Olympus M.Zuiko 12-50mm f/3.5-6.3 in comparison

During this time of year we have not much light even during daytime and the weather in Southern Finland has been quite cloudy and rainy. Because of that I decided to do a traditional test target shoot to compare the new zoom with some of my other lenses. 

Above is my test setup. I used two targets, one in the center and the other in the right upper corner. I shot the same "subject" (marked here as grey area) with different focal lengths. Of course distance varied accordingly to keep (subject) area the same. I used studio flashes and used their power settings to keep exposure on sensor constant in every picture. Accuracy was 1/10 stop. This way the differencies in lens diaphragm did not affect the results. I also focused center and corner targets separately to compensate for possible curvatures in lenses´focal planes. All test pictures were shot at ISO 200. Camera was Olympus E-P3. RAW images were opened in Lightroom 3.6 and I did a basic normalization of tones, correction of chromatic aberration and added sharpening. Those are the same basic tweaks I would do to real pictures. Possible distortions were not corrected as can be seen in corner shots.

Focal Length 12mm

The first comparison shows the center of 12-50mm zoom at full aperture F3.5 and closed at F5.6. Focal length is widest, 12mm. These are 100% crops, like all other target images here. The image quality gets better with smaller aperture as would be expected here.

 

Olympus´4/3 series zoom lens Zuiko D. 12-60mm f/2.8-4.0 is the perfect comparison lens for any lens having the same focal length range. Here we can see center targets. This result is in line with Olympus´MTF curves below: 12-60mm zoom is a great lens, and especially its resolution (orange curves) is higher than with the new zoom. You can find more of these MTF curves at Olympus web sites. They are good tools when comparing lenses.

 

In upper line of this picture we have the corners of 12-50mm zoom at apertures F3.5 and F5.6. Contrast and resolution gets better with smaller aperture, but radial (sagittal) and tangential (meridional) lines have a very different resolution. It can be also seen in MTF curves, where continuous line is sagittal and dashed line is meridional transfer function. For comparison we have corner shots with 12-60mm zoom at F3.5 and and M.Zuiko 12mm f/2 prime at F4.0. 12mm lens is not too good in corners, but it has this reasonable level all ready from F2.

Focal Length 14mm

 

As a further comparison lens we have M.Zuiko 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 II kit zoom. Above its results at 14mm focal lenght and apertures F3.5 and F5.6. Left side images are from center and right side images are from corner. Now 12mm and 14mm focal lengths are so different that they should not be compared directly. That´s why I have below a common focal length of about 19mm.

Focal Length about 19mm

 

Here I set the shooting distance with Lumix G 20mm f/1.7 prime. After shooting with it, I shot with those three zooms from the same spot while setting zoom or focal length so that the cropping was always equal. Zoom rings did not show 20mm because Lumix actually has not a 20mm focal length. It is maybe close to 18,5mm. These crops are from center. Lumix 20mm and Olympus 12-60mm zoom show almost identical performance. Wide open 12-50mm zoom has a good resolution but its contrast is not up to 14-42mm zoom.

 

Looking at corners, 12-50mm zoom has again nice resolution but contrast performance is very modest. Thus it is practically a draw with kit zoom. Maybe it comes as a surprise for some people but Lumix 20mm is not much better in the corners. Number one from these lenses is quite obvious.

Closing down to F5.6 makes Lumix 20mm markedly better in the corners than these zooms.

Focal Length 42mm

 

This comparison has on the left centers at full aperture and on the right corners, again at full aperture. 12-50mm zoom gets better all the time as focal length grows. 14-42mm zoom on the other hand sees especially contrast dropping at its longest focal length.

Focal Length 50mm

 

Uppermost, on the left, we have 12-50mm zoom´s center at full aperture. All the other crops are from the corner. 12-50mm zoom shows just slightly better contrast in corners when closed to F8. Still contrast performance is lower than resolution. As new lenses I included M.Zuiko 45mm f/1.8 at the same aperture F4 as earlier were Lumix 20mm and M.Zuiko 12mm. 50mm is 4/3 series Zuiko D. 50mm f/2 Macro. 

Macro setting

 

As close up test I did a watch image. At macro setting 12-50mm has a 43mm focal length. It can not be changed as zoom ring does not move when macro setting is engaged. Largest aperture is F6.0. Here we have the closest focusing distance of 200mm.

