Well, I Got This New Macro Lens

So, once again, I have been on the Ebays. This time I bought a new macro lens.  It's the Olympus OM-System Zuiko MC Auto-Macro 50mm f/3.5.  I took it out into the yard (and the kitchen) to take a couple of follow up photos from my last post.  All with the 5D.

The Valencia orange flowers are opening up.  They are the biggest citrus flowers on any of my trees. I caught a little spider waiting to catch the bugs drawn to the flowers by their delightful scent.

 
The Ein Shemer flowers (the only ones on the tree) opened up.  Looks like something's been munching on the leaves.

And finally, the orchid flowers in the kitchen are starting to open.  Background isn't that great, but the flowers are pretty.

So there you go, camera and garden.

A Few Garden Photos with the Olympus OM 35mm f/2

I Piddled around the yard yesterday with the Olympus OM 35mm and took a few pictures of things going on.  Stuff is starting to bloom. Here they are:

Buds on the Valencia Orange.  You can see it has fruit on as well.

New growth on the Moro blood orange.  It's going nuts.

Peach Blossoms on La Feliciana.

More Peach Blossoms

Flower buds on Ein Shemer apple.  Ein Shemer was developed in Israel and is supposed to be good in the central Texas climate.

 

Olympus OM-System Zuiko MC Auto-W 35mm f/2 and The First Rose of Spring

Zuiko's on the right.

I added a new 35mm to the bunch.  The Zuiko 35mm f/2 doesn't have a reputation for being a great lens, but it was available for a good price, so I couldn't resist.  I put it through the same paces (more or less) as the Rokinon and Canon 35s I reviewed previously (here).

The new Zuiko was a bit scruffy on the outside, but the glass was perfect. Here are a couple more pictures.

Fronts

Butts

Here's the chart:

 
The Olympus sharpens up in the center by f/2.8 and there isn't really any noticeable sharpening  beyond that.  The edge is not great and doesn't really seem to sharpen up much at all with stopping down. The corners are dismal wide open and improve incrementally towards bad the more it is stopped down.  It's important to add that there is some weird glowy halation wide open that seems to affect only the bright highlights.  It has the potential to be distracting.

Here are the comparisons with the Rokinon and Canon 35mm:

 

It's hard to tell for sure, but I think the Zuiko has less color fringing than the other lenses at f/2 and is as sharp in the center, and maybe a hair sharper by f/2.8.  The Rokinon sharpness seems to lag behind the others just a wee bit throughout the range.

 
 Rokinon > Olympus > Canon at the edge of the frame. The Olympus and Canon both have chromatic abberation that the rokinon does not. They all get pretty close, sharpness wise, around f/8. Pretty poor showing for the canon.

Rokinon > Canon > Olympus in the corners.  The Rokinon is by far the winner here and it gets pretty sharp by f/4.  The Canon lags far behind the Rokinon and the Olympus is even softer. The hierarchy holds through the entire aperture range.

Here's the bokeh ball comparison:

 
 I think the Canon has the best bokeh balls wide open.  The Olympus gets some weird outlining near the frame edges due to mechanical vignetting. It also has a ninja star shape at f/2.8.  It's not awful, but it is the clear loser in this department.

Here are some Tiki torch photos like in the other review:

 
 The background blur might be a little better than the other two, but that might just have to do with the time of day I took these pictures.  Softer light. Certainly not a very significant difference.

On top of these pictures, here are some things that might be pertinent.  The olympus f/2s have a moving element that adjusts to maintain sharpness at close focus. This lens is pretty sharp at minimum focusing distance.  I also think it might have a more "3D" rendering than the other lenses.

So what's my conclusion?  The Rokinon and Canon are better.  If you can find the Olympus for less than $200 it's a good deal. It's a decent lens.  Fun to play with.

A couple of photos:

Orchid Blossoms: Canon 5D w/ Olympus OM Zuiko 35mm f/2 @ f/2.8, minimum focus distance

And finally, the first rose of spring. @f/4

 

Spring Has Sprung

La Feliciana awakens early

     Well, It's February second, and I hate to say it, but it appears that spring has sprung. We've had incredibly warm weather for the last couple of weeks. I was wondering the yard this afternoon and low and behold, to my horror, my peach trees have broken dormancy.

     Why is this bad? Peach will lose all their flowers and/or fruit if there is a late season frost.  Here in Austin we aren't out of the woods until about March 15th, so we've still got a month and a half to go. Yikes! Fingers are crossed.

     Also, usually I wait until late February to prune.  The break in dormancy means I need to do my pruning now, and it also means I missed my dormant anti fungal spray.  I guess this year will be an experiment to see if I can get away without doing one.  I usually prefer to avoid chemicals if possible. 

