4 and particularly at f2 than a far smaller 35/1.4 GM) but I'd be curious to know what other lenses you're using with little to no cat's eye.
Oly's done a great job with bokeh/rendering on their latest primes tho, I'm definitely not trying to take away from that. Heck that's something that gets lost in some of the other equivalent comparisons in the comments below. The Sony 40/2.5 that was mentioned in many has pretty average bokeh even vs other small E mount lenses and w/7 blades it's never totally round even stopped down.
There's also more to bokeh than how highlights end up looking but that's trickier to compare. That same Sony has a pretty prominent rim to it's bokeh balls which I think contributes to the really busy rendering you see on stuff like foliage....
You make excellent points. I mentioned cat's eye since it was at the top of my mind, but I agree that it isn't the most important factor. Heck, my Helios 44m-4 has severe cat's eye which it puts to artistic use in creating swirly bokeh. What seems to be working for the 20mm f1.4 is what Olympus calls 'feathered bokeh', which is the opposite of having a prominent rim to bokeh balls, as you described for the "equivalent" Sony 40mm f2.5. Another example is the Panasonic 100-400 which despite being an f6.7 m43 lens has very pleasing OOF characteristics. The point remains that nice bokeh is easier to achieve on bigger sensors but it is far from the only factor.
I look forward to seeing what the next OM Digital Solutions an or the GH6 cameras brings concerning Noise Levels with MFT. Seems every photo I have seen with this lens, even at ISO 200, has more Noise than I am comfortable with pre-edit. That seems to be the one of the biggest concerns for MFT competing with other formats. I however love the 2x crop of MFT an or the weight savings.
I know what you mean, but since I've mostly moved to DxO PhotoLab for RAW development, I've stopped caring about "noise levels" even with the fairly old existing sensors, because there is no more noise, while retaining extremely fine detail up to ISO 1600 and with only minor restrictions even to ISO 3200.
Of course you could say that, using the same technology, FF will take you up to ISO 6400 (and, with the same minor restrictions, 12800) at roughly the same image quality. But then again, with what I now get from MFT thanks to modern noise reduction I just don't care about how much better high-ISO can be.
I'd rather like to see a few more pixels in coming MFT sensors, even though I don't need that much more than 20 MP, either.
This lens is special. Every time I see images taken with this lens in woodland or foliage, there’s this quality and aesthetic to it’s oof areas that impresses, very very beautiful.
If you're really in need of quick switching between Auto and Manual Focus, you can use the switch on the E-M1 to do that. It's actually very handy. You can auto focus, hit the switch and manual focus from there. If it had a manual focus clutch and you used it, the focus distance would change when you hit the clutch. I have one lens with the clutch (12-40 f2.8) and I much prefer the switch to the clutch.
I rarely ever switch between AF and MF, because I use AF+MF. A necessity to switch is a step backwards from what I've been using since 2005. That said, I'd prefer linear to dynamic MF. But I don't see why I should have to pull a focus clutch to get that. I'd like to switch all of my lenses to linear in-camera, like Panasonic does it with it's S system, and even for parts of its G system.
Just program a button on the body to toggle between manual focus and autofocus and you don't need the M/F clutch.
In comparison with budget lenses in all systems, the highest resolution is needed for M43 users who use HighRes mode. That alone is worth a premium over the cost of the budget lenses. As bodies make use of the rumored new OM camera with a faster readout becomes available HighRes mode may become more useful but only if the lens can deliver the resolution. This is where the comment in the review is important - "The lens can out-resolve the sensor."
"Just program a button on the body to toggle between manual focus and autofocus and you don't need the M/F clutch. " This is not the same. What is interesting, with the MF clutch, is that, when the ring is set in MF mode, there are hard stops at minimum distance and infinity and a distance scale. There is also a huge advantage, IMHO, for those who shoot at the hyperfocal distance. The camera remembers the focus distance after it is switched off then on when the focusing ring is in MF mode, but does not remember it when MF mode is set on the body only. In other word, thanks to the way the clutch is designed on Olympus lenses, the lens behaves exactly the same as an MF only lens...
^ Not only that, but the clutch also enables linear mapping for manual focus w/no acceleration effects which is what makes it feel much more like a mechanically coupled lens (as much or even more so than the faux hard stops IMO)...
They really should've considered going with linear MF mapping even if it's with a longer throw and sans clutch, lots of other modern primes on other systems do so and even the ancient PL25 features linear MF.
I do think a lot of the budget M4/3 primes still resolve plenty well even in High Res mode btw, maybe not quite as well wide open but certainly stopped down.
“ Just program a button on the body to toggle between manual focus and autofocus and you don't need the M/F clutch.” Either he has forgotten the fine art of manual focus or never really knew how . This comment smacks of going to the doctors mentality, instead of taking a pill just press a button and everything will be ok
@Karroly: "The camera remembers the focus distance after it is switched off then on when the focusing ring is in MF mode, but does not remember it when MF mode is set on the body only"—the real AF/MF switch and the focus clutch do have some advantages, but this is not one. If you want your camera to preserve the focus position when switching off in AF mode, you can simply set it up in the menu to do just that. Works with any AF lens.
laikam - "He" only uses MF to fine-tune focus when "He" uses the zoom function. It's a two-button solution to fine-tuning MF. For the photography I do, it's the only use of MF I have. Your comment smacks of incorrect assumptions of how "He" uses MF, for what purpose, for what kind of photography "He" does which smacks of coming to conclusions without the information needed to be correct. You are wrong.
Hubertus Bigens, " If you want your camera to preserve the focus position when switching off in AF mode, you can simply set it up in the menu to do just that. Works with any AF lens." Did you mean MF mode instead of AF ? Because in AF mode it is useless : as soon you press the shutter button, the focus will change.
@Karroly: You're right, "switching off in AF mode" was nonsense. In the E-M1 II's menu it's A4 (AF/MF) -> Reset lens -> off, and it works in both MF and AF modes.
laikam: I don't need MF. I'm a motorsports writer/photographer professional. No AF fine tuning needed. I know how to use MF, have used it, do use it for other things but rarely. The clutch doesn't help me much because I don't have enough use for it, not because I don't know how to use it. You are wrong about that. Bad assumption. You should try collecting information before making a conclusion. Your problem is you think you're something special because you know/use MF if you actually do, and you think you are superior to somebody who doesn't use/need or know how to use it, or isn't a photographer. Whatever you think, it doesn't make you superior, only condescending.
LOL you are just another auto focusing clubman ps of course I am superior I as I shoot film for a living not that digital rubbish…..my mft camera is for having fun
laikam: Let's be clear. You just said digital is rubbish and posted it on a digital platform where probably 95% or more of the people here are digital photographers. So 95% of us are rubbish photographers. You are making lots of friends. Why would anybody want to shoot motorsports in manual with film? Explain the benefit. Nobody does. And you don't shoot film for a living. Nobody does that either. If you are telling the truth you haven't evolved your photographic skill beyond the stone age. That makes your work rubbish, not the 95% of the work the rest of us are doing. Good luck buying and developing film in the future. You are a fossil. You are hunting mammoths with a bow and arrow. You said one thing I agree with. Digital is fun.
you silly little man there were no cameras in the stone age me and my mates did some ochre pigment drawings of mammoths and invented the wheel Better you go back to team Penske dreaming ps Nobody is still my name
laikam: Your name is Troll. I'll dust off my OMF, put film in it & use it if you can explain the advantages of using MF/film to shoot a car going 100MPH through a turn, rapidly approaching. I use MF for macro, landscapes, flowers. I haven't done much of that in a few years. When I did, I left the camera in MF. There was little need for the clutch. I programmed a button to toggle it, another one to zoom to fine-focus. At the track, distance changes too fast for MF. It's easier to let the camera track the car, or the helmet. MF for that will not make a better image. Magazines, most clients require submission by digital file. You would have to shoot film, develop it, scan it send it. If you claim you are doing that, you're lying. Your images would be inferior. You wouldn't do it and you couldn't sell them if you did. If you're shooting film, your shooting pansies. It's surprising a flower photographer like you knows who Roger is.
One of them snuck through. What's funny about mental illness? So fearless out of reach from behind a keyboard. No life. Nothing better to do but practice anti-social behavior. Seek professional help.
I own or have have owned 35mm and 50mm lenses. I use those primes mainly for street photography, but I always found the 35mm focal length to be somewhat too wide and the 50mm a bit too tight. 40mm (equivalent) seems to be the sweet spot. I have briefly owned a Lumix G85 which I enjoyed using very much. I like Panasonic ergonomics and the evf was very comfortable for viewing. With that lens, I might consider taking another shot at micro 4/3 with its extensive collection of lenses and bodies. Hopefully seeing soon what OM System bodies would be like. Also expecting a successor to the Lumix G95 next year.
A Canon 40mm f2.8 isn't much use on an Olympus camera, however much it is. And I bet you were sitting at your keyboard itching for DPR to review this lens just so you could belittle something you will never use.
