To commemorate its 90th birthday and the launch of an E-3 into space, Olympus has issued a limited number of kits. These comprise two clear lens caps and a commemorative camera strap. I have been given one! Thanks Olympus Australia!! The reason that the lens covers are transparent is because every type of cover in space must be able to be seen through.
I had a short play with this lens last weekend. Adam from Camera House Camera Action generous enough to lend me this lens for a couple of hours with a little deal that I upload my personal thought here.
The lens is very light and I like the fact that the build quality is good and sturdy even tough it come from the standard lens family.
As I am just a hobbyist I am not going to talk about technical aspect of the lens or even talking specifically about the pixel peeping or whatsoever.
What I am going to show is just a series of photos that I manage to shoot the other day. Overall I am impressed with the sharpness of the images produced through this lens and it fit nicely too onto my E620.
Comparing the 9-18 with 7-14 it lost few degree of angle view but it still one of the widest lens available. I am sure this will be a must have lens for everyone who love wide angle and landscape photography.
I give 4 stars out of 5 to this lens.
Another leaked picture of the new Olympus and matching lenses.
Adobe Labs have a beta version Camera RAW converter 5.4 available for download as well as an updated DNG converter.
YES, they need to look at their old maps and find their way.
I found these two 4/3 lens road maps. One from Olympus in 2003 and the other from Panasonic 2006.
This is interesting and very annoying. I am buying a Micro 4/3 camera and adapters simply so I can get fast prime lenses by using old C Mount movie lenses. When the lenses I want should have been out four years ago.
I have heard a rumor that Olympus only have a small development team working on the 4/3 and micro 4/3 system. So they alternate their time on either developing bodies or lenses for a two year period.
So there have been more than enough bodies lately.
These might be some images of the new top secret Olympus E-P1 (Digital Pen) which is to be launched on the 16th of June 2009. These came from a Chinese forum.
If these are the real thing. I think Olympus is on a winner here.
The first pictures that I took with the E-620 were taken on Auto. I had forgotten about the Gradation filter that all the Olympus E cameras have. My excuse for this is that I NEVER shoot in Auto mode with the E-3 or E-30. 🙂 When the camera is set to the Auto mode the Gradation Filter is set to Auto as well. What this filter does is to try and retain the details in the highlights and shadows. As it does this, it tries to extract more details in the shadows, which increases the noise. My suggestion is that this filter should be put in the normal mode, especially if shooting at higher ISOs. Even at 100 ISO, some noise can be seen in the shadows with the filter set to Auto.
Here are some more shots taken in Aperture Priority mode at 1600 ISO with the Noise Filter and the Gradation Filter set at normal. I have included one shot with the Gradation Filter set to Auto so that you can see the difference that this mode makes. Some fine details have been lost by the noise filter, but I think that even so 1600 ISO is usable (as long as the Gradation Filter is set to Normal.)
The lens used was the 14-54 mark II.
1/60, f2.8, 1600 ISO, Gradation Auto
1/50, f2.8, 1600 ISO, Gradation Normal
1/160, f11, fill flash (on board flash), 1600 ISO, Gradation Normal
1/640, f5.6, 1600 ISO, Gradation Normal
The E-620 has made it to Melbourne. I had a walk round the City for an hour or so to see what it handled like. I have an E-3 and an E-30 and, except for the placement of the buttons, the E-620 handled pretty much the same. The lens on the camera was the 14-54 mark II. In my view, this is a very good lens for this camera. With the new grip the camera felt very well balanced with this lens. I was able to walk around with the camera held by my side just holding on to the grip. The camera is not slow at focussing with this lens. The dynamic range seems to have been improved and IMHO is better than the E-3. The noise at higher ISO’s, however is not good. It appears less film grain like than other Olympus models, and looks more like Panasonic noise. As with all Oly cameras, colour is very good straight from the camera. Here are 3 pics taken with the E-620.
Taken at 100 ISO.
Taken at 320 ISO.
Taken at 800 ISO. Note the details that were able to be retained in the skylights. With the E-3 I have trouble keeping all the details in the window frames here. But noise is very noticeable.
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