I tried apertures F8 and F11. The smaller aperture shows already effects of diffractions but on he other hand the better depth of field can be a bigger benefit. How ever, the 12-50mm lens is capable of very nice images with close up subjects. This is a 100% crop.

For comparison once more on the left the new 12-50mm zoom and on the right Zuiko D. 50mm f/2 Macro. Aperture is F8. Focusing differs between these images, please look for the sharpest details in both images. 

Conclusion

Zuiko D. 12-60mm f/2.8-4 is one heck of a lens. I guess that´s old news. The images should tell quite clearly the differencies. However, we must remember that this kind of very precisely made test target comparison is a lot harsher than any normal shooting. The differencies in normal shooting would not be in the same league, there are too many disturbing factors. Even slight differencies in exposure, focus or camera shake could obscure a lot. But, yes this is what you get when everything is optimized.

M. Zuiko 12-50mm f/3.5-6.3 is a very reasonable lens for photography with its longer focal length and especially for close up shooting. Otherwise it fits better for video because of its silent and fast focusing and silent power-zoom. For video it has plenty of quality. You can check this by scaling test shots into 50%. Then they correspond to Full HD quality. 

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Olympus E-P3 and Action

Furball on the left is our Bearded Collie named Vertti, or Memorylane One for the Sun. Vertti is my official and eager tester for action capable cameras. Very few cameras pass through his test with flying colors because this buddy can move in so many directions at one time. Vertti is a living example of Heisenberg uncertainty principle...   

I always map auto focusing into a thumb button in every camera where it is possible. In DSLRs I map there continuous auto focusing. Then with a press of a button my subject is in focus. If it is a moving subject I just keep the button pressed and I´m ready to take a picture or a series of pictures any moment I want to. 

With Olympus E-P2 I had to map there single AF because E-P2´s continuous AF is no good. It just hunts back and forth and can´t lock on anything. With E-P3 this is changed and now I can map continuous AF into thumb button. Focusing is just like single AF with non-moving subjects and with thumb butten pressed I can follow many moving subjects. Now, define ”many”...

While E-P3´s single AF might be at same level as D3x´s single AF, continuous AF is not. With a good DSLR like D3x, I can follow an erratic subject, like a running dog easily, keep focusing and shooting, and most shots are sharp if shutter speed is okay. With E-P3 the first problem is Live View. VF-2 viewfinder is not refreshed for too much of the time. Following the dog, composing and shooting continuously at the same time is difficult. This is simply an area where an optical reflex viewfinder is still better than electronic viewfinder. The sensor’s double duty takes too much time from viewfinder. The second fact is that algorithmic prediction of focus seems to be slightly lacking in E-P3. With a DSLR there´s a shorter time gap between the latest distance information and actual exposure than with a live view camera. DSLR can predict better where the focus should be when the shutter goes. And finally E-P3´s shooting rate of 3 images per second is not so good for action series. All of this may lead into problems in following the subject, keeping composition and getting sharp images. For dogs running I would not choose E-P3 as my camera. And if I had to, I would not use sequential shooting but single shots while following the dog and trying to get peaks of action. This technique seems to improve the percentage of keepers a lot.

Playing children are now easy, mostly. Sports from audience or at the side of track is easy, mostly. Aeroplanes are easy, mostly. Cars are easy, mostly. 

”Mostly” because the actual speed of movement is not decisive. What counts is the rate of change of distance. Anything very fast far away is not moving fast relative to the camera. The closer the movement gets the more difficult it becomes. Below I have a simple exercise which shows how first differences are small but then there´s a lot of change at the end. This car is approaching at about 40km/h (the speed limit on this road):

Images above are 100% crops. Eight consecutive images with E-P3. Lens M.Zuiko 40-150mm 1:4-5.6. Focal lenght 40mm, aperture 4. Continuous AF. Images are oversharpened so that only sharp sharpens, unsharp doesn´t.

Below the original cropping of the first and last image. I´m standing quite close to road. This is a situation which E-P3 handles quite well up to eight image except for composing getting difficult  in the end. The ninth image was unsharp.