No doubt there will be another OM Systems lens along next year and possibly a new camera too, so get ready with your pointless posts.
" Meanwhile the stellar Canon 40mm f2.8 is 100 bucks... 🤔 " -Foskito
Not sure what part of that was constructive or even criticism... Canon had great economies of scale working in favor of those EF pancakes, even their current low budget RF stuff is usually $300+, heck even 3rd party stuff these days tends to land at higher price points (and/or they make more compromises to hit ~$100-200, eg Samyang's 24/2.8 pancake or Tamron's f2.8 primes).
Market conditions are changing, there's definitely a lot of bargains to be had w/DSLR gear while it's still in production and commonly available used... Meanwhile if a M4/3 user wanted a 40mm equivalent pancake with unit focus and no sealing (just like the Canon, very much unlike this OM lens) they can still opt for the $267 Pana 20/1.7. This OM lens is clearly aiming for different goals.
FWIW I think the closest FF & APS-C **MILC** comparisons to it would be something like the $600 Sony 40/2.5 G (which is significantly smaller) or Sigma's $340 30/1.4. The latter isn't weather sealed nor does it have some of the same features, I think it's similarly sized tho and faster even than the Sony by equivalence.
If looking at 3rd party budget options there's also the Samyang 45/1.8 for like $300 but I imagine the OM lens will be far better built. I don't think $800 for the 20/1.4 is outrageous but it's not very aggressive either, still far more appealing than the price of the older Pro primes tho and about on par with Fuji's f1.4s. An EF mount pancake doesn't have much bearing on it's pricing, unless you already own it along w/an EF body (or a pricier adapter).
Edit: Fuji's 23/2 WR is $450 & the 23/1.4 LM WR is $900.
Why should I care? If I as a MFT user want a 20mm I have 2 options now instead of 1. Nice to have options within a system. The Canon can't mount on my camera. Besides it's a plastic fantastic lens. And by the way, it's €250 and not weather sealed so useless for my taste.
Foskito Having FF tools comment on every m 4/3 release, insult users of a system they have never used and troll every post is not constructive criticism. It's annoying. The Canon, the Nikon blah blah. We don't care we don't shoot with either. Move along
The price-to-IQ ratio is in favour of M43 for wildlife photography, and maybe for videography. For all other types of photography, I think you get better bang for your buck with full frame cameras nowadays. And sometimes the equivalent body/lens combination will even be smaller/lighter.
@Boss of Sony: You might not be too far off but I still think those use case and generalizations are a bit too narrow. I can't find anything as small as the Oly 75/1.8 with the same reach on other formats/systems for instance, and I don't use that lens for wildlife or videography, it's also not cheap tho (I bought it refurb).
Not all tele use is strictly geared towards wildlife either, I use 70-200 and 200-600 equivalent lenses (and even that 150 equivalent 75/1.8) for landscapes quite often. The cheapest M4/3 primes and bodies are also still far cheaper than most FF kits, tho some FF 3rd party & budget options create some overlap.
There's also no FF body options anywhere near as small as something like an X-E let alone my GX850. Some FF lenses are indeed often faster than similarly sized M4/3 stuff, as in the case of this 20/1.4. I started shooting FF in addition to M4/3 when I noticed stuff like the SY 45/1.8 & 75/1.8.
So bang for the buck can be very subjective depending on what you're doing, how small you wanna get, and what's in the rest of your kit. Those 14-140 & 14-150 are still smaller than any FF zoom tho, just because the 12-100 (which is indeed the size of FF superzooms) came out doesn't mean the former went out of production, same with this 20/1.4.
ALL systems benefit from some degree of scaling IMO, I love that I can mount a 2" 45/1.8 as well as a beefier 35/1.4 on my FF body, and M4/3 has been pushing that ability to scale longer than most. I think the f1.2 Pros might've gone a bit too far but this OM lens seems closer to a sweet spot IMO.
You appear to be discussing perceived DoF field. This is also an optical property, the size of the sensor does influence the behaviour of a lens but the 20mm F1.4 is exactly that, an F1.4.
To understand what defines lens speed, you simply divide the aperture diameter (in millimeters) by the focal length (in millimeters). So, using this formula, if you had a 50mm lens, and the aperture diameter was 4mm, you would have an f-stop of about f/12.5. The maximum aperture of the 20mm is F1.4, the 40 2.8 is slowe
Not according to the formula it doesn’t , there are not different equations according to sensor format. And for that matter DoF is dependent on aperture and distance from the subject. Again an optical property. I’m not saying that the format does not have an indirect effect, it does, but I am simply describing the lens
I’m not interested in equivalence . It’s irrelevant when you shoot of the many other formats. FF is not a defacto standard for photography , it’s just one of them.
Equivalence does not say that you must compare to FF. Compare to a phone, if you wish or compare all to m43. Then 40/2.8 on FF is equivalent to 20/1.4 on m43.
Equivalence just tells you that, say, 60 mph is not the same as 60 mph. You can convert one to the other or both to feet per minute, if you wish, to compare.
@Just Another Tog: Knowing how your gear compares with some other gear does not keep anyone to "numbers on spreadsheets" instead of going out to take photographs, that's just an anti-scientific slur. And you know what, some of us actually use both this and that other gear. And knowing how both compare helps a lot to choose the right gear for the job at hand.
@Hubertus Bigend: Don't bother, JAT whines a lot about FF trolls but he's often adding as much fodder to those discussions as any of them without actually commenting on the M4/3 gear in question. In a couple more comments he'll demand you prove you actually shoot M4/3 like he has asked me to in the past. /shrug
Frankly I find it pretty silly to resort to ad hominem attacks about anyone's work rather than sticking to discussing the gear at hand. JAT's *only* comments here are about the chip on his shoulder rather than the 20/1.4, and it's not the first time it's gone down like that.
@Just Another Tog: With your factually wrong, anti-scientific ad-personam aggression all you ever do is doing your favourite system a disservice. The MFT community has been suffering from a bad reputation since the beginning because of people like you. I, as a Four Thirds and Micro Four Thirds user and advocate since 2005, feel ashamed to belong to that community anytime someone like you turns up. You aggressive equivalence deniers are the climate deniers of the photography world. It's disgusting. And that's my last word with you here.
Equivalence is a neat way to compare results you get with different formats. Maybe you're not interested in comparisons, and that's fine, but others are.
Aperture is not "fake", and yes, f1.4 is f1.4, but what's the point of discussing what a lens does on its own, ie without taking the body into account ? Isn't that exactly what you call "loving numbers on spreadsheets"?
I am well aware you can use equivalence on any format . However it’s never discussed in that way on these forums. Instead it’s one of those irrelevant and tedious and petty point scoring arguments by those who feel the need to berate other smaller format users about how much better their equipment is. What is overlooked is that equivalence does not matter , if you shoot smart phones, then you compose frame and shoot much like you would with any other format.
" As far as I’m concerned you don’t even know where the shutter button is, and until you prove otherwise I have zero respect for anything you say. " -JAT
lol I've shared plenty of photos, I just don't see the need to prove myself to you, and the one time I asked what it would take you stopped replying.
Nobody is even making half the arguments you're accusing trolls of making here, you're blowing this out of proportion and many of the people you're in a hurry to crucify ALSO discussed the lens in question extensively and actually made a case in favor of it. Is this the part where you claim you don't pay attention to user names?
Talk about moving the goal posts... No love lost between JACS and me, I'm pretty sure I've argued with him in the past, but maybe you should look in the mirror if you want to identify the non-M4/3 user with the most out of context comments in here.
Btw, the argument you just made about the 40/2.8 is pretty much exactly what I said at the top of the thread, 4 comments in. I guess even an invisible that can't find the shutter can find a nut every once in a while. /shrug
I respect everyone's opinion, crappy as they may be. I'm not even sure what the comment about my f2.8 FF lenses means or why I would shed tears of sorrow over anyone else's good work, I've got f1.4 thru f2.8 FF lenses and f1.2 thru f5.6 M4/3 lenses, love shooting both, have shot the latter far more than the former.
" No, I’m telling you that the OP made a comment with clear underhand intentions and several people jumped in on it to add to the mess. " -JAT
You've yet to make a single comment about the 20/1.4 and you've participated plenty in the so called mess... Just saying. I discussed the 20/1.4 on it's own merits aplenty.
I think it fills a pretty key hole in the system and actually plugs (somewhat) one of it's weaknesses vs Fuji which I still see as M4/3's biggest competition, at least for users that value portability. You went right to the one thread that was all about equivalence and made it 2x as long...
And I'm being literal here, count the comments up. :/
I simply notice that users of smaller sensor formats need to spend top dollars to "keep up" in terms of IQ and DoF with full-frame and even their cheap lenses.
If some people like Just Another Troll complains about the Canon "not being mirrorless" (which BTW is completely irrelevant if it is DSLR or not, still is a 40mm lens) there is also the 600 dollars cheaper Nikkor 40mm f2.
