Sharpness of Lumix G 45-200mm and Lumix X 45-175mm

I have previously tested the sharpness of the Lumix G 45-200mm and Lumix X PZ 45-175mm lenses. My test images then were fairly low contrast, and not too challenging for the lenses. To put them to a more difficult test, I've tried to test them head to head with a backlit subject. This is taken at approximately infinity focus, which is perhaps not the most realistic usage of these lenses.

Lumix G 45-200mm (left) and Lumix X PZ 45-175mm (right)

@ 45mm

The first set of images are taken at 45mm with both lenses. I used the Panasonic GH2 at ISO 160, and a tripod. The shutter speeds were fast. This is what the whole frame looks like:

Lumix G 45-200mm @ 45mm f/4	Lumix X 45-175mm @ 45mm f/4

Here are 100% crops from the centre:

And from the left corner:

I've also made a similar comparison at maximum zoom extension. First, the full images:

@ 175mm and 200mm

Lumix G 45-200mm @ 200mm f/5.6	Lumix X 45-175mm @ 175mm f/5.6

Here are 100% crops from the centre:

And from the left corner:

Conclusion

While my first test indicated that the lenses were fairly similar in terms of sharpness, these tests, taken at more challenging lightning, show a consistently better performance from the newer Lumix X PX 45-175mm f/4-5.6. The newer lens shows less Chromatic Aberration (CA) artifacts, and a better sharpness in the corner, especially in the longest zoom reach.

Lumix Leica 25mm f/1.4 and clicking sounds

The Lumix Leica DG Summilux 25mm f/1.4 is a premium large aperture prime lens for the Micro Four Thirds system. It is designed to work as a "classic" bright normal lens for a 35mm SLR system, which was typically rated as 50mm f/1.4. With the 2x crop factor associated with the 4/3 format, the Leica 25mm f/1.4 lens becomes equivalent to a classic normal lens in terms of field of view.

Many users have complained about clicking sounds when using this lens. This has left them worried: When they buy a premium lens, they expect it to function smoothly.

First of all: Don't worry, the clicking sounds are completely normal.

Having said this, let's look at why you experience these clicking sounds.

What's causing the clicking sounds is the change of aperture. In normal operation, the camera leaves the aperture at its largest value when using the camera, and only stops it down just before taking a picture. The aperture is opened up again afterwards. Since the sound of the shutter is louder than the actual aperture change, you don't normally notice the sound of the aperture changing.

I have examined the loudness of the aperture change with a number of lenses here. Generally, most lenses have a similarly loud aperture change. The Lumix G HD 14-140mm superzoom is marketed as a video lens, and is supposed to have more silent aperture change than usual.

However, the Lumix Leica 25mm f/1.4 is the brightest Micro Four Thirds lens so far. When using the camera, it is seeing the outside world through the lens, and relaying the information to you through the LCD screen, or the viewfinder. Unlike your eye, which is very flexible in terms of the dynamic range it can see, the camera sensor can only see a more limited range of brightnesses. When using a bright lens like the Leica 25mm, in combination with a bright surrounding, the light is simply too much for the sensor to process. It needs to stop down the aperture to show you a sufficiently good viewfinder image. Stopping down the lens causes a clicking sound.

Further, the camera cannot accurately focus with the lens stopped down. When stopped down, the depth of focus (Dof) is wider, hence the lens appears to be in focus in a large focus distance range. And this can cause misfocus.

So before focusing, the camera must open up the aperture fully, and then close down again afterwards, if the surroundings are very bright. Both opening up the aperture and closing down cause the clicking sounds. Hence, every time you focus the lens in a bright light, you will experience the click before and after the camera has achieved focus.

If you operate the lens in a dim environment, you should not normally experience the clicking sounds upon focusing the lens.

This can happen with any Micro Four Thirds lens, even relatively slow zoom lenses, given that you point the lens towards a strong light source. But since the Leica 25mm f/1.4 is unusually bright, it happens more often with this lens.

So to conclude: The clicking sounds are a normal part of the lens operation.

Sharpness of Lumix G 45-200mm and Lumix X 45-175mm

Note: Since this test, I have done another one in a more challenging lightning.

The Lumix G 45-200mm tele zoom was one of the first Micro Four Thirds lenses launched. It is a value tele zoom, and as such, it does a good job. It does indeed provide good value for money. But it is often seen not too sharp, especially in the longer end of the zoom reach.