OTHER FOCUSING ISSUES

Nikon gives AF range as -1 - +19 EV for D3x. Olympus gives values 0-18 EV for E-P2 and 0-20 EV for E-P3. Between these values AF should detect and lock. Now EV 0 corresponds to 1 second at aperture 1 at ISO 100. I tested Olympuses with Lumix 20/1.7 lens. AF was able to lock reliably down to 1” (EV 0.5, ISO 200) with E-P2 and 4” (EV -1,5 !!, ISO 200) with E-P3. I tested D3x with 50/1.4. AF locked reliably down to 2” (EV 0, ISO 100). My target was black blocks on white, 50/50. At EV 0 I really can´t see through D3x viewfinder. VF-2 with E-P2 is noisy as hell at EV 0.5 but doable. What I really was surprised with was VF-2 quality with E-P3. Noise is gone, you actually can see perfectly well what you are doing at EV -1,5 through VF-2. 

In real life situations there usually is something brighter you can focus on. Now it was totally uniform grayness/darkness for my eyes. D3x and E-P2 results are logical enough. I´m not saying my EV numbers are absolutely correct as such, this was my way to measure. I don´t know what kind of targets they use at Nikon or Olympus. But EV -1,5 for E-P3??? (NOTE: AF assist light was NOT on.) I checked many times and that´s the result I got every time relative to the others. The difference between E-P3 and others was... well huge, marked, notable, pleasant and annoying. With moving subjects the point is to look for a contrasty area as quickly as possible. Otherwise there might be nothing where AF can lock on.

And, yes, there is now an AF assist light for low light situations if you really want to get noticed by your subjects...

E-P3´s face recognition has new features. You can choose if it uses left or right eye to focus on, or you can set it to focus on the nearest eye. Portrait and glamour shooters are going to like this one!

You can also focus by touching anywhere on rear OLED screen. E-P3 focuses and takes a picture. It was kind of cool among people with 12mm wide angle. Nobody realised if I was just flipping through my images or what. Works great with IBIS. This feature can be set on and off by user directly on screen.

One thing I´m missing is focus confirmation for manual lenses. Ages ago we had a focus column in Leaf software for their three shot backs. You turned the focusing ring and watched column go up, up and then started to drop. The you turned just a bit backwards until maximum and bingo. Something alike shouldn´t be too hard to implement.

And then there is zone focusing with 12mm/2.0 lens... But that´s again another story.

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Olympus E-P3: AF speed and responsiveness

Olympus E-P3 was introduced on 30th of June. As name says it is the third version in E-P series which I use. I am interested because Olympus promises now to correct the slow AF which hampered previous models. All in all the responsivity of this camera should be at a totally new level.

I created a simple test arrangement to get a real world understanding on E-P3´s AF speed. A sat at a table with my elbows leaning on table. On the others side of table I had a newspaper (at 1m distance) and directly behind there´s a plant across the room at 5m distance. I set both E-P3 and E-P2 to do single-AF at a press of shutter button AND shutter is activated only after focusing is done. Other settings: Program AE, ISO 400, single shot mode, medium JPG, only center focusing spot active. 

Now I aimed focusing spot at newspaper and pressed shutter button until camera focuses and shutter goes, aimed focusing spot at plant and pressed shutter button until camera focuses and shutter goes, aimed focusing spot towards newspaper and pressed… I went on doing this until I counted 75 shots. The number 75 is not important. The point was to make enough shots so that slight differences between each single shots become averaged when shooting with both cameras. I repeated the same drill for four lenses:

  1)  The new Olympus m4/3 kit zoom lens 14-42mm 1:3.5-5.6 II R. Tested at 42mm focal length.

  2)  Olympus m4/3 zoom lens 40-150mm 1:4-5.6. Tested at 50mm focal length.

  3)  Olympus 4/3 zoom lens 12-60mm 1:2.8-4 with Novoflex m4/3 adapter. Tested at 50mm focal length.

  4)  Panasonic Lumix G 20mm 1:1.7

Then I looked into EXIF data of first and last shot of each series to see the time difference between them. I divided this time by number of shots to get the average time for aiming camera and focusing and exposing each shot.

These are my results:

        E-P3     E-P2        E-P3 is faster by

1)    0,82s    1,41s            42%

2)    0,89s    1,46s            39%

3)    1,96s    2,26s            13%

4)    0,87s    1,54s            44%

I have no way to know how long it took to aim the camera between each shot but it was not much. Just turned the camera a few degrees up or down. Olympus gives a shutter response time of ONLY 60ms for E-P3. My conclusion is that E-P3 is in practise twice as responsive camera as E-P2. With older 4/3 system DSLR lenses the lens is the restricting factor. I would guess that these lenses would benefit of a new firmware for m4/3 bodies.  