Let us recap some of Mr. Just Another Tog constructive comments to this discussion, and then we can all decide if he should be the first one on the blocked list:
"But all of us that don’t conform to the full frame marketing could block around 30 usernames and relieve ourselves of 95% of woeful comments"
"Canon and Sonys offerings I wouldn’t use to prop up a table leg."
See how their snobby comments on a M4/3 article pan out when everyone who uses the system can’t even see their comments."
"we all know by now you guys love numbers on spreadsheets rather than the actual art of taking a photograph "
"Nobody cares, you’re another invisible with no shots on offer"
"I have zero respect for anything you say."
"As far as I’m concerned you don’t even know where the shutter button is"
I love this:
"I’m certain that plenty would use that option to block me, so be it."
Fast glass is expensive regardless of format or system, and faster glass often hits diminishing returns, that's not news. I wouldn't view the 20/1.4 as a lens that's trying to "keep up", if anything I thought that was a far easier accusation to lobby at the f1.2 Pros and there's a significant price and size different between those and this one.
Like I said at the top, other modern 1st party slow FF options aren't cheap and when they are they skimp on things like build quality and/or sealing (and there's nothing wrong with that if the price point is right!). When you actually start looking at a modern FF equivalents with sealing and fast AF (both of which the Canon 40/2.8 lacks) then the disparity isn't as jarring.
So you can get a Nikon 40/2 or Samyang 45/1.8 very cheap, but you're making some clear trade-offs (less so than with the Canon pancake tho), or you can get a Sigma 30/1.4 on APS-C or a smaller Sony 40/2.5 for somewhat more money (and gain some build/feature advantages), and yeah the Fuji *and* M4/3 F1.4 stuff is gonna end up pricier still than those...
That doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad value either. If all you want is a couple pretty fast primes it simply means M4/3 and/or 1st party APS-C isn't for you (and/or that you're setting aside body cost or you bought a Z5 on sale ;p).
Canon 40mm F/2.8 has a simple construction : 6 lenses in 4 groups. Olympus 20mm F/1.4 has 11 elements in 10 groups and it is weather sealed. You are comparing a PRO lens with a entry-level lens.
The canon 40mm f2.8 was 200 bucks when it was introduced, and it's not in the same league. It's a nice lens for 200 bucks though! But If you want to play that game, the lowly 17mm f1.8 zuiko had better bokeh, better metal build, is 1.75x faster, faster focussing, significantly better optical quality (rivals the superb and expensive nikkor Z 35mm f1.8S optically), has a manual focus clutch, and is positively TINY. and I bought mine for $300usd. Why would you buy a slower, plasticky, optically inferior canon for slightly less?
Stellar? Maybe will come close at f8 and be there ....... But cheapish build quality is far from this stellar system..... Like VW Golf is stellar compared to MB E Class :D!
@Foskito Don't try to understand "Just Another Tog". He simply has no glue about optics but gets very personal on other people, people I know and respect. Just follow the thread in here. Just ignore him. He reads "f1.4" and thinks the lens is fast than a f2.8 on full frame... yes, maybe, but just use 2 stops more ISO on the fullframe and the "advantage" is gone. What stays is the unability to get a real f1.4 40mm on the OM or a 85 f1.2 for example.
Useless to discuss with "Tog". AvailableMight (If I remembered right) also gave up on him.
@gavinlg The Zuiko is not faster. It covers only a 1/4th of the Canon 40mm f2.8, so it gathers "LESS" light. Just use more ISO on the Canon and the "advantage" is gone. Or do you believe the smartphone f1.7 lens is also faster than your OM with f1.8?
There is a need to clarify that if you are only talking about the lens, then the 20mm F1.4 is exactly that. The reason is because if you divide the focal length by the maximum aperture it is = F1.4. The canon 40 is twice the focal length and using the same formula that is common to all optics it’s F2.8, which in optical terms is slower. The point about light gathering is that the sensor does not gather the light, it might capture the light via the lens. The important point to note is it is the lens that gathers the light in the same manner your iris and lens in your eye , which in turn projects the captured light onto your retina. There are some indirect effects on the behaviour of a lens that are the consequence of using different sensors but that is not about the lens.
It's the classic relevance talk. Both sides are correct. F1.8 is f1.8 for the lens, but mounted to a sensor it's very important to know the size of the projected sensorsize, receiving the light. We have to decide what is "fast". For the MFT users it's the exposuretime, for me it's the whole light which gets caputured in this time.
So a 50 f2.8 on mediumformat is still faster than any f1.x on MFT. Everything known to be found in books. Let's take pictures instead ;) Happy XMas.
Get ready to be attacked for pointing the obvious.
Buying $800 m43 lenses when you can have the same DoF with full-frame for less than half the cost, (and ironically even half the size and weight) is ludicrous.
Build quality is certainly a glaring difference, however. This isn't plastic bashing (modern plastics are no doubt a lot better than they used to be), but the 20/1.4 has pro-level build quality. Nikon 40/2 is very much a budget lens.
FF prime kits can certainly be just as compact as M4/3 & APS-C kits (if not more so) at UWA thru normal FLs, that's no secret so wondering about it just shows how little you've looked at lens lineups lately (no offense, I did the same double take a year ago and that's when I started shooting FF in addition to M4/3).
Zooms can be another story but there's still some overlap (and less direct equivalents). M4/3 bodies can still be far smaller and/or cheaper than FF bodies tho, and there's more than a handful of teles that nothing on another system can approach for the size (75/1.8, 35-100, etc).
" Get ready to be attacked for pointing the obvious. " -Foskito
Pointing out the obvious can be rather obnoxious when it's done repeatedly and with dubious intent (not saying that's the case here, just how it often comes across). A lot of people shooting M4/3 are well aware of the tradeoffs they're making and something like the 20/1.4 can still be worth it for them if it allows them to stick with the 100-400 or 12-100 they're already enjoying.
Just because a different system has a roughly equivalent option that's far cheaper doesn't mean there's 0 value here and pointing it out constantly while looking at things in a vacuum isn't very useful IMO.
More compact? Tell us you've never used MFT without telling us you've never used MFT. Speaking from experience (and owning the 40mm you speak of) the Olympus PRO series lenses are some of the best build quality you'll ever see. The Nikon pales in comparison. And the Nikon boty+lens combo is bulky as all h3ll, my biggest gripe about it is that it doesn't have the compact size and handling of a MFT with the same lens. Quality may be situational, I bet some pixel peepers will be able to find flaws. But for real shooters the Olympus+OM Systems will be much better to shoot with.
@Kiril Karaatanasov: "It seems a full-frame is actually cheaper and more compact"—just because ONE remotely similar lens seems slightly more compact than that one and is also cheaper? Out of a hundred lenses that could be compared?
Nikon 40mm F/2.0 has a simple construction : 6 elements in 4 groups. Olympus 20mm F/1.4 has 11 elements in 10 groups and it has weather sealed. You are comparing an entry-level lens with a PRO lens.
The nikkor 40mm is like an old school lens. It's nice, but has a high level of coma and a fair amount of spherical aberration wide open. It's also a plastic fantastic lens. The canon 40mm f2.8 is nice, but doesn't have the same bokeh quality as the zuiko 20mm, and you have to shoot 2 stops higher ISO to get the same shutter speed, so is not great in anything but good light. The Zuiko is bonkers sharp at f1.4, has lovely bokeh, is built like a tank, and is completely weathersealed.
These gear nerds that sit there and compare stats on sensor size equivalency are cooked - it makes almost no difference in real world use. There are far more important factors to lenses and gear.
@gavinlg: No one denies that there are more factors, and that they may even be more important depending on what an individual photographer does and needs. That doesn't make the immediate effects of sensor size go away, and denying them doesn't help anyone. Just as it doesn't help for a real-world comparison to claim "you have to shoot 2 stops higher ISO to get the same shutter speed, so is not great in anything but good light", because then the joke is ion you, as with FF you don't just "have to", you always can—without having to fear images becoming worse in "anything but good light" any more than with the two stops faster MFT lens.
"The smaller the sensor, the bigger the lenses 'to keep up'"—fun thing is that there is some truth in that rule, but this new lens is not even a good example. Because it still is small enough and light enough. And a FF lens made to the same standards wouldn't be that much cheaper, either—but others have explained that already.
Also, around the standard focal length is where it's hardest for MFT to compete with FF, because that's where FF lenses have traditionally been the simplest and the cheapest to make.
That rule you mention only tends to become significant when MFT tries to get even faster than what we're talking about here. And even then such lenses make perfect sense. When someone already uses MFT for one of the several good reasons there are, why should they buy a FF lens? And a FF camera which they don't want, either, along with it?
