e-510 37mm 1/200 f/5.4 iso 100

i'm pretty big on weekend newspapers, sunday's in the case of the local one and the new york times, saturday's for the globe and mail. weekend editions cost much more, but they're filled with so much more - a bit more depth in the news, but a lot more depth when it comes to life and lifestyle. and while i'll admit to only occasionally picking up the sunday new york times (it takes me way more than the whole week to get through), i look forward to these papers the whole week long.

sadly, internet news sites, where i get most if not all of my news throughout the week, barring a major breaking news story, largely shut down over the weekend. i guess it's a different sort of journalism, one based on immediate delivery rather than presenting much more information when most of us have more time to absorb it. the news cycle, i suppose; unlike print sources, they don't have a team dedicated to spending the whole week putting together a single edition.

it's been this way the decade-plus since the net became the place for news. i guess i'd just always expected that eventually the online world would catch up with the print one in this respect. i say sadly above, but reading back, i'm not so sure now it's sad at all, for while the internet has meant dwindling market share for pretty much all other forms of media, and especially newspapers, there is not yet, nor do i forsee in the reasonable future, any online replacement for a good weekend newspaper. there may well be a time soon when the new york times sunday edition is the only printed edition of that paper, but i'll bet decades after the daily's demise the sunday will still show up on newstands and doorsteps all over the continent and be devoured, ol' skool.

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----photoblather below----

i borrowed the new kit-level 14-42mm 3.5-5.6ed digital zuiko lens to try out for a few days. this is the lens that would have come with my e-510 for about $90 more than the body-only option i chose. i didn't pony up the extra nine sir-john-a's at the time because i already had this lens' predecessor, the 14-45mm 3.5-4.5 in my bag and the new lens, while much smaller and lighter, and featuring an ed lens element, seemed slightly redundant to me. and more than anything, i've said it before but this is one of the points that makes it stand out, i'm a cost-recovery photographer - if it's not covered easily by the invoice, or offers a huge fine art benefit for those times i'm shooting just for you, dear reader, it doesn't find its way into my kit. sucks sometimes, but don't pretend for a minute my day job leaves even a dollar left over for any of this stuff.

over the last little while i've had some second thoughts about skipping the 14-42, regrets almost, based on the reviews of the lens that have come out as well as the anecdotal reports from those who've used both this new lens and my old 14-45. and there were some things i knew about the 14-42 before i turned it down - its significantly lighter weight, its faster af speed, and its much better-feeling manual "focus-by-wire" system. but i also knew it's pretty much all plastic, right down to the mount, which on all zuikos - including kits - were always made of stainless steel. it's my understanding that oly was the last major manufacturer to drop stainless mounts on their least expensive offerings, but still...

so anyway, i borrowed a 14-42 a few days back and have taken it into the field twice now, once as a second lens on a working shoot, and once, today, for a walk around the park. hummm. (sample above)

it's light, it focuses very fast, both the zoom and focus ring are wonderfully damped, and in all these in-the-moment specs, it's vastly superior in performance to the 14-45. using it is a pure joy, and not for a moment does it even suggest a hit of either plastic or budget, it's solid in the extreme.

it's when plugging the card in at home though that you can really start to speak to lens performance, and there are some qualities to note here. over the 14-45, the 14-42 wins easily when shooting at the wide end; the former gets quite, though sometimes pleasingly, pincushioned at 14mm, the latter shows next to none of that effect at all. score one point for plastic. and at all focal lengths and apertures i've tried it on, when shooting high contrast against bright sky, the plastic lens really has chromatic aberration under control. sure, there's some, but i'm judging by pictures i took specifically to bring out the purple fringies. the 14-45 does well with c.a., as well as any lens in its class. the 14-42, however, does as well as many mid-range lenses costing five times as much. and i suppose that's because of oly's decision to include an ed lens element on top of the count of two aspherical elements both these lenses share. score two for plastic, and a very strong two.

