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[OM] 28/2 - first impressions

Subject: [OM] 28/2 - first impressions
From: "Olaf Greve" <ogreve@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2000 02:28:05 PDT
Hi guys,

Well, over the Easter weekend I had some time to play with some of the new toys.

This time, I made a point of thoroughly testing the 28/2 to see if image degradation (because of the front element damage) is visible. So, I "tested" it in various (difficult) situations.

First off, I took the great majority of the shots for TOPE 2 (night pictures, remember?) with the 28/2.

The very first impression I got, is that the lens handles very nicely, and I *really* love the 28mm focal length. The 28/2 is the wide angle I had been waiting for, as it very much reminds me of the times I more or less used the 28/3.5 as a standard lens, but this one can easily be used in low-light conditions too!

I don't know exactly why, but somehow I've never managed to get the same nice feel for the 24/2.8. Personally I think the 4mm distance between the 24mm and the 28mm are expressed in more ways than just the obviously slightly wider angle of view. They are just different lenses altogether, with the 28mm being more of a normal wide angle, and the 24mm being an ultra wide. Perspective distortion somehow tends to get grotesque much more easily with the 24mm than with the 28mm, causing me to ditch lots of pictures taken with the 24mm.

Anyway, back to the 28/2 experiences: well, with night pictures being the theme, I picked an event (I won't disclose what it is just yet, to not take the fun away before TOPE 2 actually goes live) which poses several photographic challenges. The 28/2 was just about the right choice of focal length, I think, and I shot some 30 pictures with it at various aperture settings (f16, f8, f5.6, f4, f2), some of the f2 shots were even handheld (!), I hope they come out nicely!

The things I saw through the viewfinder looked promising, and I hope the lens doesn't flare too much (lots of point light sources, of all sorts of different colours, and quite a lot of them were moving too). Just to be on the safe side, I also took some shots with "my big friend", the 100/2 - another brilliant lens. I even used the 24mm, but only for some 4 or 5 shots, then I quickly put it back and put the 28mm on the camera again.

So, one of the tests then basically consists of seeing how well it renders the point light sources. After that, I tried something else: C.H. Ling had sent me a picture (off list) in which some terrible distortion is visible (wave form and/or barrel distortion), so I decided to see if I could find a comparable composition to see what the distortion would be like with my 28/2. Basically I shot a picture of a set-up with lots of straight(!) horizontal and vertical lines. First I took a shot with the 100/2 (wide open, I think), and then I moved in close enough with the 28/2 to get more or less the same composition (also wide open), making sure that at least one horizontal line went straight through the centre of the viewfinder.

The last tests I took with the lens were yesterday, it was an overcast day and we went to a park. I decided to take some "bokeh-testers" consisting of leaves with lots of small specks of sky showing through. These were shot (of course) wide open. Again, I took similar shots using the 100/2 (my "bokeh-champion") wide open, to compare the end results. Unfortunately, the sun didn't show itself until all the gear was packed well away, and by then I didn't feel like bringing the camera down again, so so far no counterlight pictures (with the sun right in the picture - the ultimate test) have been taken, but I'll take some of those too soon.

In roughly half an hour from now, I shall turn in the 5 rolls of film I shot over the weekend (surprise, surprise, lots fof pictures taken with the 100/2 - as always), and hopefully Thursday I'll have some results to see what the performance of the 28/2 is like, and also I hope to have a suitable TOPE 2 shot then.

Now, the one thing I do wonder about is the vignetting of the 28/2 with the 28/2.8 (and 28/3.5) hood, I tried it on a few of the shots taken in the park yesterday, but I'm not certain if any vignetting will become visible... Meanwhile, if someone has the special 28/2 hood for sale/trade, I'd be interested.

Cheers!
Olafo

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