A newer version of the lens was launched in 2011, the Lumix G X PZ 45-175mm, with Power Zoom (PZ). It also sports a number of other innovations, for example non-extending zoom action, and nano surface coating. But does it improve on the original tele zoom lens in terms of sharpness?

Lumix G 45-200mm (left) and Lumix X PZ 45-175mm (right)

I have tried to answer this by photographing a simple test setup with the Panasonic GH2 camera on a tripod, using the Panasonic FL360 flash unit for illumination. The flash was angled up towards the white ceiling to spread the light better. The ISO was set to 160, and the shutter speed to 1/60s.

1st series of tests

Here are the two shots at 45mm, from each lens. These images were scaled down and resharpened:

Lumix G 45-200mm @ 45mm f/4	Lumix X 45-175mm @ 45mm f/4

The focus distance was about 1 meter. A distance of one meter at 45mm focal length corresponds to taking a headshot portrait picture. In both cases, I set the focus point on the centre beer bottle logo.

Let's look at enlargements for a better view (the older Lumix G 45-200mm in the top row, and the new Lumix X 45-175mm in the bottom row):

I also tested them in the same way at maximum magnification. In this case, the focus distance is about 2 meters. Here are downscaled versions of the whole images frames:

Lumix G 45-200mm @ 200mm f/5.6	Lumix X 45-175mm @ 175mm f/5.6

And here are 100% crops from the images taken at maximum zoom extension:

Using the flash for illumination has a great advantage: It freezes the image, and camera shake is no problem. On the other hand, the flash cannot quite illuminate the subject sufficiently at f/8, which makes those exposures a tad bit darker. If I had angled the flash towards the subject, rather than up into the ceiling, this would of course be no problem. But having the flash face the subject would create a reflection effect, which is not good for this comparison.

Conclusion

At 45mm, there is not a huge difference between the lenses. In this experiment, they are quite comparable, I would say. In the longest zoom reach, I would say the newer Lumix X 45-175mm lens has somewhat better clarity wide open at f/5.6.

Perhaps it is a bit unfair to compare the old lens at 200mm with the new lens at 175mm, but I believe this is how people would typically use them: When you need a long reach, you usually zoom to the very end.

2nd series of tests

Again, the focus distance is around 2 meters. This time, I use the ambient light, at ISO 160. The shutter speeds were around 1s. To avoid camera shake, I used 2s shutter delay. That way, any shake induced by pressing the shutter is allowed to calm down before the image is taken.

A centre focus point was used.

Lumix G 45-200mm @ 45mm f/4	Lumix X 45-175mm @ 45mm f/4

Here are 100% crops from the centre of the image:

And from the lower left corner:

Conclusion

The second test shows that both lenses are pretty much equally sharp in the centre at 45mm. It also confirms the conclusion from the first series of the test: The newer Lumix X lens is sharper in the corner part of the frame. It also appears to handle flare somewhat better. Perhaps the hyped "nano surface coat" is actually doing something for the image quality.

Macro spacer rings for Four Thirds

There are a lot of accessories you can buy for your camera. Since I have a Four Thirds standard lens, the Olympus Zuiko Digital 50mm f/2 1:2 macro lens, I decided to buy some Four Thirds macro rings to extend the macro range of the lens even further. To use the lens on a Micro Four Thirds camera in the first place, and adapter is needed. The Panasonic DMW-MA1 or Olympus MMF1/MMF2 adapters should do. The macro spacer rings then go between the adapter and the Four Thirds lens.

The rings

These rings cost US$10, including shipment from China, which is very cheap. Upon arrival, I noticed that the quality did appear rather poor, in line with the price. The box is rather anonymous, with a "OM4/3" text and something in Chinese:

In the picture below, they are all screwed together, to give the longest possible extension:

And below, I have unscrewed them into individual components:

From left to right: The ring that goes into the adapter, or into a Four Thirds standard camera, and the first extension ring (1, 7mm), the second extension ring (2, 14mm), the third extension ring (3, 27mm), and finally the ring on which the lens is mounted.

By using these rings in different permutations, extensions of 17mm (just the front and rear ring), 24mm, 31mm, 38mm, 44mm, 58mm and 65mm (all the rings) are possible. The 24mm extension, using only the first extension ring marked with a 1, corresponds pretty much to the Olympus EX-25 Four Thirds extension ring at 25mm.