sounding like we have a real winner here, hey? ya know, you'd think that, and by many measures, yes. but i'll be damned if i've been pleased with the quality of a single picture i've taken with this lens. so far, i'm just not feeling the love at all. all of this is subjective, of course, fact is i've not shot both lenses one after the other on the same subject, body and settings and done the pixel-peeping necessary to really compare. the advantages i have noted above are so obvious such science isn't required to prove them, but what's not working, what's got me not feeling the love for the 14-42 are the pictures i've made with it.

and i don't get this, i just don't understand why my experience with this budget lens has been so much like the reviews have said in operation and yet so disappointing contrary in image quality; i haven't got a tack-sharp picture out of this lens yet, and it's always been a foregone conclusion that all zuiko lenses, all the way back to the 60s, are tack-sharp: zuiko pen-ee, pen-f, trip series, om series, c series, e series, i own and i've shot and printed all. the 14-42 i've borrowed, from the 400 or so shots i've done with it, isn't even close to sharp at all. and it's not focus, and it's not aperture, so it comes down to two things:

1. it's me. and i'm still thinking that's most likely the case, but on the commercial shoot i used the 14-42 on, i was constantly switching from it to my 50mm 2.0 zuiko on the same body, and all the 2.0's shots look perfect right down to pixel-level. and yeah, that's a bit unfair given that the zd 50mm is a pro lens and one of the sharpest around at any price, but i've shot the 50 and my 14-45 side by side lots and never noticed near quite this much difference. still, it's probably just me. i hope so. regardless, the lack of tack didn't harm the job i used it for, but it did call for a bit more post-processing to help the pictures look more like my own.

2. it's a bum 14-42. it's a kit lens afterall, and when you shell out $3000 for a leica prime, a lot of what you're paying for is the high reject rate: most of those leicas go into the garbage right after they emerge from the assembly line. that's not something olympus, or for that matter canon, nikon or pentax can do with with what is essentially a value-added lens. for sure, the worst of them still get tossed, but there's a much wider latitude than with better, admittedly far more expensive, lenses.

i'll interject here in saying i've searched the good ol' interweb far and wide, and so far i'm pretty sure i'm the only person yet to pan this particular lens, which is ample evidence for either points one or two above.

the good news is that i no longer regret not getting the 14-42 when i bought the e-510. mostly. the exception being that when the e-3 has been out a few months and i'm starting to get summer bookings and i can justify getting one, i'm going to sell my beloved e-500, not so much because the price it will demand will help loads with the cost of the e-3, but because i doubt at that point i'll have any occasion to use it seriously at all, and it's far too good a camera to let lie fallow for sentimental reasons - i love it enough to let it go to someone who will actually use it, and probably love it as much as i have. but i don't have a lens to sell it with, and my guess is that i'll take a way bigger hit than $90 selling it body only. there is a pro lens in similar length to my current 14-45, but i'd rather spend pro money on the 7-14mm, 11-22mm, the amazing 35-100mm f/2.0, or the leica 25mm f/1.4 (most likely my next lens. mmmmmm, leica summilux). and besides that, all but the leica will probably have to wait for summer bookings come 2008 to justify their purchase. oh well, we'll just have to see how it pans out, i just hope in the next five months i'm actually facing this decision about the e-3.

/photoblather

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and for the interested, the second print run of the splashy duck photo has started and is shipping. the first run sold out in a few days, mostly based on view of the actual print, though my web appeal didn't do so badly either. best photo i've ever taken? uhhh, yeah. it's a bit pricer now, but if you're a reader i'll still cut you a deal.also, due to a special order for an 8x10, there are a few extra copies at that size now available for close to cheap-as-free, or close to close, or something close like that.

checked for spelling, not in the mood for further checking of grammar and punctuation. whatev's, i do have to remember somtimes that this is just my vanity site, regardless of how i sometimes use it otherwise. happy weekend to all, if you're craving quality writing, sunday's papers are just hours away.