@Hubertus Bigend, I shoot both ff and m4/3, and also 6x7 film so I'm fully aware of the advantages of having a bigger sensor/film area. How good a system is in use is entirely dependant on what you're using it for. You assertion that FF sensors are always better in low light because they're good at high ISO shooting is conditionally incorrect, and the m4/3 system can prove that. I can shoot lower noise landscape photos with a setup 1/3 the size with m4/3 because of the incredibly effective in body stabilisation of the cameras, and the high optical consistency of the lenses. Even with equivalent aperture lenses, I can shoot at base ISO on m4/3 when I may have to go to ISO1600 on my Z6, and I can assure you that the m4/3 files look much better at base ISO than a FF file does at 1600 in low light. Even if you can shoot an FF camera at a low shutter speed, you are still going to either pick between stopping the lens down 1-2 stops or using a highly corrected and thus much larger lens.
Foskito - You seen the Sigma 40mm f1.4 art lens brother? Compared to the OM system 20mm f1.4, it's double the price, nearly 3 times the length, and 5+ times the weight. Equivalency is only relevant for plane of focus measurements - the lens is STILL an f1.4 lens and has all the advantages of an f1.4 lens. Ultra shallow depth of field is only one potential aspect of photography, and a potentially gimmicky one if it's relied upon as a crutch.
Or @Foskito should we compare the Zeiss 40mm batus F2 to the OM 20mm? It's 40mm longer, 100g heavier 1 stop slower in light gathering ability, and double the price. These are the kinds of lenses you should be referencing in comparison to the olympus. The nikkor 40 and canon 40 aren't in the same league.
@gavinlg: "How good a system is in use is entirely dependant on what you're using it for"—that's what I was saying, but then again there are subjective and objective aspects of making it "good". Sensor size is one of the objective aspects. Whether anyone cares about it or not is another discussion altogether.
"You assertion that FF sensors are always better in low light"—not always, but nearly always*. When they're of the same technological level as a specific MFT sensor, they usually are, and there are hundreds or maybe even thousands of reviews and comparisons on the net, including dpreview's own very thorough comparisons, which continually prove it.
"I can assure you that the m4/3 files look much better at base ISO than a FF file does at 1600 in low light" —no, they usually don't, and there's tons of proof out there.
* You do have a point with stabilisation, even though many non-static subjects do not profit from it, and full-frame stabilisation has come a long way now, too.
@Hubertus Bigend - m4/3 files do look far better at base ISO than FF iso1600, and even better again at iso64 - I don't need proof, I can look at my own photographs to confirm it. Otherwise your other points I'm in agreeance with.
@Hubertus Bigend As you said tech level is the same why bigger sensor should be better, eh? This is again Japanese reluctance for change and making small sensors capable for low base ISO which will allow EQUIVALENT PHOTON GATHERING EXPOSURE. Noise that you see in smaller sensors is not from sensor but from shorter exposure!
What!? Do you also not believe in global warming or the SARS-CoV-2 virus? All the usual sensor performance comparisons between formats and across the ISO scale, like those for a huge number of different cameras and formats here on dpreview, of course are all made with correct (i.e. same or similar) exposures for the respective ISO settings. (And the fact that current MFT sensors have no lower base ISO than 200 is a completely different story and may even change soon, when the next OMDS and Panasonic cameras appear.)
@gavinlg: My E-M1 II ISO 200 files do look substantially better than my Sony A7 II ISO 1600 files, but that Sony sensor was an outlier that performed exceptionally bad, even compared to their own high-res sensor of the same era. A Sony A7 III ISO 1600 file will not look significantly different from that E-M1 II ISO 200 file in terms of noise and DR. It might even look better.
Why I should believe in global warming? This kind of cult or something? I think we do not need to believe in science when we have scientific proven theories. Which is not exactly the case with global warming btw. Maybe you are flat earther or part of the spaghetti monster church, eh? :) Especially for you information I am vaccinate with Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and now little regret when reading for their illegal moves just to make their vaccine looking good enough! Any other personal question so we can clear them out?
And yes there are some old gen sensors like the in RP which are pure nonsense from DR and LOW ISO performance but gaining back when you push them just because of better exposure. From ISO 3200 and above they start to recover against newer 1"-APS-C sensor sizes. But the problem is not at ISO 1600, problem is at ISO 100/200.
BTW I will be happy to see m4/3 with low ISO, PDAF, reasonable price and they could get my money! BTW2: no better 5G or GPS tracking etc after vaccine, so maybe I get from the bad batch of nano chips, not sure! :D
Nikon Z 40/2, in comparison, is an all plastic toy with performance characteristics reminiscent of cheap DSLR primes from 20 years ago. It's nice for what it is (a plastic fantastic for mirrorless), but Micro 4/3 users already have a cheap option at that focal length.
There's a reason that Sony FE 40/2.5 is twice as expensive as this Nikon despite being slower. And it's the same reason why this OM lens is also more expensive than the Nikon.
Foskito's mad that his argument fell apart because we now know the nikkor 40 is optically kind of average.
It's okay Foskito, just because no one else builds a good, small, fast 40mm equivalent besides OMsystem, there's no need to be jealous! Enjoy your Nikon bottle cap lens ;)
Good/fast/small - pick one. The Nikon is optically average, the Canon is slow, the Sony is closer but still slow. The OMsystem 20mm gives you all three.
Do you go on medium format forums and drone on about lens equivalence there? The pentax 67 system has a 90mm f2.8 that has an equivalence to 40mm f1.4 in full frame terms, and it manages to be 2/3 the size of the 40mm f1.4 AF lens for FF. That must mean the full frame format is trying and failing to 'keep up' with the 6x7 format right?
Such an odd focal length to fill at that price range, facing competition from the 17 and 25 1.2’s, the Panasonic 10-25 1.7 zoom and the lower level offerings. Spoiled for choices I guess if you are M4/3 user, but strange seeming offering.
It's actually not that strange tbh, this is now the smallest/widest M4/3 prime in the lineup so it fills a long standing hole for a small-ish weather sealed wide. The PL25 II is the next smallest prime near this FL w/decent sealing IIRC and it's only a couple years old too (and of course a Pana & not an OM).
The old 17/1.8 has pretty severe field curvature issues and the 20/1.7 uses unit focus which makes it rather useless for video and/or C-AF, so the 20/1.4 might just be the best all around option at that FL almost by default. Pricey but not unreasonable, it's actually a sensible and welcome addition to a system that's indeed spoiled for options.
The f1.2 Pro primes and the PL F1.7 zoom are both far larger and far pricier by comparison, if anything I'd argue OM/Oly should've started here rather than at f1.2 (and this is coming from someone that bought one of those f1.2s *and* the PL25 II).
"... the 20/1.7 uses unit focus which makes it rather useless for video and/or C-AF ..."
and there's the problem, that pancakey 20mm is not useless for video, unless, you just a potato without af and you still insist that lens to do some continous af... genius job you did there...
alas, it's always fun to see the usefulness of a lens for video always have to do with good af nowadays... and yet, all cine grade lens always comes with no af attached, even that latest thalia, hahahahaha
In the film days 40mm equivalent was considered a really desirable 'normal' as it can be used both as a moderate wide or a normal. Many fixed lens rangefinders had 40s, and even medium format cameras like the Pentax 67 and Mamiya rz67 were often used with a 40 equivalent lens. Leica CL too. It's an incredibly versatile focal length.
" and there's the problem, that pancakey 20mm is not useless for video, unless, you just a potato without af and you still insist that lens to do some continous af... genius job you did there... "
That's somewhat fair, but it's focus by wire implementation is not great for manual focus either (although the Mk II has a slightly better feel to the wheel, totally subjective tho and not operationally different). I should've said it's useless for video AF tho rather than useless for video, and yeah I'm terrible w/MF.
It'd be interesting to see a head-to-head between this and the Sony 40mm f/2.5 G. That seems like the closest to this lens in design--equivalent in focal length and aperture (just about), more expensive than budget options, less expensive than pro options, and trading the slightly darker optics for overall good performance.
Kiril, An M4/3 20mm F1.4 is equivalent to an FF 40mm F2.8 lens, not an FF 40mm F2.0 lens... The 2x crop factor applies to both the focal length and aperture...
Comparing a FF lens to an M43 is perhaps of interest for those who shoot both systems who might want to choose between systems solely based best overall IQ of one combo over the other, but meaningless otherwise to everyone else. If you shoot FF why would you care about an M43 lens, vice versa?
@Kiril - not really. The Nikon 40/2 is positioned as a budget lens: good but not groundshaking optics, small size and weight, saving cost on construction with a plastic mount (today's plastics are probably quite good compared to older versions, but still). By all reports, it's a good lens for the price, but doesn't quite compare in build and IQ with the various S-Line lenses from Nikon. At half the price, you wouldn't expect it to.
This OM 20/1.4 is a Pro series lens, with premium-level IQ and build quality, even if it's the darkest and cheapest of the "Olympus" Pro lenses. This and the Sony are both in a somewhat uncommon middle ground between entry-level options and more traditional professional lenses.
That said, it'd probably be interesting to throw the Nikon 40/2 into such comparisons. Budget FF vs mid-pro FF vs mid-pro M43. There's three new-ish 40mm lenses out at the same time, why not compare them all?
