On Nov 30, 2008, at 7:23 PM, Scott Loveless wrote:
A friend of mine has an Olympus something-or-other 4/3 camera and is
shopping for a "normal" prime. He's narrowed it down to either the
30mm F1.4 EX DC HSM or the 24mm F1.8 EX DG ASPHERICAL MACRO. Since a
few of you either have or had these lenses or 4/3 bodies, I told him I
would ask "the list". Aside from the obvious - one is faster, the
other is macro, etc. - do you have any suggestions?
There have been several extensive discussions on these lenses on the
FourThirdsPhoto.com boards:
http://fourthirdsphoto.com/
Basically, *if* you get a good one (getting a good one of any Sigma
lens is the photography equivalent of Russian Roulette), both are
quite good performers. A bad one can exhibit anything from mis-
focusing to poor sharpness/contrast/rendering. The 24mm is closer to a
standard normal lens, the 30mm is a bit of a "long-normal".
If I were going to buy a Sigma lens, I'd go for the 24/1.8 over the
30/1.4 as I find the shorter focal length more to my liking. But: I
own the alternatives as I refuse to put up with Sigma quality problems.
The alternatives are the Olympus Zuiko Digital 25mm f/2.8 ... a truly
excellent little lens for not a lot of money (about $230) ...
Panasonic L1 fitted with ZD 25/2.8:
<http://homepage.mac.com/godders/panasonicL1_olympus25/content/bin/images/large/080510_mixed_5104045.jpg
>
And the absolutely superb if rather expensive and often difficult to
find Panasonic/Leica Summilux-D 25mm f/1.4 ASPH (about $800) ...
Panasonic L1 fitted with Summilux-D 25/1.4:
<http://www.gdgphoto.com/summilux25/content/bin/images/large/080617_summilux_6174255.jpg
>
Both of these lenses outperform either of the (good unit) Sigmas wide
open (the ZD 25 by a little, the Summilux 25 by a lot). The ZD25 is a
delightfully handy lens and makes almost any of these cameras small,
light, easy to manage and carry. The Summilux 25 is a big, heavy,
fast, pro-quality lens ... almost a pound and nearly as big as the pro-
quality ZD 14-54 or Leica 14-50 zooms ... and yes, it's worth it's
price and worth carrying but it is quite a lot to carry. The biggest
advantage to the Summilux over all the others is that you know,
positively and without question, that it will return superb quality
images even wide open at f/1.4 so you can take maximum advantage of
its speed and shoot in obscenely low light. The ZD 25, on the other
hand, is so small and light you can almost never say "I just didn't
have room for it in my bag ..."
I use them both, *a lot*: about 85-90% of all the photos I've taken
this past year were made with these two lenses, despite the fact I
only got the ZD 25 in May 2008.
Portraits:
L1 + ZD 25, using the camera's bounce flash at f/5:
http://homepage.mac.com/godders/159-cpportrait.jpg
L1 + Summilux-D 25, wide open f/1.4:
http://homepage.mac.com/godders/76-john.jpg
Godfrey
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