Operation

When using these rings, please note that they have are no electrical contacts at all. This means that the lens is "dead" when mounting it onto the macro extension rings, and you cannot operate the focus or the aperture.

I'm guessing that it is best to first extend the focus of the lens all the way, and then mount it on the extension rings. To do this, you must do a small trick, namely to first manually focus the lens to the minimum focus distance while it is mounted to the camera, and then unmount it without turning off the camera first. That way, you can mount the lens on the extension rings while the focus is already at the closest. Most likely, you'll want to use a smaller aperture than f/2, and again you must do the same trick: Change the aperture and unmount the lens without turning off the camera first. Of course, this process is rather awkward if you are going to experiment with different apertures.

The results

So how do these extension rings affect the close focusing possibility of the ZD50 1:2 macro lens?

First, let's see how close it can focus without any extra extension. Here the lens is mounted to the 4/3 to M4/3 adapter, on the Panasonic GH2 camera:

And the resulting image, at f/8, ISO 160:

24mm extension, 1:1 macro

Using the 24mm extension, corresponding roughly to using the Olympus EX-25 macro extension, the setup looks like this, note that the figure is closer to the front lens element:

With this resulting image, also at f/8 and ISO 160. This corresponds to around 1:1 magnification:

65mm extension, 2:1 macro

Finally, adding all the macro rings for a total of 65mm extension yields this setup:

Note that the figure is now very close to the front lens element. It is not easy to light the figure properly in this position, since the lens casts shadow over the subject. The resulting photo looks like this, at around 2:1 magnification, also written as 2x:

Conclusion

These macro extension rings were cheap, and not very good quality. Further, since they have no electronic contacts, they are very awkward to use. You must stop down the aperture before mounting the lens on the extension rings, which makes focusing harder. Normally, you focus at maximum aperture, and then stop down for taking the picture, which is handled automatically by the camera. But with no communication between the camera and lens, this is no longer possible.

The Olympus EX-25 extension rings allow for changing the aperture, and is probably much easier to use. However, it is also much more expensive.

At full extension, the macro rings allow for roughly 2:1 macro magnification, meaning that you can photograph an object with a diameter of half the diameter of the imaging sensor.

If you want to increase the magnification of a Four Thirds lens, but don't want to shell out the cash for the EX-25 extension ring, I would recommend that you simply crop the center of your images, rather than buy these cheap rings. The rings are not very fun to use, due to the lack of electronic contacts, and the poor quality. Keep in mind that since these rings are for the Four Thirds format, they cannot be used for Micro Four Thirds lenses. They can only be used for Four Thirds lenses.

Olympus 45mm f/1.8 review

The Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 45mm f/1.8 is a much anticipated lens. When it arrived, it closed one of the major gaps in the Micro Four Thirds lens lineup: The portrait prime lens.

Appearance

The lens is fairly compact, with a 37mm front lens thread, and is significantly smaller than the other 45mm prime lens, the Panasonic-Leica 45mm f/2.8 1:1 macro lens. They are shown below:

Panasonic 45mm f/2.8 macro (left), Olympus 45mm f/1.8 (right)

GH2, ETC mode for macro video

The Panasonic GH2 has a very interesting feature, the ETC, Extra Tele Conversion mode. This is like a digital tele zoom. However, when used with videos, you still get the full resolution, with the centre of the sensor being used. This drawing illustrates the concept:

With this feature, you can record full HD videos with an effective 2.6x tele effect, with 2.6 being the fraction 2800/1080. Using the ETC mode, the Lumix G 100-300mm f/4-5.6 tele zoom lens gets an effective 1560mm maximum tele reach, in 35mm film camera equivalents.

However, this effect can also be used for even more enlargements when using a macro lens. Using the Panasonic Leica Lumix DG Macro-Elmarit 45mm f/2.8 1:1 macro lens gives you an maximum enlargement of 1:1. Using the ETC mode gives you a maximum of 2.6:1, which is very impressive. Keep in mind, though, that this only makes sense with videos, not with still images.

I have illustrated this effect with a macro video recording of my own eye. The following footage shows the same scene without and with ETC:



It was recorded using the "Manual Movie Mode", 1080p24, f/5.6, 1/25s. To get a sufficient exposure, I used ISO 1600.

