Ed. and Tech. Ed. Get Together

My friend and co-conspirator Ctein*

Ctein and I had our annual meet-up in Madison this afternoon, which was great fun as usual. We went to our now-traditional Italian restuarant lunch spot along with his S.O. Laura, and then, back at the hotel where his conference is taking place, looked at cameras and pictures in equal proportions. I took this shot with the Olympus E-M1 and the Panasonic 12–35mm, one of several fancy lenses Ctein brought along to show me—I gather he had this one on loan from John Camp.

So, can't teach an old reviewer new tricks? Can't teach an old reviewer old tricks, hardly. Seems I keep having to learn this over and over again: you don't really know a thing until you try it yourself. I've read many times on Ye Tubes of Ye Internets that the older Panasonic 20mm lens (my "normal" on this camera) is slow-ish to focus on the newer Olympii and that a number of alternatives are faster. Well, I had no idea how much faster. The Panasonic 12–35mm zoom is blazingly fast on the E-M1; really surprisingly fast. Almost I-didn't-know-how-fast-autofocus-could-focus fast.

The bar keeps being raised. I loved the way this lens handles on this camera.

Ctein showed me a number of 17x22" prints, all taken with the E-M5 Micro 4/3 camera and all utterly putting to the lie the idea that Micro 4/3 is not capable of superb results on paper. Some of the new aurora borealis shots from Yellowknife are wonderful, and I particularly liked a delicate and incredibly sharp landscape taken from the plane. Almost hard to believe.

He showed me some B&W work, too, but something was seriously wrong with them—the tones were just not right. Maybe he has some sort of explanation for their weird and "off" look. Some sort of mystery if you ask me.

[UPDATE: Okay, I'll come clean—they were all infrareds. Ctein cheerfully accused me of having an antipathy toward infrared, and I guess I have to concede that.]

I got to try the Olympus 75mm lens, too—another beauty, although it's a bit too long for the way I see.

I'd sure love to have that zoom, though. (And no, those words from my lips are not actually a sign of the Apocalypse.)

Mike

*In case you might not know, it's pronounced "kuh-TINE" and it's his full legal name.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Stephen Scharf: "I have that 12–35mm zoom, and it rocks. It's on my E-M1 90% of the time. Pricey but worth it."

Nicholas Condon: "We'll know it's the Apocalypse when you use said zoom to take a color photo of a cat with flowers."

David Wilson: "The Panasonic 12–35mm ƒ/2.8 X zoom has become my go-to lens for Micro 4/3. Works great on all the Panasonic and Olympus bodies I have. It's almost like having a bunch of high performance primes in one lens, which I guess is the point."

ShadZee: "I'm still waiting for his final review of those glasses  ;-)"

Mike replies: I don't think that's going to happen now, as the company that makes them went out of business. To Ctein's great chagrin.

Richard Alan Fox: "When using that lens on Olympus bodies do you use camera IS or lens IS?"

Mike replies: I had the body stabilization on and the lens stabilization off for the handful of shots I made with it. My understanding is that with Panasonic bodies that have IBIS (is it just the GX7, or are there more?), the lens IS always take precedence, but with Olympus bodies with IS, you can use either (or none). If that's not right I hope someone who is more intimately familiar with the issue will fill us in.

Comments

[Chris Norris]

I am desperately trying to figure out the location from that picture. Concourse?

[You are correct Sir! You sure do know your town, Chris. --Mike]

[Dana]

I like Ctein's Specs.......I have heard there will be a 12-35 zoom
version soon.....never out of focus!

[Santa dp]

Two points re m43:

1- is your Panasonic 20mm the older or newer version (might make a difference)

2- when switching from m43 (4:3) & DX (3:2) formats do you have trouble composing the image? (only ask 'cause I sure did)

[Dan Liu]

OT: Ohh, where did you eat? Papavero is one of my favorites here!

[Michael Matthews]

Interesting to see how the out-of-focus appearance of the inline blog photo contrasts with the much sharper image seen upon clicking on it to see larger? A product of my monitor resolution (current iMac)? Or something about the way Typepad squeezes files?

If the latter, I'd give that consideration in your evaluation of prospective new platforms.

[Kenneth Tanaka]

Nice portrait of Ctein, Mike. Glad to see you and Ctein were able to meet-up and enjoy our spot of lovely spring weather.

Yes, that Panny 12-35 is a lovely lens on Micro Four-Thirds, isn't it? It's analogous to the EF 24-70mmL on Canon full-frame. You could just glue the thing onto your camera and have most of your needs well met. I shot one of my personal favorites, Air Show, in 2012 with that lens (on an EM5) and I simply marvel at how much detail is clearly rendered in that image.

