Attack of the Camera Dork

I figured since I am now a certified camera dork....having spent much of the last 11months studying cameras, lenses, (not only from Olympus mind you), reading books, scouring the internet, and now being able to tell you which copies of 30yr old lenses you should look for in the bowels of Seoul's never ending camera shops and with the newfound ability to bore even camera enthusiasts with the history of camera companies, I should at least have one post related to my passion for photography....

So here goes....I will keep this as straightforward and unscientific as possible.....I am comparing an old Olympus lens 50mm f/1.8 to a new one. I am looking at them for the purpose of taking picures of people.

The new one 12-60mm f/2.8-4 is a star and lives on my camera....Dpreview calls it "suberb...one of the best zooms available" so the old one is in tough. Then again, the old one has a simpler job, because it doesn't have to zoom.

I bought the old one because ( for reasons which I won't bore you with) it has the potential to be a perfect lens for shooting portraits, with the ability to really blur the background and keep the subject the center of attention. Basically it can remove the ugly cars, trees, people or whatever happens to be in the background.

So...with that in mind. The test was an identical(ish) shot, both at 50mm, with each lens's blurriest possible background....in my house, on a tripod....of a stuffed Vancouver Canucks bear. (for those who care, that's f/4 for the new one, and f/1.8 for the old one)

*To keep up with the new lens, I have to crank up the sharpening and contrast in camera for the old lens because it is noticable soft*.

Without further adieu....the old one followed by the new one:

So, obviously, bloggers max image size sucks...but if you're going to notice anything...look at how much more detail you see in the guitar in the second picture than the first. As well as how much more detail there is in the book or the curtains. Even though there's a only a very small distance between them, the old lens does a nice job rendering the bear and throwing the back ground out of focus.....check out the pictures below for a closer look.....


























These ones (again Old one first, new one second) give you a better idea...if you need some help, look at the guitar next to the bears ear....













The Contestants

1. The "star".... the ZD 12-60mm F/2.8-4 SupersonicWaveDrive, the world's fastest autofocus blah blah blah

2. The humble, admirably performing OM 50mm F/1.8