"The 2x crop factor applies to both the focal length and aperture"
No the 2x crop factor applies to the focal length and depth of field. It's not "darker". Lenses don't magically detect what is behind them and adjust their light transmission physics to dim down. It may have a smaller image circle, but that's because it only needs to cover a smaller sensor. The Exposure Value stays the same.
I think the Sigma 30/1.4 on an APS-C body is a closer value, size, and handling equivalent than any of the FF comparisons tbh, tho the 40/2.5 G is the closer direct equivalent. I'm willing to bet the most glaring takeaways from a comparison with the latter would be the 40/2.5's high LoCA and so so flare control but in front of a high MP FF body (+$2,800) it should surely still show more detail.
That's kinda besides the point tho, not a lot of people will cross shop FF & M4/3 lenses unless they're not already invested in a system and/or shoot both (which is rare, tho I'm one of those weirdos who do so). More people are likely to cross shop this against an a6xxx w/the Sigma (which has a pricing advantage like most 3rd party options tho, along w/other downsides like no sealing) OR against the Fuji 23/2 and 23/1.4 WR options.
@Kerensky97 - it does and it doesn't. You're 100% correct with film. The same lens placed in front of 110 film (about m43), 135 (FF), 6x6 120 film, or even 8x10 large format--crop will *only* change the field of view. Smaller film just "crops" the image.
Once you equalize field of view by changing focal lengths, the 350mm f/64 on 8x10 translates down to a 50mm f/8 on 135 film, so you can use faster shutter speeds at the same ISO, at the cost of much less detail in the negative. All optics is tradeoffs.
Digital, however... isn't quite like film. Detail stays the same in 20mp whether FF or M43, but the larger pixels allows a FF camera to gather more light and push ISO a lot higher at equivalent levels of noise... at about the same rate as crop factor, depending on the age of the sensor technology. Close enough that applying crop factor to aperture is probably fine.
Smaller M43 sensors can read out faster than FF sensors, tho, so once again, smaller "targets" can increase speed.
Those Fuji options are priced -$350 & +$100 vs the OM 20/1.4 which seems about right. For the M4/3 shooter the closest competitor is the PL25/1.4 II at $100 less but that one isn't as sharp wide open (or stopped down I'm betting). The FF comparisons aren't irrelevant IMO, they're just not very interesting to most single system shooters.
The 40/2.5 G itself has some stiff 3rd party competition from the likes of Samyang's 45/1.8 which is only like 10mm longer (still slightly smaller than the OM 20/1.4). IQ wise they're really close, tho the SY doesn't have the Sony's sealing and frills like the linear MF, declickable aperture wheel, etc.
Edit: I'm willing to bet at least one of those Fujis *and* the OM have better bokeh/rendering than the 40/2.5 btw, even the SY 45/1.8 has some advantages vs it in that regard.
Kerensky97, I hope you have understood the explanation given by theBiggerFit. It is always the same story. It looks it is hard to understand for some people. DPR already explained that in the past. If you do not trust us, please, trust DPR at least...
@Impulses - "That's kinda besides the point tho, not a lot of people will cross shop FF & M4/3 lenses unless they're not already invested in a system and/or shoot both."
True, but people on forums love to cross-critique. I think there's probably a lot of folks who browse reviews out of general interest in the hobby, rather than because they're invested in every system they look reviews for.
@theBitterFig: Sure, that's fair, I'm probably one of the few that's commenting because he's actually invested in both formats/systems (I know there's others) but I think when you're already invested in one system that shifts the value proposition.
If you've got a bunch of f1.7 & f2.8/4 M4/3 primes and zooms then an f1.4 prime could be more attractive than whatever equivalent exists elsewhere, that was certainly the case for me when I was only shooting M4/3. Now I'm mostly interested in the M4/3 teles since my FF system seems to be able to scale nearly as small at UWA thru normal FLs (at least w/primes).
"Detail stays the same in 20mp whether FF or M43, but the larger pixels allows a FF camera to gather more light and push ISO a lot higher at equivalent levels of noise..." -Fig
Shouldn't that be sensor size and not pixel size? A 61MP FF body with similarly sized pixels still has a noise advantage...
"Smaller M43 sensors can read out faster than FF sensors, tho, so once again, smaller "targets" can increase speed." -Fig
In theory, probably more accurate to say that it's more economic to achieve fast readout speeds on a smaller sensor. After all, the A1/A9, R3, and Z9 all have a faster readout than any M4/3 body and the R5/6 match the 1/60 of the fastest M4/3 bodies.
It'll be interesting to see whether the upcoming 1/120 M4/3 sensor pushes the 20MP 1/60 one into <$1K bodies. I'd love a tiny GX850-like body with a faster readout, or even a GX##.
@Karroly So what is your point? You guys are comparing is sensor ISO, not lens f/stops. You're right at 20MP FF sensor will have different noise than a 20MP M34 sensor. But the lens didn't get "darker". The sensor performance is different because you have two different sensors. THAT is what is causing the difference in noise. The sensor, not the lens's f/number.
The irony is theBitterFig got it exactly right with the film analogy; it's just a crop. 110 images ARE more grainy than 135 images when blown up to the same size. But the lenses aren't "darker" That's not what is causing the grain noise, it's the smaller film being blow up to the size of larger film. Exposing the film more won't get rid of the grain (or ISO noise) the image would just be overexposed. Because f/stop is a measurement of lens light transmission, independent of sensor (or film) size. The problems is not lens equivalence, it's blowing up a small sensor to be the size of a large sensor.
@RSTP14: "If you shoot FF why would you care about an M43 lens, vice versa?" Because you might also be shooting the other format? Like me, for example. Or, even if not: because you might be interested in other systems, too? Me, I've always been interested in anything that was happening in camera tech. Even when I started out with Minolta some forty years ago I was keenly following what all the other manufacturer's were doing, too.
@theBitterFig: "@Kerensky97 - it does and it doesn't. You're 100% correct with film. The same lens placed in front of 110 film (about m43), 135 (FF), 6x6 120 film, or even 8x10 large format--crop will *only* change the field of view. Smaller film just 'crops' the image"—only true if you look at the negative or slide as the end product, which both never were. The end product were and are prints or screen images of a defined size. Different film sizes and different magnifications led to different image quality levels just with today's sensors. And, just like sensors, with larger film formats you were more free to use higher film sensitivities for a similar image quality result when printing to the same size.
What @Kerensky97 doesn't understand is that the necessary magnifying ratio from film or sensor to a viewable image of a defined size is part of the equation for judging the quality of a camera-lens-system. If it wasn't, we could make camera sensors (or film frames) infinitely small.
@Impulses - Sensor vs Pixel Size: I'd been used to believe that the big noise reduction benefits of a high-MP FF sensor typically relate to binning. Making several small pixels into one bigger pixel is sorta pixel size. A7R has the same noise performance when downscaled to A7S MP counts, but at 100% the lower MP had a bit of an advantage. But yeah, right in practice.
RE: Readout Speed - Yeah, it'll depend on era of sensor design, sometimes with individual FF leapfrogging some M43, but something like the EM-1X had 15 mechanical, 60 electronic shutter FPS nearly 3 years ago. The upcoming stacked m43 sensor goes up to 120 FPS, so faster than stacked FF.
@Kerensky97 - But again, digital is not the same as film. With film ISO is constant, and detail changes with crop. M43 sensors don't have less detail than FF sensors with the same MP counts, but FF sensors can gather more light, making ISO variable, but detail constant. Thus applying crop factor to aperture is often practical.
@theBitterFig "With film ISO is constant, and detail changes with crop" No, not even close. Film comes in many different ASA levels; just like Digital can do many ISO levels, it's just not as easy to change on the fly. Not to mention ASA/ISO is NOT a measurement of grain/noise. Its a measurement of sensitivity. (Just like the misconception that f/stop is a measurement of depth of field when it's actually a measurement of light transmittance) Much like different sensors, the grain of a film can vary GREATLY even if all are still the same film ASA.
" The upcoming stacked m43 sensor goes up to 120 FPS, so faster than stacked FF. " -theBitterFig
Hmm, fps burst speed is not the same thing as the e-shutter or sensor readout rate... FF bodies could probably do faster bursts if they invested more into the processing and buffer pipeline, M4/3 bodies have lower demands in that regard so their max fps is closer to if not equal to the readout rate on some bodies.
AFAIK the fastest FF stacked sensor bodies are reading out the sensor at 1/240 or faster, so a M4/3 body with a 1/120 readout would still be half as fast, but hopefully half as pricey as well (or cheaper still). The R5/6 can't match an E-M1/5 for fps but the readout speed of their sensors is pretty similar (~1/60).
^ Those might be the only FF bodies sans a stacked sensor that read that fast tho. AFAIK, most A7 bodies are in the 1/15-1/30 range, I think some Nikons can do up to 1/40 with a drop in bit-depth and/or compression, Fuji's latest do 1/40 too... So 1/60 is still pretty fast by non-stacked sensor standards.