[Peter Wright]

I seem to have a few things in common with Ctein. I have the EM-5, the Panasonic 12-35, and the Olympus 75. I also have the Panasonic 45-200 that I believe Ctein has mentioned – all great lenses btw. (But I will never have that beard!) Even have the Superfocus glasses, although mine are black. According to my wife, mine make me look more like Harry Potter than Gandalf the Grey.

Peter.

[Ben Rosengart]

@Michael Matthews, Mike has already said that image presentation will be one of the criteria for the new blog solution. And he's certainly complained about Typepad's image presentation enough that I wouldn't worry for a second that it won't be an important consideration.

@Santa dp: I use m4/3s and crop to 3:2. I notice that the photo reproduced above is 770x900 pixels, which is somewhere in between 4:3 and 3:2.

[Steve Rosenblum]

I agree with Stephen Scharf--the lens rocks! I use it with my GX7. To me, this lens is the best example of the promise of m4/3 finally realized. I just can't get over how light and small this lens is compared to the equivalent 24-70 f/2.8 lens for full frame cameras, especially when combined with the diminutive GX7 body. The first time I used them together I just could not wipe the smile off of my face!

[John Camp]

I have had a peek at a couple of gorgeous Yellowknife photos from Ctein, and I'm waiting impatiently for a major post on the trip with, preferably, a link to some full-screen examples. Is that coming?

[Mus]

Mike, just wondering, since this was about your meeting with Ctein, the origin of his name. I am just curious.

[It's shrouded in mystery and wrapped in enigma, that is unless he cares to relate the tale. But he's traveling right now and not on top of reading comments. --Mike]

[ctein]

Dear ShadZee,

What Mike said. I'm going to have to make this pair of glasses work for as long as I can. Lenscrafters is supposed to introduce their version of adjustables Real Soon Now, and at some point I will check them out-- I can’t imagine tolerating going back to fixed-focus glasses.

~~~~

Dear John,

New columns for TOP are on hiatus for at least another month. I have this other writing project I'm endeavoring to stay focused and disciplined about. Something crazy, a novel or some such nonsense.

I thought the JPEG's I sent you were pretty high resolution. I can send you full-res, if you care, but I'd not likely link to them in a column.

pax / Ctein
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-- Ctein's Online Gallery http://ctein.com
-- Digital Restorations http://photo-repair.com
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[kirk]

The 12-35mm X zoom on a GH4 body is photographic heaven for me. And I always thought I was a longer lens fan.....

[Peter Robinson]

Am I the only one who doesn't like the 12-35. Distortion is gross - or was with mine. Had to correct it manually all the time when shooting RAW. Sold it.

Example: http://www.photoallsorts.co.uk/post/52444117817/a-reason-to-shoot-jpgs-following-on-from-the

[Vinck]

Same as Peter Robinson: I didn't like the 12-35 either. Possibly because Aperture is not as good as Lightroom at automatically correcting raw files for lens defects such as distorsion. I have exchanged it for the Olympus 12-40 which I am much happier with: this and the addition of those precious 10mm-e more on the longer side of the focal range.

Mike, if the prime lens lover in you fell for the fast focusing rather than the zoom range, there are a lot of nice prime lens that will be faster than the 20mm!

[ctein]

Dear Peter and Vinck,

You guys have to be talking about a different lens. I just checked the geometric distortion in this lens at all focal lengths, and it doesn't look anything like what Peter has on his website. At the shorter focal lengths, there is negligible distortion. It gradually increases and is at a maximum at 35mm… but it's PINCUSHION distortion, not barrel, as in Peter's example. That's not sample variation; sample variation doesn't do that.

Also, the degree of distortion is not enough to degrade the image quality when it's corrected in software -- I checked that, too.

A blanket objection to correcting aberrations in software rather than glass is simply an unjustified prejudice. Many aberrations can be corrected as well in software, some even better, then they can in physical glass. The time to object to a software correction is when it is so extreme that it degrades image quality, as I complained about in the Olympus 12 mm f/2 lens. But holding it against the lens designer, in general, makes exactly as much logical sense as it would be to criticize a lens designer for using, say, aspheric surfaces. All lens designs involve compromising and balancing off corrections for aberrations. It is always a trade-off; the more tools (or degrees of freedom, if you prefer) that you can throw at the problem, the better the results. Insisting that lens designers not use software tools to correct aberrations at all simply will result in poorer (or much bigger / more expensive) lenses.

My complaints regarding the Olympus lens were that the designers did NOT do a good job of balancing aberration correction; they let geometric distortion go so badly to hell that it compromised the final result. The Panasonic 12-35 zoom that Mike and I played with does not have that flaw.

pax \ Ctein
[ Please excuse any word-salad. MacSpeech in training! ]
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-- Ctein's Online Gallery http://ctein.com 
-- Digital Restorations http://photo-repair.com 
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