I decided to send the Nokton back. It’s not a bad lens – I actually got some very nice shots with it some of which I will post soon. But I just couldn’t get friends with the focusing issue. I managed to get the rangefinder aligned to be spot on with the Nokton at f/1.4 and f/1.7, but everywhere else up until f/8 focus was off by a considerable margin. As I’m kind of a perfectionist (and have been fancying the Summicron 35, to be honest), I decided this is not the lens for me. I’m sure it’s great on film and probably works on digital for others, but not for me.
So bye bye Nokton, hello [insert new lens designation here].
Via heise Foto. Now this is good news, at least for (potential) users of Ricoh cameras. The company has just announced firmware updates comprising many improvements that were asked for by their customers. Among the new functions implemented are the following:
- A new noise reduction algorithm that analyses multiple areas in the picture and applies individual amounts of noise reduction for optimal performance.
- A shutter speed compensation function in shutter-priority mode that automatically raises or lowers the shutter speed in order to prevent over- or underexposed pictures.
Now these are pretty useful upgrades, I’d say. Hey, Canikopanalympus and all you others, take a look at Ricoh!
UPDATE: dpreview now also heard the news! See here.
This is Pinot, the dog of a co-worker of my wife who was visiting us for our birthday party last weekend. He’s usually not comfortable at new places, but at our place, he immediately occupied the huge beanbag and stayed there for the remainder of the evening.
 "Pinot" | Leica M8 + Nokton 35/1.4 @ f/1.4, 1/60 sec, ISO 1250 | b&w conversion in Lightroom 3 beta 2 I don’t seem to get nice colors from the M8 indoors at low light, which may at least in part be due to the lacking UV/IR filter. At the moment I’m converting most of my shots to b&w, as I can’t get the colors straight even with pp. Shots at good light or sunlight are no problem, though.
Recently, E-P1’s little family has been joined by a new member – the Panasonic Lumix G Vario 45-200/4-5.6 O.I.S tele-zoom lens, which is currently the only tele-zoom available for Micro Four Thirds. The lens is quite large and heavy (in MFT terms), but just a blast to use! The size of the barrel offers substantial grip, aiding at stabilizing the camera. The 90-400mm equivalent zoom range is just awesomely versatile, and above all, the lens is incredibly fast focusing.
Here’s a picture created with the Four Thirds Matching Simulation that shows how the lens looks on the E-P1:
As I have only had it for two days I didn’t do much shooting yet, but I will post some sample pictures soon.
The Phoblographer is giving the Leica M9 their field review treatment. After reading much about Canons and Nikons in the past, this is a refreshing and welcome change. So far, they have only begun with the review (which is usually continually updated over a period of several days), describing the look-and-feel of the camera. In the next days, they’ll be testing it together with a 35 Summarit lens.
You can follow their review at their website.
|
|
May 18th, 2010, 11:33 am | 
