Panasonic 14-45mm Micro Four Thirds Lens

I received the Panasonic 14-45mm m4/3's lens for Christmas. It's a great lens to buy since it's silly cheap (less than $300) and has since been discontinued by Panny in favor of a 14-42mm lens that blows chunks in comparison.

I'm already a huge fan. It's very small and, as far as kit zooms go, the best I have ever used. Autofocus is fast and accurate, contrast and color are excellent, even the build quality is a cut above the rest.

Sharpness is shockingly even across the frame, and oddly, is at it's best in the center at 14mm, and at the corners at 45mm. My only wish would have been more speed. Again, as far as kit zooms go, F3.5 is about as fast as you're going to get, so it's hard to knock the lens too much. The only kit-ish lens that I can think of (it's frequently packed in with the EOS 7D) that is definitely better is the Canon EF-S 15-85mm... which costs well over twice as much. AND is still a max-ap of 3.5.

If you're in with the m4/3's format, trust me, pick this lens up. It's better than Olympus' current offerings, is cheap as all get-out, and won't be widely available for much longer.

This is a sample photo taken at 45mm. The lettuce is super-sharp, and even the bokeh is quite good.

UPDATE: Importantly, this lens is very sharp wide open, but it sharpens up appreciably put down a stop or two. It is sharpest in the middle of the range. It's amazingly sharp at 30-40mm.

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A Trio of Wood Wallpapers

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Wood Wallpaper 2

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Wood Wallpaper 3

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Electronic Viewfinders Are Great!

I just had something of a revelation. Perhaps it's because I've become used to using my cameras with glasses on, but I never noticed how great electronic viewfinders are. The vast majority of people with sight problems are near-sighted, meaning they can see stuff that's up in their grill piece, but out on the horizon is a giant blur. Since optical viewfinders are precisely that, optical, the light going in is of the same distribution as that coming out of the viewfinder. So if the object is far away, you either use the diopter in the viewfinder or deal with using glasses.

Electornic VF's remove that need entirely. You can use glasses, not use glasses, it doesn't matter. The image is taken in by the camera and then reproduced less than an inch from your eye. The EVF's diopter is only necessary for those who are far-sighted. I love my EVF!

DPReview Reviews the Nikon D7000

DPReview, the absolute bestest digital camera website on the interpipes, has reviewed the Nikon D7000 and given us a complete understanding, only hinted at with other reviews, of the camera's advantages over others.

We had some early tests showing it do very well in comparison to Canon, we had the DxOMark review that had it completely trouncing the Canon, and finally this. A full, blow-by-blow analysis. It's as we should have expected. The Nikon does outperform the Canon in almost every way, but where it does this is fantastic. The Nikon has a dynamic range of 9.2 EV, with all of the extra range going into the shadows.

You might prefer extra range in the highlights, since it's easier and cleaner to bring out blown highlights than it is to try and illuminate shadows. I go the other way. Shadows define the drama of a shot for me. I want a super-smooth transition to black and pure black when I get there. I don't want to have to punch up the blacks and contrast in post to fix that problem. I expose for the highlights and then work with the curve in post.

That extra shadow range results in noise-free shadows. On page 17, the reviewers compare a dark shot from the Nikon to one from the Canon and apply a +3.0 exposure to clearly reveal shadow noise. The Nikon? Almost none. Brilliant.

That being said, Canon's image pipeline is still better at extracting detail. But while this criticism might have been of importance in earlier models, I think that in these days of 18Mp cameras, the better detail is almost inconsequential. Moreover, to see the differences in detail will require lenses that almost no one will buy. I'd imagine that most people in this segment of the market will buy the camera and either use the kit lens (which undoubtedly sucks) or buy a $500-$800 zoom lens which won't come close to exceeding the sensor's ability.

It's taking awhile, but the megapixel wars seem to be waning. Color reproduction and noise levels are much more important, and it's here that the Nikon handily beats the Canon. Bravo Nikon.

Nikon D7000 Review (DPReview)

Camera Labs Posts 60D/D7000 comparison.

Camera Labs has posted a rather definitive post about the EOS 60D and the Nikon D7000. The Nikon beat out the Canon by 14 points in DxOMark sensor ratings, and the Pentax K-5 hammered it be 16 points. The studio scene at DPReview hinted that the Nikon and Pentax were better, but Camera Labs really drives home how extensively the Nikon beats the Canon. Differences below ISO 3200 are small but visible, but above that, the Nikon is over a stop better. It's very impressive. This, combined with Nikon developing lenses much faster than Canon, makes me feel that if you haven't bought into a system yet, go for Nikon.

Nikon D7000 High ISO JPEG Noise preview

Luminous Landscape Get's Me Feeling All Self-Righteous

Luminous Landscape, one of the web's premier sources of camera geekery, has posted an "open letter" to camera manufacturers about lenses and sensor designs. I'm pissed and this helps to explain a few issues that I've had with cameras in low-light situations that I've simply explained as sensor noise.

Basically, large aperture lenses are great because they let in more light, but also let in more light from oblique angles. The light coming at the sensor from these more extreme angles is one of the reasons that large apertures gives you that shallow depth of field for buttery portraits.

This worked perfectly for film since the light-sensing aspect of film were tiny crystals in a substrate on the surface of the film, thus they were sensitive to light coming in from many angles. Digital cameras, on the other hand, are a sensor which points straight ahead. If the light is not coming from directly above, the sensor doesn't seem the image. This is the reason why the 4/3's format from Olympus and Co. was called the first fully digital camera system, because it took into account all of the unique aspects of digital photography.

All of the camera companies are trying to come up with ways to make their sensors better, including greater sensitivity, small lenses above each sensor site, etc. If this article from LL is to be believed, it's not enough and the camera companies have switched to cheating us.

Luminous Landscape, in association with DxOMark, have found that light loss at high apertures can get downright extreme. And to combat this, when using paired lenses, the camera will boost ISO WITHOUT YOU KNOWING. WTF?!

This is unacceptable. I buy pro-level tools to have manual control, not to give it up without my knowledge. The end results are all good, certainly, but I buy expensive stuff to get good photos in extreme light and movement conditions; the very places where these issues actually matter.

An Open Letter To The Major Camera Manufacturers

Tree and Sky Wallpaper

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