Hi Everybody,
This is just a general ramble - but this day I spent some time
properly comparing (from a usage standpoint)
the two combinations mentioned in the header.
Ever since I got the 90/2.0 Macro, it basically lives on my OM-1, and
the OM-1 is now my only compact
camera.
This post is much in the spirit of an earlier message (by AG Schnozz,
I think) where he lamented that we
are selling our souls by giving up equipment of this class for better
megapixels and plastic bodies.
First of all, and as a long-time user of Canon "L" lenses, I never,
never had any idea a lens from the 1980s
could be so utterly spactacular as the 90/2.0 Macro. Not only an
impeccable solid build quality which makes
the ZD 50/2.0 feel a bit like a (rather nice) toy, but the performance
is astounding.
I rarely shoot it below f/2.0 - and at all distances between 1:2 and
around 10m (where I use it at) it is
quite simply perfect. I only shoot B&W with it, and with Ilford FP4
the images pop like I have only
seen... well, I have never seen any of my 35mm images pop like this,
save perhaps for Canon's 200mm f/2.8L.
But that is not what this post is about.
I have a matte (1-8) focusing screen in the OM-1n, and there is simply
no comparing the brightness and focusing
accuracy of using this combination when we compare it to the dinky
viewfinder of the E-3. Amazing accomplishment
as the E-3 is, it is dinky in comparison.
The E-3 may be ergonomically designed, but it does not fall to the
hand like the OM-1/90mm combo - not even by a long
shot. In anyway, an E-3 *needs* to be ergonomically shaped to "fit the
hand" when you have to drive all of 50 buttons.
People, why have we diverged so much from the minimalism and pureness
of photography? Why did digital capture
also imply the (severe) loss in build and materials quality, as well
as the cluttering of the photographic process?
Could olympus have taken the OM system into the digital era,
maintaining the pure minimalism and superior build,
amazing viewfinder, and all the virtues that make this system so
great? Could they have succeeded (with clever
marketing) where Leica sort-of fails, to maintain a niche for those
people who do not want the DSLR wunderbricks
to clutter up their photographic process? Why does digital = autofocus
and a million other functions. Why can't
digital be minimalist?
Who knows...
But what I do know, is that the modern equivalent, an E-3 with a ZD
50mm macro, just doesn't cut it. It's just
not the same to use... Something - something massive - got lost. And I
fear that once we stop playing with these old
cameras, we may never get it back.
P.S. I hate to get into film vs digital battles, but I have
demonstrated to myself that, for the same careful shot, at the
same place, at the same time of day, my OM-1n + 50mm f/1.4 > 1mil
resolves more detail, and has higher dynamic range, shooting
FP4 B&W than what I could pull out of my Canon EOS 1D MkIIN (a camera
with astoundingly sharp pixels due to basically no AA filter)
with the EF 50mm f/1.2L (B&W) - the best I could do, and I have years
of experience pulling the best from a RAW file.
Why can't I show this to you? At this moment in time, I have no
digital capture device or scanner, only wet darkroom
for the OM and Mamiya stuff. But I am having a heck of a good time :-)
And since I convinced myself, I have no need to
convince you, we all know what is involved on each side of the digital
fence.
People, enjoy your OM gear! It *is* special.
--
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