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Re: [OM] Lens recommendations

Subject: Re: [OM] Lens recommendations
From: "John A. Lind" <jlind@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2001 01:10:06 +0000
Bruce,
I have the 135/2.8 telephoto. It is a fine lens and has served me very well. Others rave about the 135/3.5 as well. The 100/2 on your list has a reputation for stellar performance, and 35-70/3.6 is clearly better than the slower ones (if you can find either one of these).

IMO, the reputations of the 100/2 and 90/2 Macro have overshadowed the MC versions of the 85/2 and 135/2.8, which may not have the reputations of the former, but they are also very excellent lenses.

Beyond this, a couple points of information to keep in mind:

f/3.5 is one-third stop faster than f/4 (making it two-thirds stop slower than f/2.8).

Aside from being able to use slower film in lower light, the faster lenses also give a brighter viewfinder which can make focusing easier in lower light levels, even if the lens isn't used wide open that often. This can be particularly useful indoors with flash. In these circumstances, having the faster lenses on the OM-4 in particular has helped greatly. The OM-2S, OM-3[ti] and OM-4[T] viewfinders, because of their semi-silvered mirrors, are not quite as bright as the OM-1[n] and OM-2[n] viewfinders.

With many of the Zuiko lenses, the "sweet spot" of best performance is several stops down from wide open. In general with the faster ones, the "sweet spot" starts about a stop wider in aperture. This is a broad generality. It varies a little from lens to lens.

The "fair market" prices on a couple you listed are very high due to demand, rarity and performance. You might want to see Skip's site on eBay closing prices for the lenses you mentioned:
  http://www.skipwilliams.com/olympus/zuiko_ebay_history.htm

There you can see some of the price difference between the faster and slower ones. How much more expensive a faster one is varies. Then look at Gary Reese's lens tests:
  http://members.aol.com/olympusom/lenstests/default.htm

You'll have to decide for yourself if the higher price for a faster one is worth the performance difference. For me, there have been considerations like the brighter viewfinder in addition to that.

-- John

At 03:05 1/5/01, Bruce asked:
The question is are there cases, where zuikos of the same focal length are offered in different models, when one should not look to purchase the lens with the fastest aperature. I'm thinking, for example, of the 35-70mm with f3.6, f3.5-4.5, f4 or the 100mm f2 vs f2.8, 135mm f2.8 vs f3.5 etc. Are their situations where the slower lens is actually of better quality than the faster? Or situations where the jump to the faster aperature results in a disproportionate increase in price vs performance? I think this info would be valuable to those of us zuikoholics that are relatively new to all of this.

Thanks,

Bruce


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