1/60 is pretty usable for lots of things but 1/120 (close to where the A9 is at) really pushes the usefulness of the e-shutter IMO, opens up the door for even more computational stuff, etc. TBH the higher fps count is the least interesting part of a faster readout speed for me, shooting 30-60fps is pretty excessive for lots of use cases.
@Hubertus Bigend "part of the equation for judging the quality of a camera-lens-system."
See, even you admit you're comparing sensors, not lenses. I've never argued that a small sensor produces the same quality as a large sensor. I'm not comparing sensors, I'm comparing equivalent LENSES. My argument is that you're wrong when you say an F/2 lens is slower or "darker" when you put a different sensor behind it.
As before your confusion is that you're taking a small M43 image and blowing it upto the size of a FF image and then saying "The noise is worse! Therefore the lens is darker." If you shoot a 20mm f/1.4 MFT camera+lens and a 40mm f/2.8 FF side by side with the exact same exposure settings (shutter speed, and ISO) you'll end up with the same AoV and same DoF, but the FF will be underexposed by about a stop. Because f/1.4 lets in more light than f/2.8. Noise will vary, and maybe the FF 200 ISO will do better than the M43 100 ISO, but that's a sensor difference, not the lens.
Kerensky: I compare viewable images. That's all. (And of course you need to attach a camera to a lens to get a viewable image. Lenses without cameras don't make images. Lenses without cameras are useless. Comparing lenses without cameras is just as useless. (Mostly.))
@Hubertus That's fine. But when you're making up hypothetical cameras to put the same lens on don't change the performance of the sensor and then claim that it made the lens darker. The lens doesn't care what is behind it.
When you're coming up with hypotheticals compare a 40MP FF to a 10MP M43 so the pixel size is the same. Print them both out at 300 DPI so image magnification is the same. When all sensor variables are the same between both will the lens still magically get "darker" when it senses a smaller sensor is behind it?
One of these days you really need to start to understand that brightness and amount of light are different things, and that for all an image can be only the amount of light counts, not the brightness.
Also, pixel count and pixel size are completely irrelevant for this discussion.
" If you shoot a 20mm f/1.4 MFT camera+lens and a 40mm f/2.8 FF side by side with the exact same exposure settings (shutter speed, and ISO) you'll end up with the same AoV and same DoF, but the FF will be underexposed by about a stop. "
So you're correctly exposing with the M4/3 camera and not the FF one? What's the point of that? If you just pick an arbitrary exposure then there's no telling which one is under or over exposed... It's also gonna be more than a stop.
" Because f/1.4 lets in more light than f/2.8. Noise will vary, and maybe the FF 200 ISO will do better than the M43 100 ISO, but that's a sensor difference, not the lens. "
There's no maybe about that, and ISO 100 is not even native on M4/3...
I love m43 camera and lens reviews...It always brings out the m43 haters, FF fans and equivalence people...Always a fun read...
In regards to equivalence...If M43 lenses are "darker" then why don't external light meters that old-timey photographers and cinematographers used use have a setting a for sensor (or film) size...
If M43 lenses made "darker" images wouldn't external light meters have a sensor setting on them...Maybe they do, but I don't think they do...Someone who knows for sure...let me know...
I always thought that DOF is different on a crop sensor and noise levels are different but "darker"...I don't think so...but perhaps I am wrong...
Isn't a crop sensor camera just that...a camera that captures a "crop" of an what an arbitrary 35mm film sized sensor would capture?
@Impulses "So you're correctly exposing with the M4/3 camera and not the FF one?" Yeah, that's the point I'm trying to make; we are talking equivalence here. If you want an "equivalent image" you have to multiply the Focal Length and Aperture by 0.5 to get the same FoV and DoF on m43. They problem is that too many keyboard warriors have never actually shot both, and they don't realize that by doubling the aperture to get the DoF to match it causes twice as much light to come in through the lens and overexpose the shot on the M43 sensor by one stop.
So yes. If you want to shoot a M43 20mm f/1.4 next to a FF 40mm f/2.8 and get the same image, you need to cut the shutter speed of the M43 in half because F/1.4 is twice as bright as F/2.8. It may seem counter intuitive but believe me I come across this constantly in my photography. And it's so easy to demonstrate if people actually just take pictures instead of sitting on a keyboard all day misquoting uninformed YouTube personalities
Kerensky97, " If you want to shoot a M43 20mm f/1.4 next to a FF 40mm f/2.8 and get the same image, you need to cut the shutter speed of the M43 in half because F/1.4 is twice as bright as F/2.8" First, you made a mistake. The difference between F1.4 and F2.8 is 2 stops, so it is not to cut the speed in half but increase the speed by 4x. But you do not need to modify the speed. You need to adjust the ISO value. Let's say you take a shot at ISO400 with the FF camera then you must take the shot at ISO 100 with the M4/3 camera to actually get the SAME image in term of noise, too. Because here is the point : getting the SAME image in term of FOV, DOF AND noise. If you do not take the noise into account, you compare apples and oranges.
You're right, 2 stops. But there you go again comparing sensors instead of lenses. You'll NEVER make a m43 sensor have the same noise performance of a Full Frame, no matter how much you change the ISO. That is a limitation of having 1/4 the sensor area.
Only keyboard photographers are thinking LENS equivalency is trying to make a M43 sensor perform identical to FF (which will never happen). Real photographers just want to get the same field of view and depth of field. They know that if they're shooting on a smaller sensor it will perform like a smaller sensor. Nobody is dumb enough to think that there is a magic lens that makes a small sensor perform like a large one. As the misinformed have already said: "iF iT wAs wE cOuLd mAkE cAmErA sEnSoRs iNfiNiTeLy sMaLL!"
Applying LENS equivalence to SENSORS makes no sense. And trying to do so, is why so many people who don't understand lens equivalence think that smaller faster lenses are dimmer than larger slower lenses.
Kerensky97, You take pictures with a system, that is to say a lens and a sensor. You cannot separate them. I personally do not say that an M4/3 20mm F1.4 lens is dimmer than an FF 40mm F2.8 lens, or even that an M4/3 20mm F2.8 lens is dimmer than an FF 40mm F.2.8 lens. But you should undertand that to get the same picture with an M4/3 20mm F1.4 lens at 1/100s and ISO100, you have to use an FF system with a 40mm F2.8 lens at 1/100s and ISO400. Only in this case you will get the same FOV, DOF, noise, and also something we did not discuss here, the same motion blurr. If you shoot sports and motion blur is your thing, then you must use the same shutter speed with the same FOV. But I perfectly understand that M4/3 users (I am one of them) can be happy with a 20mm F2.8 lens because they care more about size than DOF, noise or cost. They can shoot at the same shutter speed/aperture/ISO than an FF system with a 40mm F2.8 lens, but they do not get the same picture : more noise and DOF.
Hey @Kerensky97, and other sensor photographers here. Sensor is not gathering any light! sensor is sensing/registering/counting/measuring the light gathered FROM THE LENS!!! Bigger lens/aperture gather more light! Sensor noise in the last 5-10 years is very comparable and almost not factor up to the very high ISO, does not matter from the sensor size because underlying technology is very similar. So the only REAL AND BIG DIFFERENCE IS IN THE EQUIVALENT EXPOSURE!!! The noise that you see on the smaller sensor in NOT FROM THE SENSOR BUT FROM THE EQUIVALENT EXPOSURE. And yes you can get similar noise performance from EVERY SENSOR SIZE IF YOU HAVE EQUIVALENT EXPOSURE! This is very easy to see and understand and used in photography for decades. This is why we have long exposure modes, multi frame NR and and HIGH resolution modes and etc. And this is why every google pixel smartphone will kill every 135 format camera, at night shots done with handholding ( without tripod ).
So if you do not have equivalent exposure you will get more shot noise from the shorter exposure. And this is what you see in the smaller formats as more noise. this noise is not coming from the senor and does not matter the sensor technology it will not disappear. So you have few option to get better exposure - fast lens ( this is what gather photons do you remember? ) BUT also you need to have lower ISO on the sensor to be able to handle this more photons in high DR situations, and here small sensors are in problem because they are set at 100/200 base ISO. Only smartphones are going down to ISO 25!!! Or we need to do several short exposures and frame blending. And of course we can use long exposure modes. - So there is no such thing as "you can not get good noise performance from smaller sensor" - OF COURSE YOU CAN! You can get even much higher resolution. The question is do you know how, do you care, do you have the right tools and do your subject allow for this kind of shooting?
@Kerensky97 - "Noise will vary, and maybe the FF 200 ISO will do better than the M43 100 ISO, but that's a sensor difference, not the lens." But the only time lenses matter is when they're on cameras. Are there reasons why equivalence isn't accurate? Technically. But realistically, in practice, it's useful.
As to detail being variable, and iso constant... I guess I didn't explain myself well. If a 35mm and a 645 camera were both loaded with Ilford HP5 with equivalent focal lengths, the detail in the final print is going to be higher in the 645 shot, because there's simply more film to capture detail. Same for scans.
