Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2008/03/04
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Richard: Would you do me a favor? Meter something once at a medium aperture. Then take a series of equivalent manual exposures. Such as: 1/30, f/4 1/60, f/2.8 1/125,f/2 1/250,f/1.4 Are resulting images the same exposure, or is f/1.4 much darker? If you're game, try the whole range of f-stops. Do things get out of whack again at f/11 or f/16? I noticed that with my E-1 and a Zuiko 50/1.4, I got only about 1/3 stop more light going from f/2 to f/1.4. So the 50/1.4 was really only a 50/1.8 for practical purposes. This might have something to do with the angle the light hits the sensor wells, and something gets cut off faster than about f/2. There were actually two factors. Not only did the sensor respond differently at extreme apertures, but metering was also off at both large and small stops. So the effects of the two factors combined, making things very confusing until I separted them. The result was the the OM lenses couldn't be relied upon without knowing a compensation factor for wide open and closed down. All this behavior has been reported by others (with the usual Internet flamefests over the cause, and whether the reporter knows how to use his camera). I wonder if the E-3 is the same, or if it's more forgiving with OM lenses. That said, if you have a OM Zuiko macro lens, try it with the E-3 and you might just marvel at the image quality. My 50/3.5 OM Macro gave me image quality on the E-1 like no other lens I tried. And the 100/2.8 makes a nifty 200mm-equivalent telephoto. --Peter > Who says it can't be done? > http://www.dragonsgate.net/pub/richard/PICS/_3031364.jpg > http://www.dragonsgate.net/pub/richard/PICS/_3031365.jpg > http://www.dragonsgate.net/pub/richard/PICS/_3031366.jpg > > The trusty 50/1.4 Zuiko at 1.4. The E-3 VF is definitely as good if > not better than the OM-4 when it comes to manual focusing.