So how responsive E-P3 is then? Olympus claims it to be the fastest focusing camera of all system cameras. Lets see!

I repeated the same test with Nikon D3x and three Nikon lenses:

  5)   AF-S Micro Nikkor 105mm 1:2.8 G

  6)   AF Nikkor 85mm 1:1.4 D

  7)   AF-S Nikkor 14-24mm 1:2.8 G. Tested at 24mm focal length.

Results:

D3x

5) 0,97s

6) 1,15s

7) 0,70s

Results for differences between these three lenses are logical and should be familiar to everyone who has used them. Wide angle zoom 14-24mm is fast because there the distance to move focusing element is so short. Other than that look at E-P3! E-P3 is faster (with three consumer grade lenses) than Nikon. It´s responsiveness is up (or should I say down) there with a super fast professional DSLR with 10 fold price tag! 

UPDATE: 

Same test with the new Olympus M. Zuiko 12mm 1:2.0 lens. This lens is Olympus´ first lens that which they consider as belonging to the top level in their three level lens grading.

Test result with E-P3 0,74s.  E-P2 was not tested because speed difference is already known.

Already while testing the new kit zoom lens I was somewhat distracted by Live View refresh rate. Live View goes off and back on with each image, as sensor is reseted before and after exposure. (I did not have record view on, just viewfinder image). With this 12mm lens, it is quite obvious that now the restricting factor is not focusing but other functions of camera. Mere focusing back and forth is a lot faster, also faster than Nikon 14-24mm. With this lens focusing is done immediately as you press the button. How ever, this result tells how fast you can take two consecutive images with varying focusing distances. Focusing is very fast but the responsivity of a Live View camera like E-P3 is not yet quite there with a professional reflex camera like D3x.

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Olympus E-P2 plus VF-2

Here they are, the Olympus Twins. Without lenses and detachable viewfinders (and the shiny new black finish, of course) the new E-P2 would be hard to tell apart from it´s brother, the E-P1.

EP-2 has some refinements over EP-1 but the biggest new thing is it´s electronic viewfinder VF-2. E-P2 has a slightly higher hot shoe and a new accessory connector behind it. VF-2 is simply slid into hot shoe and new connector. Push the VF selector switch under the eyepiece and you have a whole new way to look at the world with a PEN. 

I had a pre production EP-2 (firmware 0.9) for a few days and was able to try it and VF-2 in practise. My E-P1 has seen quite a lot of use since late June. Sadly the new EVF is not compatible with E-P1. As a body E-P2 is operated exactly in same fashion as it´s predecessor. So, It felt like a brother should and took just  a couple of minutes to configure menus and map buttons to suit my way of shooting. The only change I made later was to map Fn button for depth-of-field check. This feature is just one of the benefits of EVF over E-P1´s plain brightline optical VF.

Viewfinder VF-2

People at Olympus did not confirm this but obviously VF-2 has Epson´s new TFT panel. Anyway, it has 1.44 megapixels, it´s big and it´s bright. I compared VF-2 to Canon´s EOS 5D MkII and Nikon D3x. Not fair of course, but this new EVF really has a big image. With my glasses I can see the whole image and it´s, well, big. In bright daylight it is no match to these full format 35mm viewfinders. They are smooth, continuous tone, true color; VF-2 on the other hand is still artificial, has paler colors and shows it´s pixel nature in comparison. But when you come to a dimly lit or even an average room the relation changes. VF-2 is brighter and nicer. And when you go somewhere really dark you can´t actually see anything through these fancy optical viewfinders - and 5D MkII stops focusing at all. VF-2 on the other hand turns quite grainy but I can still compose, and the E-P2 focuses at a press of a button just fine.

I had used Lumix 20mm/1.7 lens plus optical VF-1 combination for so long that it was kind of a shock to shoot the first shot through VF-2. It went black for a second... Well, that´s because of a mechanical shutter. When you shoot in continuos mode there is no blackout between shots. After half a day I actually kind of forgot about EVF, it was so nice to work with because you can evaluate very quickly exposure and DOF when you get used to it. It´s a keeper for me.

