for the last time II

As noted recently, I've struggled with the choice of kit lens for my GX85. I love the features of the 12-60 Lumix, but it's a bit bulky on the smaller body. That drives me toward the tiny 14-42ii, which is nearly 12-32 small but has a focus ring + 10mm at the long end. And what about the XiaoYi 12-40?

Taken with GX85 and SMC-A 50/1.7. A nice combination

Today's thinking is that the 14-42 is the better option. The ii has dual-IS for improved stabilization (the 12-60 also has this), and its size and similar feel to the 45-150 is quite nice. I'll admit that cash is another reason, as the 12-60 has better resale value.. sad but true.

Update II - I read in the comments section at a forum site about the YI 12-40mm 'retractable' kit zoom. The writer noted that, with the M1's minimal reprocessing of data, their lenses cannot make use of Pana/Oly's inbuilt corrections of distortion and vignetting and must therefore do more themselves.

Sad but true: the big names use internal post-processing tricks to render an acceptable image (one of my peeves about the μ43 system). One can use alternate software to look at raw images, and many Zuiko/Lumix lenses have seriously silly distortion characteristics.

The point that I left behind is that the 12-40mm xiaoYi zoom does not have those dismal specs to wash away in the camera's after-shot routine - so the lens is built with better corrections to limit those distortions. It may not appear to do as good of a job but in fact it's a better standalone optical setup than even some of the high-grade gear from the Others.

 Hadn't thought of that.. and glad it's still here!

fresh doses of sanity

Even professional imagers feel the pull of gear - Kirk puts it quite eloquently, as usual. He changes massive amounts of kit in a hurry at times; perhaps as a percentage of income it's similar to my meager dealings, we'll never know of course.

His work is consistently great in any case, and like he says in the linked article the many factors that make an image is only rarely due to the gear. Certainly if one has the wrong focal length the outcome may be less ideal.. yet a great image can come even at those moments.

Good stuff, and a reminder that time spent browsing camera forums and gear sites could be spent taking photos (or organizing and removing many of them from my hard drive).

I'm writing this after an awful work day followed by a sleep-deprived night. I was up by 4:30 and read Kirk's article.

But I did get to see a beautiful sunrise!

I took several cool sunrise-and-fog images with the GX85 and 12-60mm - and later learned that two big dust specks were evident in the sky on several shots. Bummer. They were all shot in jpeg only, so solid fixes will likely show some compression artifacts.

I then took out the GX1 and 14-42 while the GX85 was occupied with downloading. The sun-beams were even more pronounced at this point and images on screen looked very nice. The light was also striking our hummingbird feeder so I tried to incorporate its ruby glow into the shot with 16:9 wide shots. Now where is that cable for downloading, the microUSB cord won't work! Ah yes, the usb reader will do.

While seeking the cable I decided to grab the YI M1 and its 12-40 kit lens. This was also shot in raw +jpeg and looked wonderful on the small screen. Here is one of the jpeg shots from the 20-mpx YI - looks good from here!


As Kirk said - timing and light are the key elements; the camera need only function to capture a great image.