EOSHD Panasonic G6 test (plus GH3 comparison shots) from Andrew Reid on Vimeo.
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The Panasonic G6 got tested by Andrew at EosHD (Click here):
“Although it doesn’t match the stills and raw video quality coming from the Canon 5D Mark III (nor is it full frame) for $650 you can’t expect it too – yet the G6 gives generously and it has put a smile on my face. The GH2 is back! And for $650 it is better than ever.”
Photographyblog (Click here) tested the Olympus 17mm f/1.8 lens and writes:
“Overall, the Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 17mm f/1.8 is a huge step up from the pancake-style M.Zuiko Digital 17mm f/2.8, being sharper, faster and quicker to focus, while offering better build quality and more features in a slightly bigger and heavier – but still tiny and lightweight – package. This does come at a hefty price premium though, with the new lens being about 70-90% dearer.”
23 Responses
Its like saying that its a better smelling turd. Better doesnt mean its a good lens
They had the nerve to exclude the Closest competitor to the 17mm in the “Main Rivals”, The Panasonic 20mm!
They also do shoddy copy/paste jobs… Photographyblog has become a joke, seriously.
The 20 is no competitor. Had not used mine for a long time, put it delibertly on for one week now, so frustrated with the slow AF – wish it would at least be as fast as the 14.
It all depends on what you will personally accept, personally I’m very happy with the 20; smaller, sharper and half the price of the 17 1.8… and yes, I have a 2 young daughters and I still manage to get sharp photos of them with the 20.
Sure and people have been shooting pics of children with manual focus, manual exposure cameras as well… which doesn’t mean its still a competitive tool for such uses.
There is always something bigger/faster/better in photography (as with everything), I personally decided that lightning fast AF was not a big deal for me (I have the 45mm and kit lenses so I know how fast they are).
To me, the extra £180 being asked for the 17mm was way too much… all I’m saying is don’t automatically discount the previous generation just because it’s not “the best”.
What is and isn’t acceptable performance is a personal call of judgement.
I’ve owned this lens for quite some time, but sold it because its af annoys me. 2 years ago it didn’t but my standards have changed due to newer cameras and lenses, dealing more often with moving subjects and finding that the e-pl5 and especially e-m5 with either the 14/2.5, 12-35, 12-50, 25/1.4, 45/1.8 and 75/1.8 stand a fair chance, whereas the 17/2.8, 20/1.7 and the first m.zuiko 14-42 require a lot more efford yet give far fewer keepers.
Is there exaggeration of the issue? Most definitely, but it is pretty easy to measure the difference, and such measurements clearly show it exists.
Im gonna call you on this…I finally tried one and maybe its the newer bodies but the af is very fast. Not just acceptable, but fast. And it wasnt outside it was in the middle of a dinky iso 3200 lit store. I burst out laughing at the over exaggerated way of people putting it here. I was expecting hunting and over 1 second of waiting but no, it only did something resembling that when I pointed to something all white or black. Well maybe on the ep1 its really slow but what wasnt slow on the ep1?
Thanks!
I remember the 20mm on my G1 was slow, yeT perfectly usable most of the time.
then when I moved to GH2, AF speed was no issue anymore. The reputation remained.
It depends totally on what kind of subjects, if they move, how fast etc.
For static subjects that have some contrast to focus on there is no isdue, even when dealing with very low light levels.
Iso3200 at f/22 and 1/4000?
And eh.. did your subjects move?
Oh… and did you compare how other lenses performed in the same conditions?
Belive it or not, it’s an excellent lens. It’s enlightning to read that many “non-fanboy” people who own the Panasonic 20mm and the Olympus 17mm end by selling the 20mm and keeping the 17mm.
Yes, the 20mm is sharper, nobody denies it. But sharpness is not the only parameter, and the 17mm is plenty sharp.
Both are great lenses. Astounding sharpness and good price are the 20mm advantages, but great sharpness and super fast AF are the 17mm advantages.
But saying that the 17mm is not a good lens is pure fanboy talk.
If the 17mm wasn’t so overpriced, I think there would be fewer complaints.
The 20mm is excellent. Sure it hunts for focus in low light, but what AF lens doesn’t struggle a bit in that sort of situation.
I am not sure about the 17mm being overpriced.
It is well known that the 1.7/20 holds up against it in terms of sharpness, speed as well as being smaller and a notch cheaper. Based on that, it may seems like an obvious choice if you can look pass the AF speed issue (which I do believe is overrated as an issue) but its not always that obvious.
To me it all boils down to overall IQ, not just sharpness. I think if you like what you get, at the end of the year that extra $200 doesn’t weigh much in the balance.
Does the G6 do the multi-aspect ratio like the GH2?
It has a multi aspect ratio, but it’s not oversized, like the GH2, so you loose a little real-estate. That sort of pissed me off for awhile, but I got over it with the G5 and now it’s a distant memory with my G6, which really is a nice camera and I agree with most everything that Andrew said. After owning the GH1, GH2, and G5, it’s the best so far, for stills and video. The GH3 was just a tad too big for my liking, so I can’t compare that to the G6, never having used it.
Intuitively I’m not convinced by multi-aspect ratio sensors. Surely if m43 lenses are desigend for m43 sensors, then larger sensors (even ones that are a little bit larger) would end up placing pixels behind the poorer-performing edges of the lenses. Parts that weren’t really designed to be used in the first place.
Maybe the G6 has it right and the GH2 not so?
Just a thought (and I could well be wrong)
No, no multi-aspect ratio in G6 or GH3.
The G6 uses a derivative of the original 18MP multi-aspect ratio sensor in the GH2, but like every other camera, it simply crops the 4:3 image to whatever aspect ratio was chosen.
The beauty of the GH2 is because of the over-sized sensor, 2:3, 16:9 and 1:1 shots have a higher pixel count than the typical cropped 4:3 shot. It’s a fantastic feature! Too bad it has disappeared.
For instance, shooting at 16:9 the GH2 gives me a shot that’s just shy of 5000 pixels across. I use the 7-14mm in 16:9 pretty often… now that’s super-wide!
I think he meant GH2’s MAR sensor, which is not enabled in G6 I think even though it is derived from the same sensor
The G6’s sensor is 16 MP, while the GH2 has an 18MP sensor.
The G6 has focus-peaking and the GH3 doesn’t…WTF?
The GH3 has Constant Preview in M mode, while the G6 doesn’t. WTF? 😉