But isn´t it kind of a funny looking gadget on EP-2! If E-P1 with VF-1 has actually a stylish retro look, then this is what - huh, commie retro style? I can´t help comparing it to a DDR-era Pentacon Six and it´s Soviet Kiev 6 or 60 descendants or what about a brand new (still being made in Ukraine) Arax/Kiev 88 with TTL prism! Oh brothers, Olympus!

The considerable height of VF-2 comes from several issues: add-on construction, articulated construction where eyepiece can be tilted up stepless up to 90 degrees, big screen, high quality no-distortion eyepiece with diopter correction, and finally the hot shoe of E-P2 is higher because of the needed extra connector. Actually the height from base plate to eyepiece is practically the same as with EOS 5D MkII. In practise I did not feel that VF-2 compromised E-P2´s compactness in any way. Which was emphasised by the fact that I had to keep the camera´s identity and design un-noticed all the time. Olympus did here the right thing and did not make a small but crappy EVF like Panasonic for GF-1. What I was missing was some kind of locking for VF-2 to secure it better, now it is possible knock it off the hot shoe.

VF-2 shows of course all the same information as camera´s back LCD. With E-P2 there´s a lot to choose with new finer grids, level indicators, live histograms, exposure information etc - or just a clean, unobstructed view. VF-2 can be also used for  play back and you can switch between VF-2 and LCD at any time. VF-2 is simply the best electronic viewfinder for still cameras I have ever seen. 

 

Other new features

The new connector behind hot shoe can also be used for other accessories, like stereo microphone adapter (EMA-1) and stereo microphone (ME-51S). This adapter slids also into hot shoe - but only one accessory fits in at a time, same goeswith external flash. This has not bothered me so far but I can understand those who disagree.

AF-follow lock is better than with E-P1 according to specs but I did not notice any great difference. At least it´s still not in the league of EOS 5D MkII which is kind of low level for usability for me. 

HD-video is still 720p but now also manual controls work. There are two new art filters: Diorama and Cross Process. Diorama makes people and buildings toylike by blurring up and down and Cross Process gives you fancy color effects. I´m not thrilled, although I actually have used E-P1´s ART 6 for a jerky video project. Last and least there is some more image automatics (i-Enhance) and play back control option via HDMI.

One accessory I would really like to see is an extension cord between body and VF-2. It would give many new possibilities for remote control.

All in all, for me E-P2 is the very same camera as E-P1, just a connector for VF-2. Otherwise same hardware with mentioned accessory and software updates. I´m lucky Olympus brought E-P1 like it did because I have had fun and shot so much with it. Too  bad Epson product development was half a year late for E-P1. Speaking of product development, I feel that Olympus and Panasonic are fighting too much against each other and not together for micro 4/3 system. One more stupid decision is that EVF connectors for Olympus and Panasonic are different!

Availability and price

E-P2 is still being readied for full scale production. Although this pre production sample felt already well finished and I didn´t find any problems with EVF operation, which is the new part of package. EP-2 with VF-2 will be available during January 2010. Olympus is still struggling with E-P1 back orders which they can´t make fast enough. Lets see how they manage then with E-P2. Price for body with  VF-2 is given at 899 euros, which is not bad and in reality shops will sell under that anyway. 

New Lenses 2010

I wished Olympus would introduce fast wide angle and tele primes. In reality those are marginal wishes and Olympus is introducing two consumer series zoom lenses. They are 9-18mm/4.0-5.6 and 14-150mm/4.0-5.6, really compact zooms with ED glass, and available during the first part of 2010. With EP-2´s good stabilizer they are more usable than numbers say, but still...

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Image quality that can be brought out when working with E-P2 (or similarly E-P1) RAW files is outright outstanding when compared to it´s 12MP image size, small physical size and carry around ability. Even so when conditions are far from optimal. The image above is shot hand held with Lumix 20mm/1,7 lens @ 1/40s, f/2.0 and ISO 1000. Doesn´t that tell how dim it was! Images on this page are tweaked my style and don´t represent camera´s quality as such. I´m a photographer not a copy machine... ;-)  This crop is 100%. I did not produce any comparison pair but feel free to compare with your rainy night ISO 1000, f2.0 shots.