Micro four thirds and shallow DOF

[kundalini]

Maybe if you say pretty please?

Not even if.



Tangerines and pumpkins are both orange in color and available in the fall / winter seasons. I guess they must be the same thing, right?

And you can't squeeze blood out of a turnip either.

 

[tirediron]

Tangerines and pumpkins are both orange in color and available in the fall / winter seasons. I guess they must be the same thing, right?

Hmmm... "Tangerine-o-Lantern"... You know, I don't really see it catching on.

 

[kundalini]

Hmmm... "Tangerine-o-Lantern"... You know, I don't really see it catching on.

The Tangerine Pie at Thanksgiving wasn't so much of a hit, but on the other hand, my Pumpkin Tart seemed to please the crowd.




For Iron....

With the 45mm at f/1.8, ISO200, 1/50s in my local shop just testing out the lens.

at f/1.8, ISO200, 1/40s

 

[Iron Flatline]

Thanks... yeah shallow DOF at small distances is possible at most apertures. The question is really whether I can isolate a person from the background at 20 feet or more. It doesn't have to be total blur, just a clear difference. I guess I will go try.

 

[Derrel]

f/1.8 with a 45mm prime. Half-body human figure at less than 15 feet. Background still clearly visible, objects still clearly recognizable. Lots of strong green lo-CA around the edges of out of focus objects in the background. And yet, the depth of field calculator would show that the depth of field is less than a 13-inch deep zone,right? Satisfactory defocus or not? The f/1.8 aperture speed of that prime lens is a reasonably cutting-edge, wide aperture for the format in a native lens design. The zooms are much slower, will come nowhere close to allowing this much background defocus, especially on wider angles of view, since this 45mm functions as a medium telephoto length on m4/3. Maybe some of the expensive Leica M-glass would turn in a better performance WRT to the strong longitudinal CA the 45mm prime is showing.

To me, I look at the m4/3 sensor size and think "Kodak 110". The images are the same tiny size. (110 film - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

 

[usayit]

More examples for Iron:

Noctilux 50mm @ f/5.6 on an E-PL1

SMC Takumar 105mm @ f/2.8 on an E-PL1

PS> There are no high speed native zooms for the system so that should be a consideration. Primes such as Kundalini's 45mm are trickling into market. Adapting fast Leica glass longer than 35mm, its no problem... quite attractive actually.

 

[Iron Flatline]

Yeah, but I want AF for Karen. So the Leica glass makes me happy, but won't be of immediate use to her. She used to shoot, so she'll figure it out pretty quick.

 

[jake337]

Heres a 4/3 with legacy lens group on flickr. Once in the group I searched portraits and this is what it gave me.

Flickr: Search Micro Four Thirds cameras using alternative & legacy lenses

I think this photo shows what kind of subject to background distance needed for some nice backgrounds.

All sizes | One Light Portrait | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

 

[Iron Flatline]

Thank you, I appreciate the effort. Some of those are quite interesting, though Portraits is not central to my needs... Of course, I'm not the only one interested in this particular thread.

Heres a 4/3 with legacy lens group on flickr. Once in the group I searched portraits and this is what it gave me.

Flickr: Search Micro Four Thirds cameras using alternative & legacy lenses

I think this photo shows what kind of subject to background distance needed for some nice backgrounds.

All sizes | One Light Portrait | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

 

[usayit]

Yeah, but I want AF for Karen. So the Leica glass makes me happy, but won't be of immediate use to her. She used to shoot, so she'll figure it out pretty quick.

Here's a one page reference for all micro 43 lenses currently out there:

Four Thirds | Four Thirds | Micro Four Thirds | Chart(Lenses)

There's always the following that are known good ones:

Olympus 12mm f/2
Olympus 45mm f/1.8
Panasonic 20mm f/1.7
Panasonic/Leica 25mm f/1.4 Summilux
Panasonic/Leica 45mm f/2.8 Macro

The 20mm f/1.7 is a good "pancake" and a bargain "normal" lens price wise (under $400)... decent following. I just got one used so I don't have many samples to post. The newish Pan-Leica 25mm, Oly 45mm, and Oly 12mm are all fairly recently released with much better build and optics than what the system had available previously. I also have the 14mm f2.5 but I think it won't fit your needs... I like it because its so small.

For manual lenses, you will want something with an EVF viewfinder of some sort. Either the Panasonic G# with the built in or an Olympus with EVF attachment.

The TPF doesn't have many micro 43 users... really heavily slanted towards Canon and Nikon (more so towards Nikon these days). Theres probably less than 10 and I've only really seen a handful active. You can try this forum:

Mu-43.com - Micro Four Thirds News and Rumors

If you need more info, I have a couple reviews posted here on the G1 and E-PL1. Kundalini can share some thoughts from a PM I sent and recent experience since purchase a month or so ago. Its not a replacement for the DSLR but its sure a lot of fun because of the size. With these new m43 cameras, I almost see no need for a high end P&S anymore.

 

[ann]

Thanks for posting these, i will take a look as i love my pen and use it as a point and shoot.

 

[Iron Flatline]

Ordered the EP-3 with the 25mm Summilux, and EVF. Will let you know how it goes.

 

[usayit]

Ordered the EP-3 with the 25mm Summilux, and EVF. Will let you know how it goes.

OOoooo Nice!

Please do let us know...

 

[Overread15 3]

Iron - good to see you again on the site!

Also good luck with the new camera, it will be interesting to hear how it goes!

 

[djacobox372]

You need faster lenses to get a shallow dof with smaller sensor cameras. When 35mm film was introduced it also introduced f2 and f1 lenses along with it, so it wasnt an issue back then, but the sub 35mm offerings have failed to give us faster lenses which makes it impossible to acheive the same shallow dof shots you can acheive on a larger format camera.