I was nagged by five questions: some may have pestered you too: 1: What does a Speedbooster do? Not the obvious gains – 30% more FoV and a stop of light – but what’s the hidden penalty? What degree the degradation? Or are Speedboosters win-win? Do they really improve results for smaller sensors? 2. Is …
The 28mm focal length (14mm in MFT) is the gateway to wide-angle. It’s an architectural photographer’s staple. Many lenses cover it: it’s typically at the top of a wide zoom and the low end of a standard zoom – where both tend to be weak. There are few MFT primes in this territory: Panasonic has …
The fundamentals of shooting in the Lumix G9’s high-res mode were sketched out when the camera was released in 2017. Likely you’ve already read Damien Demolder’s article; if you haven’t, that’s a good place to begin. In 2019, MFT seems to be clinging to a rather precarious foothold supported by Panasonic’s critical mass in the …
Canon 70-300mm f4-5.6 IS Review There is much speculation about how this lens performs compared with the Canon 70-200mm f4 L, and of course everybody still really really wants a Canon 70-200mm f4 L IS, but Canon knows that if such a fantastically useful and high quality lens existed, far fewer of its other (more …
Contax Zeiss 21mm f2.8 Distagon v Canon 17-40mm f4 L [first published 2002] Lens comparison made at 21mm / f11. Exposure 4 seconds on a Canon 1Ds Mark I mounted on a view camera head on Manfrotto 155 legs, locked and braced, on a concrete floor. Multiple frames were shot, with fractionally different focusing – …
Tamron 28-75mm f2.8 DI v Sigma 24-70mm f2.8 EX v Contax Zeiss 35mm f2.8 [published 2004] The motivation for this test was to establish whether a zoom could replace the 35mm Distagon f2.8 I commonly use for architectural shoots. Trolling about on location, the perfectly convenient lens for shooting exteriors would be a 35-70mm zoom …
Zeiss Contax 35m f2.8 Distagon v Zeiss Contax 35-70mm f3.4 v Sigma 24-70mm f2.8 EX DG Zeiss Contax 35-70mm f3.4 v Sigma 24-70mm f2.8 EX DG v Canon 50mm f2.5 Macro [published 2003] The real point of this test is to determine the substance of the claim made by many that the Zeiss 35-70mm zoom …
Leica 21-35mm v Contax Zeiss 21mm Distagon Following a two day shoot solely using the Leica 21-35mm Vario Elmar f3.5-4 and Canon 1Ds II, using the CameraQuest adaptor, I ran some controlled tests on a familiar target, because I was sure the Leica was going soft on me at the wide end. The obvious benchmark …
Olympus 18mm f4 v Contax Zeiss 18mm f4 v Canon 16-35mm f2.8 [Test by Mike Hatam, published 2004] All images shot with a Canon 1Ds Mark II in RAW, processed in 8 bit via Raw Shooter Essential and converted for web with BoxTop Pro. Centre Frame Crops (100%) Olympus 18mm at f11 Contax Zeiss 18mm …
Contax Zeiss 18mm f4 v Nikon AF-S 17-35mm f2.8 [published 2004] Further to the apparent narrow victory of the Nikon AF-S 17-35mm f2.8 in the 21mm play-offs for second place to the Zeiss 21mm, the natural next step was to assess its performance against the Contax Zeiss 18mm f4 Distagon. While nowhere considered the equal …