introduction

since i have been using SLR Magic‘s HyperPrime 12mm F1.6 for Micro Four Thirds (from now on, i will refer to the lens as just the 12mm) almost daily in the last couple of weeks, this post will be in a format of a daily photo/video journal sharing my personal usage of the 12mm. so in a way, this post is not completed until i have populated it with all the photos/videos i have taken with the 12mm up to today.

for a proper product review of the 12mm, i recommend the following excellent reviews:

steve huff

eoshd

the phoblographer

a deeper perspective

i basically have made my decision to purchase the 12mm based on the above reviews. so, there is really no point for me to repeat what have been said. even if i did try, i wouldn’t have come up with a review as good as they have done. but you should know that my lens is different from theirs because mine is an actual production unit. i was told issues identified by the above reviewers have been addressed in the final production units. whether those issues have been completely addressed, i can’t tell because i personally do no have one of those lenses to compare to. besides internal tweaking, you’ll also find my lens has a makeover in branding and an all-black finish. the Noktor branding was used in the above reviewing units while SLR Magic is used in mine and all units that will go on for sale soon.

i am writing about the 12mm because in return of having the privilege to buy the lens in advance of it hitting retail, i have agreed to share video and photo footage i create using it. all photos and videos published here were shot using Panasonic’s GH2 with firmware 1.1.

quick specs on the 12mm:

- it is made for the micro four thirds system

- it is a full manual lens, i.e. it doesn’t autofocus and the aperture has to be manually set on the lens itself

- it has a 35-mm equivalent focal length of 24mm

- aperture values are not recorded by the camera

- it has an all-metal construction

unboxing

i ordered the lens in november after learning about SLR Magic’s testers volunteering program from 43rumors. the lens was supposed to be available end of november. unfortunately, their factory in china had experienced power supply problems resulting in delay of shipment. so i was very excited after getting an unexpected call from SLR Magic on 12th december notifying me my lens was ready to be delivered to me. since i live in hong kong, i suggested going to pickup from their office instead – SLR Magic is a hong kong company, so that i could get hold of it asap. i didn’t get to visit their office. instead, Andrew Chan, product manager of SLR Magic, met me at a mall near their office to deliver the lens to me in person. while we chatted about the lens, he suddenly pulled a nex-5 from his pocket with the just announced HyperPrime 23mm F1.7 for E-mount mounted on it! i was pretty mad at myself for not brining my nex-5n with me. i had the a77 and gh2 with me but not the nex-5n!

getting back to the 12mm. i unboxed the lens at a restaurant nearby immediately after i got it from andrew. below are the unboxing photos:

despite having owned two gh2 bodies for a while, i have had only one mft lens until last night – the 14-140mm hd kit lens. for previous works that had required two cameras, i mounted one of my sony alpha lenses on either one of them (usually the carl zeiss 24-70mm) with the other using the 14-140mm. i had been reluctant to invest in mft lenses because i use the gh2 almost exclusively for video works. until panasonic’s recent release of new firmware for 7 of its existing lenses to make them more video friendly (they might be quieter now but i doubt they are any more faster than they had been shipped out of factory), the 14-140mm was the only auto-focus lens optimized for video (by panasonic). but still, none of them has powered zoom (something nice to have especially when shooting handheld).

below is the test video i took with the 45-175mm mounted on my gh2 with official firmware and the 14-140mm mounted on my other gh2 with hacked firmware:

while shooting video the first time with the 45-175mm, i thought i could probably make use of a faster zoom. the zoom felt really slow. when viewing the footage on the computer afterwards, the zooming looked much “faster” and “natural” than i had felt at the time of shooting.

to test the effectiveness of the new power o.i.s. for photos, i took the following two photos using the widest end of the zoom (i.e. 90mm 35mm-equivalent) and the longest end (i.e. 350mm) respectively from the same spot without any support:

shutter speed used for the zoomed photo was 1/13s – that’s like 4 stops below the safe shutter speed of 1/320s. not bad for indoor available light condition.

from what i’ve tried out last night, the new power o.i.s. is much more effective than the “old” mega o.i.s. in stabilizing both stills and videos. i think panny is going to update the 14-140mm very soon with at least power o.i.s.

besides the improved performance, i really like the size of the new lens. it’s overall length doesn’t change during the whole zoom range (like the canon 100-400L i used to have). i know 3.8 times is not a lot in zoom range. but still it got a 35mm equivalent of 90mm to 350mm. when attached to the gh2, the overall length of the body plus the lens is about the height of my sony alpha 70-300mm lens when it is at its shortest.

all in all, the 45-175mm lumix g x is not just tiny but delivers improved performance over the 14-140mm lens. it makes a very discrete long-reaching lens – perfect for street photography. i think i will be using it a lot more for photos than i used to with the 14-140mm. for photos that doesn’t need long reach, i will continue to use my sony nex-5n and the 18-55mm kit lens. meantime, i am waiting for the arrival of the 14-42mm lumix g x lens.

This is going to be real short because I have a flight to catch to Osaka in exactly 9 hours. I am still packing. After reading so many positive reviews on this ultra-wide angle EF-S lens, I have finally bought it tonight.

Now I get 10mm to 300mm covered by my EFS 10-22, EFS 60, EFS 17-84 and EF 70-300 DO on my 20D. I didn’t really have time to play with it. Herewith four shots that I have shot in RAW at 10mm:

I did nothing except converting them from RAW to JPEG via Photoshop CS2 using auto while balance and downsizing to 1.6mp. Considering that there were all shot in low light conditions, I have very high expectation on it for my trip to Osaka and Kyoto. Although I am bringing all the four lenses with me, I have a feeling that I will be having it on most of the time.