All posts by David Braddon-Mitchell

David Braddon-Mitchell is a keen landscape and environmental portrait photographer. In the last decade of film he was a darkroom practitioner and worked with Olympus OM SLRs and various medium format cameras. He switched to Canon DSLRs when digital imaging improved, and made a move to Sony bodies as soon as the A7 series was born. He enjoys using a mixture of legacy manual lenses, modern manual lenses, and E mount AF lenses.

Introduction

The blogosphere melted down with frustration when the 135mm Batis was announced. Too slow and too expensive was the common verdict. But it’s also much lighter than the fastest medium teles, and faster and more convenient than the smallest. So is this lens the ideal compromise, or is it stranded uselessly between the fastest and the smallest? That will depend on performance, and handling. This review looks at just those issues.

Sample Images

Images can be seen and downloaded in full resolution here.

Introduction

A super fast fifty millimetre lens can be a lot of fun. But arguably it’s not the best all around type of lens to have; it’ll be bigger and heavier than a more modest speed fifty, and likely not as good stopped down. It’s more of an occasional use specialty lens. So it makes sense not to spend vast sums for a Leica Noctilux. No-one makes a modern f1.2; and if and when they do it will no doubt be extremely expensive and very big and heavy. That makes the better legacy 50mm f1.2 lenses well worth investigating.

This review is of one of the better contenders: The OM Zuiko 50mm f1.2. It has a reputation for being usably sharp in the middle wide open, and sharpening up to decent overall performance stopped down. Does it live up to this reputation? Read on!

Sample Images

High resolution versions of the samples can be found at http://www.davidbraddonmitchell.com/Varia/Zuiko1250/

Specifications

Continue reading Review: Olympus OM Zuiko 50mm f1.2 →

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All posts by David Braddon-Mitchell

Review: Zeiss Batis Apo Sonnar T* 135mm f2.8

Introduction

Sample Images

Review: Olympus OM Zuiko 50mm f1.2

Introduction

Sample Images

Specifications

Manual Lenses | Sony Alpha | New article every Tuesday