43 Rumors

Olympus: please redesign this lens for m4/3.

@Spiny – If you’re going to make such sweeping and categorical statements, I’ll ask you to prove them. The fact is that I look at photos taken with the PEN 42/1.2 and compare them to photos taken with the Canon FL 55/1.2 on my GH1, and I see absolutely no difference. You’re trying to generalize based on some pseudo science, I’m looking at facts. Nothing I’ve seen in photographs justifies the premium which this lens demands on eBay. It’s expensive because there’s not a lot of them on the market, not because it’s a 5-times better lens.

All else being equal, of course! And of course, all else is rarely equal. Nevertheless, it is the case that an equivalent small-format lens generally out-resolves a comparable large-format lens in terms of *absolute* resolution — lp/mm on film or sensor (not lp/total image height).

It’s quite well-understood that it is exceedingly difficult to maintain absolute resolution as the diameter of the image circle is increased. Conversely, lenses with small image circles generally have higher absolute resolution. For example, lenses on old Minox cameras are among the sharpest consumer lenses ever produced (again, in terms of lp/mm on film).

Within a format, speed, and focal length, of course, there can be great variation dependent on design, construction tolerances, and — of course — sample variation.

Nowhere do I say that the old PEN lenses are worth the EBay prices. That would be silly.

Chris — then why the 1.2? What landscape shooter shots 1.2? I don’t do street photography, but my understanding is that you want a wide dof, and you go off certain focal principals that generally do not include 1.2 as an aperture, no?

Also, I always thought of landscape as using something a bit wider than an 84mm equivalence in terms of FOV.

A cheaper one is up on ebay

http://cgi.ebay.com.hk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230471047953&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT#ht_500wt_1182