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.

More on my Flickr album

I have built up my “collection” of lens to 3 (EF-S17-85mm + EF 70-300mm DO + EF-S 60mm macro) up to three weeks ago – this newly acquired hobby is pretty expensive. The release of the 5D was very tempting. But, after trying it out in real, I was a little bit disappointed. In all fairness I only played it around at a shop for 3 minutes, so I didn’t get to take any real pictures with it. I am sure it takes excellent pictures (and can make full use of all the lenses that are meant to be for 35mm-film based camera bodies), but so do a lot of people using DSLRs that are a generation or two behind my 20D. As a newly-converted hobbyist with DSLR, i.e. not a professional making money out of it, I actually consider it a sin to give up on a well-performing body and lenses (the 5D won’t accept any of my EF-S lenses) that are only about 9 months old. This is especially the case after holding the 5D in real. In my opinion, it is basically a slighly larger 20D body equipped with a full frame CMOS senor and a quieter shutter, but slower in performance. Since I am not a professional photographer, I wouldn’t be keeping two bodies if I were to get the 5D. So I ended up getting the EF-S 10-22mm the night before my vacation to Japan three weeks ago. Am I happy with the decision?

I think my pictures on Toji Temple speak for themselves.They are only one subject of about a dozen that I had shot for my 5-day trip. But those were all shot with the EF-S 10-22mm. I brought with me all the 4 lenses for the trip. With the exception of the macro lens, I found myself interchanging the other 3 quite often. So, I am even more happier now, after the trip, that I didn’t get the 5D. Because I think I do need a second body, and it is definitely the replacement of 20D, which I believe will be released at a price that is going to be at most equal to what I had paid for my 20D, i.e. about one third of the going price of 5D now. I am sure the price of 5D won’t drop more than 10% by the time the replacement of 20D is released, which is estimated to be within 6 months from now. In fact, it may be a lot sooner than what people had expected since Nikon is going to release its D200 before year end.

On the other hand, I think if one has fully explored the potential of one’s existing gear, it is worthwhile to move up to the next level.

I purchased my first DSLR, Canon’s 20D, on 22nd February, 2005. Although I have had owned close to a dozen of digital cameras before taking the plunge on DSLR, I hate to admit that I have wasted too much money on those “toys” (two of which were the prosumer grade cameras, Olympus’ E-10 and Konica Minolta’s A2). But, of course, the 20D only came out last November. I have already taken thousands of photos before that.

The 20D is so much more responsive than all the cameras that I have owned that it allows me to take pictures that are just not possible with even prosumer cameras, especially in low light situations. I have taken a lot of amazing pictures with the 20D handheld without using flash at night. During my trip to Kansai of Japan last week, I have passed the 10,000 magic number with it. Yes, 10,000 photos in just 8 months. The counter had reset to zero and it is already closing in on 3,000 again. The move to DSLR also means I get to learn a lot of new things about photography and post-processing with Photoshop. I am enjoying the learning process very much. The Internet is just so much full of resources on digital photography, I really have a lot of fun learning from it. Of course, the community of Flickr is fantastic.

I still have a Panasonic FX-7 with me, but I don’t use it any more. It is a very good compact camera to carry around, and I am sure its successor FX-9 is even better. But for snapshots, I now use primarily my Sharp SX833. This 3G cameraphone is a real breakthrough in the sense that it can take some really sharp pictures that match those taken with compact digital cameras. But, in order to do that, it does require very ideal shooting environment. But, it’s just snapshots, so I am less demanding on the picture quality. I have set up another photo blog at http://www.flickr.com/photos/49002037@N00/ to host my pictures taken with cameraphones. Please visit it if you are interested to see what I capture during my daily life. If you want to know more about me, you are most welcome to visit my weblog at http://www.rodkar.com.

The following is my list of current DSLR gear:
-Body: Canon 20D
-Lens: Canon EF-S 10-22mm; EF-S 60mm Macro; EF-S 17-85mm; EF 70-30mm DO
-Flash: Canon 580EX

Everyone is talking about full frame sensor now. But I see a lot people still shooting amazing pictures using 10D. So, unless Canon is releasing a full frame DSLR that matches the price I paid for my 20D, I will be sticking with my 20D gear. The 5D is just way too expensive for a body that is essentially 20D with minor upgrade yet without a built-in flash and weighs heavier. Although it costs more than 2 times the body of 20D, its performance is only 60% of 20D. For me, the 5fps of 20D is barely enough. I like shooting people in action, so the higher fps of 20D gives me more comfort to buffer for missed shots.

Roderick Kar
Hong Kong SAR, China
27th October, 2005

This is actually a Pro account given free to me by Flickr when I purchased my first Pro account from it. I was given an additional two free Pro accounts to give away as gifts. The two persons that I gave to never make use of them. What a waste! So I took one of them back (from my wife) and made it my moblog. I am using this to host snapshots that I have taken with cameraphones. I own quite a few phones and change them not too infrequently. As of writing this profile (26/10/2005), I own 5 phones, they are Motorola A1000, Dopod 575, XDA II mini, Nokia 6680 and Sharp SX833. Unless I have run out of battery, which is not unusual, I now only use the Sharp to take snapshots. Snapshots taken in the early days were really ugly and manufacturers didn’t bother to embed EXIF data in the pictures. Nowadays, manufacturers have realized the importance that users place on the photo-taking capability on their phones and have begun to embed EXIF data in pictures to ease photos organization.

If you are interested to see my other photos taken with DSLR (I am using Canon’s 20D now), you can visit my other Flickr account at http://www.flickr.com/photos/rodkar. If you want to know more about me, you are most welcome to visit my weblog at http://www.rodkar.com.

Roderick Kar
Hong Kong SAR, China
26th October, 2005