Zuiks
Who else has seen the latest PopPhoto?
(Skip this para if you want the Oly content)
There's one of our own, Greg Logiodice's, photos in the Hard Knocks
section. From the comments by the peanut gallery, it looks to me like
the OJ jurors have found work as photo critiquers! And to add to my
paranoia, the 2 photos they liked the most were taken with ... surprise!
Nikons. The 2 they were not so impressed with ... were not. BTW, the
one they liked the best, with the mailbox and truck etc, is good, IMHO.
But I think they all missed what would have improved it the most: if the
photo'er had waited until the truck had moved past the school bus sign
and used 1/2 to one stop slower shutter speed. This would have: added
the depth the photo really needs, added to the unreality by making the
truck appear even smaller, added a much needed leading line in from the
left (the road), added a connecting line between the mailbox, sign AND
the truck and added a bit more of a sense of movement to the photo with
the truck blurred a bit more. The other Nikon photo is a horrible jumble
which tells no story at all to me, yet some of the jurors wax
enthusiastic about it's 'creativeness' 'inventiveness' 'atmospheric
lighting' etc. Bull. The shot sucks, IMHO. Even if it may have been
taken by one of the San Jose Sharks hockey players.
OK, here's the meat.
They have (under the Point and Shoot section) an evaluation of the new
IS-30. And they actually seem to like it ... a lot. (With the cavats
thrown in at the end: 'If it could just be smaller' and if you instead
get the 'lovely little Nikon Pronea S' you can accept a wide array of
different lenses.) That said, though it appears Olympus has once again
produced a dazzlingly good lens. They say 'this lens would put a fair
number of interchangeable SLR optics to shame'. They also have a chart
of lens resolution. And the chart include the word 'outstanding' 7
times with 6 excellents and the rest very good and good. They also
mention in the text that the lens peaked at 85 lines per millimeter
resolution. Now **that's** a great zoom lens. And, to get a feel for
how great it really is, one can turn back 2 pages to where similar lens
resolution charts are presented for 4 lenses for the Rollei 8008, made
by Zeiss, Scneider and Rollei. What you'll see is the best of these
lenses achieved only 69 lines per millimeter!!! And this lens carried a
street price of $3200! And it was a Schneider 90/4 **macro**. And the
word 'outstanding' is nowhere to be found on any of the 4 lens tests,
with 'acceptable' and 'below average' making appearances instead.
So let's see, do you really get what you pay for?
Olympus IS-30, 28-110 mm zoom, 'outstanding' class lens - $399 street,
built-in zoom flash.
Rollei 8008, 90/4 macro 'excellent' class lens - $5500 street, flash
extra.
George
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