As you can see, the depth of focus (DOF) is very thin, and it is difficult to keep my iris in focus. Setting a smaller aperture, e.g., f/8, would help here, but that would require an even higher ISO. And in my experience, there is significantly more noise with ETC mode compared with the ordinary video mode, especially at high ISO.

Focus speed, PL45 vs MZD45

There are two competing 45mm prime lenses in the Micro Four Thirds lineup. The Panasonic Leica 45mm f/2.8 macro lens and the newer Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 45mm f/1.8 portrait lens. While one is a macro lens, and the other could be categorized as a portrait prime lens, they can of course be used for a wide variety of other tasks.

I have previously compared the sharpness of the two lenses in various settings. While the comparisons are not always optimal, and could even be a tad bit misleading, I think it is clear that the Panasonic lens is a little bit better in terms of sharpness. This is not really surprising, since a large aperture lens contains more optical compromises, and usually cannot have the very best sharpness. As a general rule, one does not buy a large aperture lens for the optimal sharpness, but for using it wide open or near wide open, in which case sharpness is usually not the main concern.

People generally say that the Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 45mm f/1.8 features faster focusing. But is it true? The Olympus lens is rated as Movie-Still-Compatible (MSC), which means that the focus speed should be quite good.

I have compared them head-to-head in the same setup. The Panasonic GH2 camera was set up about 60cm from the subject, and I selected centre spot focus. The Olympus lens has a close focus distance of 50cm, and the Panasonic lens has a selectable focus limiter, which cuts off at around 50cm for better focus speed.

When powering on the camera, the lens is focused around infinity. Upon pressing the shutter release button, the camera focuses, and then takes the picture. I measure the time from the camera notes that the shutter release button is pressed, until the camera is ready to expose the image. The first event can be noted by the number of remaining frames being shown in the lower right part of the LCD display, and the latter by the green dot appearing in the upper right corner of the display.

Light background, daylight

Here is the comparison in daylight, the lightning was about EV7.



The focus speeds are rather similar:

PL45, focus delimiter off: 0.32s

PL45, focus delimiter on: 0.32s

MZD45: 0.26s

Dark background, dark room

And another test at EV2, which is very dark:



In this test, the Panasonic-Leica lens focuses faster:

PL45, focus delimiter off: 0.68s

PL45, focus delimiter on: 0.66s

MZD45: 1.12s and 1.08s (two tests)

Conclusion

	light	dark
PL45, limiter off	0.32s	0.68s
PL45, limiter on	0.32s	0.66s
MZD45	0.26s	1.08s, 1.12s

As people have been saying, the Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 45mm f/1.8 lens is indeed faster in terms of autofocus. But only by a small margin. And in dark conditions, to my surprise I found that the Panasonic-Leica 45mm f/2.8 lens focused faster.

This is just some few simple measurement, and in practical use, the experience might be different. During the time I have used both, I have generally found that the autofocus speed is comparable between them for practical, daily use.

Generally, the speed readings here are quite good. I have previously seen that the Panasonic kit zoom lenses achieve focus speeds of around 0.17s to 0.33s under similar conditions. But keep in mind that a much higher degree of focus accuracy is needed for a large aperture lens at f/1.8 than the kit zoom lens at 42mm f/5.6. With this in mind, a speed reading of 0.26s is in fact a very good achievement.

For video use on the Panasonic GH2, it is my opinion so far that the Olympus 45mm f/1.8 is better at keeping the autofocus correct during video capture. With the Panasonic 45mm f/2.8 lens, it generally takes more time before the focus is reached when there is movement in the image frame. But this is just my feeling so far, I haven't examined it in a scientific way.

The Olympus lens also appears to have a more silent autofocus operation.

Olympus vs Panasonic @ 45mm

The long awaited portrait prime lens for Micro Four Thirds is finally here. Olympus has launched their M.Zuiko Digital 45mm f/1.8 lens. It is compact, fairly light, relatively cheap, and focuses quickly and noiselessly.

Before this lens was available, the closest we had to a portrait lens for the Micro Four Thirds format was the Panasonic Leica 45mm f/2.8 macro lens. While this lens is a good macro lens, it has not been very well received as a portrait lens because of the not so impressive f/2.8 maximum aperture.

Panasonic 45mm f/2.8 macro (left), Olympus 45mm f/1.8 (right)

How do these lenses compare when it comes to sharpness? I have made some tests to find out. The images were shot using the Panasonic GH2 camera, at base ISO 160, on a sturdy tripod, and with OIS turned off for the Panasonic lens. The Olympus lens does not feature any OIS.