But the 645 shot will need a longer shutter speed in order to match the exposure values if using the same film. With digital, the longer shutter speed is less necessary, because the ISO on the larger sensor could be pushed higher.
Basically, even though aperture/exposure equivalence is kinda fake, it behaves like it's real, due to how sensors work.
@theBitterFig Actually not fully correct. You forget one more parameter and this is shot noise! Which is exactly exposure time/shutter speed relevant. You can shot same shot with same camera/sensor/lens combo and if you set exposure to short, for which you need to crank the ISO up you will get more noise. So the same sensor will look noisier, but it is not the sensor but the shot noise related to the exposure. ISO is not kind of magic, it could make the frame brighter but you will need enough light to have clean image. Not enough light/exposure and you start to see shot noise, and maybe at some point sensor noise.
For sure it is much more easier to get more details/resolution with bigger area and bigger lens. It is just exponentially expensive and you reach diminishing returns pretty fast. + we are far away from full usage of the advanced tech in small sensors. As for now our eyes have at minimum 2-3x times better resolution and DR! And they are small sensors with small lenses :) .
@theBitterFig I get what you're saying with the HP5 on 135 and 645 film; that the 135 will look grainer when blown up to match the 645. But that's the key. The film isn't grainer, it's identical HP5 film You're taking a small picture, blowing it upto the size of the larger picture and that is what is making the grain look worse.
Same thing with the comparison between FF and M43, if you blow up a small sensor image to the size of the large sensor the noise is worse. And no magical "equivalent lens" will change that, it's an inherent drawback of using a small sensor.
BUT! It's incredibly rare people are blowing up images to make a M43 image into a 6ft wide print. We're actually shrinking our images to fit 4k 12MP screens. The other 30MP detail from the FF sensor is being compressed and discarded.
Which is why I say real photographers don't factor sensor performance into LENS equivalency. M43 users know the sensor's limits, they just want a relative FoV and DoF.
@Video-vs-photo You make the same mistake that Hubertus makes. There is a difference between "Intensity of the light" and "total light gathered by the lens."
But it's the INTENSITY of the light at the sensor that matters, not the total light. A bigger lens made for FF lets in more light than the smaller lens made for crop sensors. But most of that light is falling outside the area of the smaller sensor and doesn't matter. The light didn't get dimmer because the sensor is smaller, all those extra photons aren't needed because the sensor is smaller. So a smaller lens can still be bright with less overall light because all that matters is coverage of the sensor.
I'd suggest reading the Exposure chapter of "The Negative" by Ansel Adams rather than watching youtubers for more clarification.
"Exposure = Intensity X Time Thus the same total exposure will occur if we increase the INTENSITY of light reaching the film while reducing the exposure TIME proportionally." (Ansel's emphasis)
"But it's the INTENSITY of the light at the sensor that matters, not the total light"—This is so easily disproved that it's unbelievable that grown-up men publicly make such claims. If "the total [amount of] light" wouldn't matter, we could make sensors (and film negatives, for that matter) infinitely small and still get the same images and the same image quality from the same exposure. Shooting anything larger than phone-camera sensors would be completely stupid, as would have been shooting medium and large format back in the film days.
Your mistake is to cling to 'exposure' as the only variable that would matter. Exposure alone is not what defines the potential for image quality. Exposure plus sensor/negative size, exposure x area = total light does. (Also, everyone knows what exposure is made of, no-one needs Mr Adams to tell them.)
@Hubertus Bigend "Also, everyone knows what exposure is made of, no-one needs Mr Adams to tell them."
Apparently you don't. You literally just said the Ansel is wrong then follow up saying "I don't need to be told by him how it works."
Please get some actual photography education instead of "youtuber education." It's like talking to an anti-vaxxer; you're just embarrassing yourself. I wish I could hold your hand and point out every section of his photography book you need to learn about but start on page 45 and go at least 2 chapters (if not all 3 books).
"You literally just said the Ansel is wrong"—no, neither literally nor implicitly. He, contrary to you, knew the difference between brightness and amount of light and how both relate. Funnily, "amount of light" wasn't even mentioned in that sentence you quoted, because that part of his book simply wasn't about it. The quote is not even on topic here.
You really need to actually read a book on photography. It's literally all about the light intensity ON THE FILM, not the total lens. Ansel devotes pages to this and how it differs from total light through the lens (known as "coverage" and the "image circle", something else you should learn about). This is what you learn on day one in a Photography 101 class.
“The aperture indicates the amount of light that the lens will transmit TO THE FILM. Since the aperture is expressed as a fraction of the focal length, all lenses set at f/8 (or any other aperture) transmit the same INTENSITY OF LIGHT TO THE FILM."
It's frankly mind boggling that you can read that and still think it's NOT about intensity of light on the film. He literally uses exact wording directly contradicting you and you still don't get it.
What you quote is, again, some of the most primitive matter-of-fact basics everyone knows (and I personally have known for some 45 years, long before I had my formal photographic education).
And again this is just about exposure, not about the image quality potential of a piece of film or a sensor.
And you keep denying that those are two different things, like a flat earther.
(Just for the record, no one said anything about "the total lens", whatever that even is supposed to mean.)
Real photographers aren't worried about sensor noise when they're looking for equivalent lenses. That's only for pixel peepers and people who's only experience with photography comes from sitting behind a keyboard comparing camera specs.
Real crop sensor photographers know that there are limitations to their camera and that there is no magic "equivalent" lens that makes a Micro 4/3 lens into a Full Frame lens. They just want to know what lens they need to take a similar looking shot as their buddy with the FF sensor got.
All this is beside the point because you complaining about ISO all the time in no way explains why you people who don't understand lens equivalency keep saying, "equivalent crop lenses are slower", or equivalent crop lenses have "darker optics" They don't.
The ISO noise issues you can't get past are a product of different SENSORS, not the lens being "darker". That's as dumb as arguing "lens equivalency" between 12MP FF sensor and a 40 MP FF sensor because of noise
Also you can't blame me for having a hard time understanding why you're so confused. You said: "you really need to start to understand that brightness and amount of light are different things, and that for all an image can be only the amount of light counts, not the brightness."
What are you even talking about? Speak in actual photography terms, not imaginary made up terms. Even you agreed with what Ansel said:
Exposure = Intensity X Time Exposure = f/stop X shutter speed
So WTH is "amount of light" that magically comes into this. Fit "amount of light into the equation for us, or tell us what magical new equation you discovered about photography that makes the equation of previous photographers irrelevant. Enlighten us on why a M43 20mm f/1.4 lens is will give us "darker" images than a FF 40mm f/2.8 lens.
Light is photons. If you have a sensitive area A and a defined brightness, a defined exposure, that area is hit by a certain amount of photons, which is the amount of light. If you have a larger sensitive area 4 x A that gets the same exposure with the same brightness, it is hit by 4 x the number of photos, it gets 4 times the amount of light. This is also one of the most primitive aspects of light and photography. Actually it's just basic geometry.
Whether someone is "worried" or "complains" about it is irrelevant; what's relevant is the fact that, from the same brightness and exposure, the 4 times as large area will receive 4 times the number of photons, 4 times the amount of light.
A just as simple fact also is that, to receive the same amount of photons, the same amount of light that the smaller area received, the larger area only needs ¼ of the brightness.
Which is why a FF camera at 4 times the ISO of a MFT camera will usually still produce the same or similar results.
By the way, what we call brightness here is called 'illuminance' in physics, which is measured in Lux. The 'total quantity of light' would be measured in Lumen and is illuminance x area (which is the gist of it even though it is actually a bit more complicated than that because physics also differentiates between light sources and lit surfaces).
One last thing – "why you people who don't understand lens equivalency keep saying, 'equivalent crop lenses are slower', or equivalent crop lenses have 'darker optics' They don't."
Not 'equivalent' lenses. Lenses with equal relative apertures. They're not equivalent.
I never said "darker optics", that would course still be incorrect.
But smaller format lenses with 'equal' relative apertures are 'slower'. Because 'fast' just means enabling 'fast' shutter speeds. And if we use file quality as a reference and assume equivalent ISO, not equal ISO, then, by tendency, a f/2.8 FF lens enables just as 'fast' a shutter speed as a f/1.4 MFT lens.
So what you're saying is there can never be an "equivalent lens" because no matter what lens you put on a Micro 4/3's camera it will never have the light gathering sensor surface area of a Full Frame sensor.
This is why you just don't get it when you're comparing sensors but talking about lens equivalence. Lens equivalence was never about reproducing ISO performance. It's just about getting a picture that looked the same as a picture taken with a different format camera. That's all. Only pixel peeping keyboard photographers think different.
Also you're wrong that a FF sensor has "4 times the ISO of a MFT camera" ISO doesn't work like that. For one thing ISO noise isn't constant measurement like f/stop or shutter. And it'd probably blow your little mind to learn that high ISO doesn't create the noise. It's the exposure (f/stop x shutter), or lack thereof, that creates the noise. You understanding of lens AND SENSOR physics is wrong, leading you come to the wrong conclusion anyway.
"So what you're saying is there can never be an 'equivalent lens' because no matter what lens you put on a Micro 4/3's camera it will never have the light gathering sensor surface area of a Full Frame sensor" – no, that's obviously not what I'm saying.
But I get now that you don't even (want to) understand even those simple basics of what light which I have been laying out so patiently for you, and that this now must be the end of it. [cont'd]
"Also you're wrong that a FF sensor has '4 times the ISO of a MFT camera'" – which I didn't say, either. I said that typically a FF sensor produces a similar output as a MFT sensor when it receives the same amount of light (Lumen), which happens at exactly a fourth of the illuminance, i.e. brightness (Lux). And for images to still be correctly exposed with that, it of course needs to be set to four times the ISO. The fact that those two images do look similar with most cameras we could sensibly compare has been proven a hundred times or more by comparisons like dpreview makes them, easily viewable for anyone who can operate a web browser and a mouse.
"Also the OP said 'darker optics', that's the whole reason this thread exists" – and I agree that he was wrong there, but then again he might not be a native speaker, and if he'd simply said "slower", or "slower in equivalent terms", he would have been right, and that's what you keep denying, being the last of photography's flat earthers.
I stand by "darker optics," but it seems like both of you think I'm used it in a different way than I did.
This 1.4 is darker than the 1.2 of most other Olympus Pro line primes. The Sony G 40/2.5 is darker than a lot of Sony's other premium-build lenses. Heck, it's darker than most of Sony's budget lenses. That trade-off for a lens that doesn't go all out for maximum aperture, but instead focuses on build quality and optical quality is really interesting, and also creates a lens cheaper and smaller than other premium lenses. That's an interesting decision, IMHO, to move away from a "faster = better" dogma, and why I thought they'd be neat to compare.
But you all want to waste time arguing about equivalence a week later. Here's the thing to keep in mind: it literally does not matter whether equivalence is real. It behaves mostly like it's real, even if there are ways it isn't technically accurate, so it's *practical.*
""Also you're wrong that a FF sensor has '4 times the ISO of a MFT camera'" – which I didn't say, either."
IT'S YOUR DIRECT QUOTE! Litterally scroll up a few comments to see it:
"...the same amount of light that the smaller area received, the larger area only needs ¼ of the brightness. -----Which is why a FF camera at 4 times the ISO of a MFT camera will usually still produce the same or similar results.-----"
@Hubertus You really need to educate yourself on what ISO is because you're understanding of it is very wrong. Since you refuse to read actual photography books maybe at least watch a YouTube video about it? And why "A just as simple fact also is that, to receive the same amount of photons, the same amount of light that the smaller area received, the larger area only needs ¼ of the brightness." is totally wrong.
Also I found this article with side by side examples incredibly illuminating (no pun intended). Skip down to "ISO is Amplification or Gain" and "How Do Shutter, Aperture and ISO Affect Noise?"
@theBitterFig: "I stand by 'darker optics,' but it seems like both of you think I'm used it in a different way than I did"—You're right. Thanks for clarifying.
@Kerensky: "IT'S YOUR DIRECT QUOTE"—now you're lying, and your quote from another paragraph disproves your own claim. "A FF camera HAS 4x the ISO" doesn't even make sense anyway you put it, I would never say that. A sensor does not "have ISO". I grant you, though, that you might not be a native speaker, either, so we can leave it at that.
Instead of trying to find more books I should read (and from which I'd learn nothing new), YOU need to look at a couple of those thousands of comparative shots that prove equivalence. Like @theBitterFig said, even if 4x the area wouldn't receive 4x the amount of light (Lumen) when lit with the same brightness (Lux), even if four times the amount of light wouldn't provide the same potential for an image no matter whether it comes as brightness or as area, "it literally does not matter whether equivalence is real. It behaves mostly like it's real, even if there are ways it isn't technically accurate, so it's *practical*".
I think the problem is you think lens equivalence is something its not and never has been.
Going back to the photography 101 books you refuse to learn from. That part of Ansel Adams book you won't read talks about lens equivalence between 5x4 and 8x10 film. And that was over 4 decades ago. But nowhere do you see him saying "also make sure you change your ASA to from 400 to 200 because the grain will look bigger on the smaller format".
Your incorrect definition of lens equivalence is only held by people who's photography revolves around pixel peeping an image at 100%. The fact that so much of your argument with lens equivalence revolves around ISO, something that happens in post processing after the camera sensor has already been exposed, speaks volumes.
As for the "thousands of comparative shots that prove equivalence." remember the last time you linked an article you thought proved this (but actually disproved you) even the author of the article chimed in to say you don't get it
You keep repeating the same old nonsense while perfectly ignoring the core of my reasoning.
And what are you making up there again? I'm referring to serious review sites like this one here. There are hundreds of comparable test shots on dpreview alone, and if you don't see equivalence proven there, then you must be blind.
Also you're proving another constant here, namely that truthers and deniers, when they're finally and eventually out of arguments, will come to the point where they can only resort to insulting the person. You only see a few minutes of my thoughts here put into words, but you believe those few minutes would allow you to judge decades of my life and my work, of which you know nothing. In fact, while saying nothing about me, that says a whole lot about you.
And I've wasted too much time on you already; I'm out of here.
"The F-number itself doesn't change with sensor size, just as actual focal length doesn't change with sensor size. " "In a similar way, the actual F-number always tells you the intensity of the light on each square mm of the sensor - this doesn't change with sensor size." "ISO ensures that, if you expose a sensor to a given light intensity for a given amount of time, then you will get a certain brightness in your final (JPEG) image. Because it's based on intensity of light, it means that ISO depends on F-number, not equivalent aperture. This means that, a Four Thirds camera with a 50mm f/2 lens at ISO100 should produce a JPEG of the same brightness as a Full frame camera with a 100mm f/2 lens at ISO100 and, set to the same F-number and shutter speed, even though its smaller sensor means it is receiving 1/4 as much total light."
cont. "So, if the sensor area affects how much total light a camera is exposed to, doesn't that mean you can say this ISO on camera A is equivalent to that ISO on camera B?
Yes, and no. In theory you can work out how much total light one system is receiving, relative to another, and calculate 'equivalent sensitivities' - the ISO settings that would provide an image from the same amount of total light (and hence have similar noise properties). However, there are enough differences in sensor performance that, without knowing a lot more about the specific sensors you're comparing, you can't assume, for instance, that twice the total light means twice the overall low-light performance."
You can't assume that twice the total light means twice the overall low-light performance.
This gallery is processed with Capture One(again), with corrections disabled. I did request adding a few samples processed in Olympus Workspace but, oh well, I can do it myself.
I opened many of these in Olympus Workspace and the minor aberrations here and there vanished. Sharpness and clarity were better too, and the colors looked richer with i-Enhance. Those interested may try it themselves.
I do hope somebody will test the higher resolution of this lens with 80Mp pixel shift output.
C1 has been known to be among the worst raw converters there are for Olympus files for many years. I do understand the pain of switching raw converters, so I understand why someone wouldn't want to do that just for that one camera, but I'd definitely appreciate if people would at least be using a better one for public reviews.
I don't think there's anything wrong with Capture One, DPR is just purposely turning it's corrections off whereas that's not an option at all in Adobe since they have some sorta agreement and M4/3 corrections are always forced on.
I just don't see why DPR thinks geometric corrections are essential but CA aren't, but I guess that beats their past approach of simply using Adobe's defaults which varied wildly from system to system and was more unfair than anything for the purpose of lens sample galleries.
I personally don't care for the manual clutch on any of my lenses. Manual is a button away. Hit AF button and spin the dial and poof you are in manual. I have the clutch turned off on my lenses. Good review though. I may ad this lens to my bag. I sold my 25mm 1.8 with my E-m1 mark I. I think this will be a nice replacement.
Is there any other brands out there that offers a focus clutch? If not, then why put so much emphasis on its absence? I have it on my 17mm/1.8 and have not needed it for the past 6 years.
^Yes, there's other brands with a focus clutch and/or similar functionality and it can be pretty useful, tho situationally. Sony's 90/2.8 G macro has a very very similar clutch because they realized focus by wire on a macro lens tends to feel awful.
Additionally, most Sony primes have linearly mapped MF which is really the most crucial part of the clutch, the faux hard stops and the markings are just extra frills but it's the switch to linearly mapped MF that makes the clutch feel more like traditional mechanically coupled lenses.
One recent Tamron zoom lets you switch to linear mapping, the PL25 (original & mk II) has linearly mapped MF too, I think a lot of Pana's L mount stuff lets you switch to linear on the fly as well. For anyone that's gonna rely on MF a lot with focus by wire lenses it can be quite a useful feature, with or w/o clutch.
OM should've considered using linear mapping as Pana did with the PL25, I wouldn't miss it myself since I only use MF for macro and lens tests but still.
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