Infinity focus

These images were taken at a focus distance of around infinity. The sun is in the upper left corner of the image frame, which makes for a challenging situation for any lens. A strong light source in the image frame can easily lead to flare, loss of contrast and chromatic aberration (CA) artifacts.

PL45 @ f/2.8	Olympus 45 @ f/1.8

Let's take a closer look at some 100% crops from various parts of the image frame. Here's from the centre:

And from the upper left corner, where the contrast is the largest:

And finally from the top right corner:

10m focus

These next set of images were taken at a focus distance of about 10m. These images were rescaled and sharpened. You can click on the images to see them in a larger size.

PL45 @ f/2.8	Olympus 45 @ f/1.8

For better evaluation of the sharpness, I have made crops from the centre of the image. These crops are taken at 100% magnification, meaning that one pixel in the image corresponds to one pixel from the camera. Click for an enlargement:

And here are similar crops from the extreme top right corner:

0.7m focus

And to complete the review, I have also compared the sharpness at a closer focus distance. In this case, the focus is placed on the centre of the ball, which is at approximately 0.7m distance (about two feet). A portrait distance is typically at 1m or more.

PL45 @ f/2.8	Olympus 45 @ f/1.8

And the crops from the centre:

To evaluate the sharpness based on these is probably not so easy. But the image series can be used to look at the out of focus rendering (bokeh):

Just to satisfy my curiosity, I also took these images at f/16. Due to diffraction, you would normally not use such a small aperture, since it will lead to some dullness at pixel level. But if you need a deep depth of focus, and are planning to publish the image on the web, I would say that it could be a reasonable balance between DOF and image quality to use f/16.

Night scene

Here is a night scene. The focus is set on the middle of the branch:

PL45 @ f/2.8	Olympus 45 @ f/1.8

Some closeups of the out of focus rendering of highlight on the top, right corner:

And from the left side:

Conclusion

So, which lens is best in terms of sharpness? I think that the Panasonic lens generally does better. The Panasonic lens appears to render a bit better at f/2.8, in my opinion. At larger apertures, there is no comparison, of course, since the Panasonic lens cannot be opened further.

The Olympus lens does exhibit quite a bit of dullness at f/1.8 and f/2. On the other hand, it could be that the DOF is too thin for this comparison, even at a focus distance of 10m. So the subject for this comparison was perhaps not entirely perfect.

At the largest apertures, the Olympus lens does show some chromatic aberration (CA) artifacts, both in the centre and in the corner. You can see that near objects have a purple outline, while far objects have a green outline. This is quite common, and can be seen also for the older Olympus Zuiko Digital 50mm f/2 macro lens. When stopped down to f/2.8, CA artifacts are no longer a problem.

The Panasonic lens does not exhibit any significant CA artifacts. Perhaps this is because the CA artifacts are removed in software post processing? I have tried to examine this by looking at uncorrected RAW images and JPEG images, and concluded that there are probably no software correction with the PL45.

I think it looks like flare affects the Panasonic lens the most. This is not surprising, since flare is generally a larger problem the more lens surfaces the light passes through. And the Panasonic lens has the most complicated optical design, with 14 lens elements in ten groups, while the Olympus lens has nine lens elements in eight groups.

The Olympus lens does not exhibit much vignetting. The Panasonic lens, on the other hand, has a bit of vignetting wide open, which goes away at f/4. Again, this could be due to software correction to the Olympus lens, I don't know.

The bokeh appears to be effective smoothing the background, but my daylight example image was not very challenging for the lenses. With higher contrast, at night, the out of focus rendering is not perfect for either lens. The discs are non round off-center for the Panasonic lens: They are elliptical when the lens is wide open. The Olympus lens gives pretty round discs wide open, but they have a tad bit more tacky edges when stopped down, due to the aperture blades not being as rounded.

The Olympus lens is cheaper and faster than the Panasonic lens. But the larger aperture comes at the expense of worse image quality wide open. At f/2.8, they are pretty comparable, but the Panasonic lens perhaps has the upper hand by a small margin. Despite these findings, the Olympus lens does appear to give a good value for money. For users looking for a portrait lens, or a moderately long and fast prime, this is the only choice at the moment.

I have also compared the PL45 with the Nikon Z 105mm f/2.8 for the Nikon Z system. It very apparent in this review that the Nikon lens is way better.