Junegold saying hello to spring

   
      Homegrown peaches are the most amazing thing in the world. No kidding.  Texas is a great place to grow peaches.  I firmly believe that everyone should have a peach tree in their yard.  I have four.

     When choosing a tree for your yard, make sure and pick one that is right for your area.  http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/fruit-nut/files/2010/10/peaches.pdf  is the place to go for good peach growing info if you live in Texas.  They have a pretty comprehensive list of varieties along with chilling hours and ripening times.  You'll need to figure out what chill zone you live in a choose a variety appropriately.  Austin is in the 700 chill hour zone. If you get multiple trees, get them with staggered ripening times so that you have a longer harvest season.  Ripening times are relative compared to the ripening time of the Elberta variety.

     The four varieties that I planted are:

     Junegold   - 650 chill hours - 46 days before Elberta
     Harvester - 750 chill hours - 26 days before Elberta
     La Feliciana - 600 chill hours - 18 days before Elberta
     Redskin - 750 chill hours - 2 days before Elberta

     So in theory, my peaches ripen over a period of a month and a half (44 days to be exact) starting in June, although with the warm weather, and if there isn't a freeze, the harvest will probably start earlier.  La Felicina and Junegold, my lower chill varieties, are the two that have broken dormancy, but the Harvester and Redskin look like they aren't too far behind.

     Having a variety of trees is a good way of hedging your bets.  If there's a frost before my late chilling trees break, they should be fine, even though I might lose the fruit from the low chill trees.

     Last year was an early spring as well, but not this early.  I had a good harvest.  La Feliciana and Junegold gave the biggest and highest quality crops.  Harvester and redskin haven't hit their stride yet.  Maybe this year will be the year.

 
  

Canon 35mm f/2 Versus Rokinon 35mm f/1.4: a budget prime battle

David vs. Goliath

     It's becoming obvious to me that people like the camera bit more than the garden bit.  Maybe things will change once spring comes around.  So, without further ado, the 35mm comparison.


     I recently purchased the Rokinon(Samyang) 35mm f/1.4 UMC when I saw a deal for it online that I couldn't refuse.  $369 from Buydig.com. It's list price is $499, though you can usually get it a little cheaper than that.  Here's what you should know about it.  It's plastic, but solid and well made.  It is manual focus only.  It's huge, by far the largest lens I own.  It has a f/1.4 aperture.

     In the other corner we have the canon 35mm f/2.  I've had this one for a while, and I use it a lot on my T2i. It cost me $285 used and could be bought new for about $329 until it was recently discontinued.  It's replacement costs a paltry $849 with improved optical performance and image stabilization. The original is a fantastic almost normal lens on a crop sensor camera.  Here's what you should know.  It's plastic, light and compact.  It has autofocus and an F/2 aperture.

     Both lenses are way cheaper than you're other native mount options.  The fantastic new Sigma 35 f/1.4 will cost you about $899,  the Canon 35mm L will run you a little over $1300, and the Canon 16-35mm f/2.8 L II zoom might break the bank at $1499.  There's also the 35mm f/2 IS USM that I mentioned before.  (Bear in mind that these are prices from the time of post.)


    Here's a couple more pictures:

"My front element is bigger than yours!" -Rokinon

"You've got a big ol' badonkadonk!" Canon

     So you can probably guess that I'm going to tell you they are both good lenses and they both have a place.  Well I am.  If you need f/1.4, f/2 isn't going to do.  If you need autofocus, manual isn't gonna work.  If you want to be inconspicuous, the canon is the obvious choice.  Ok.  Enough of that.  So how do they compare?

     First up are the resolution tests.  These are not as scientifically done as they should be, obviously in places, so they shouldn't be taken as absolute.  They do generally show the differences.  I taped some Air Force 1957 optical charts in the center, at the top, and in the upper left hand corner of a crappy painting I painted.  I then shot photos at varying apertures, with the painting completely filling the frame(I didn't line everything up perfectly, as you will see.) Oh, and this was done with my T2i using live view focusing, so this is representative of an APSC sensor.  Corners will be even worse on a full frame.  My 5D doesn't do like view.  That's why I didn't use it,. Before I show you the pictures, I want to let you know the first difference.  The Rokinon has a slightly longer focal length than the Canon.  I had to move the tripod back a bit.

 

    You can see that the canon's fairly sharp in the center and loses sharpness towards the edge and corners at all apertures.  It vignettes pretty heavily and has some pretty intense purple fringing at wide apertures. 

     The Rokinon is pretty weak at f/1.4, but certainly sharpens up nicely.  There is much less loss of sharpness toward the corners.  It also seems to have less purple fringing.

Here are the comparison photos:

 

     The Canon looks like it might be a little sharper at f/2 than the Rokinon, but it has way more purple fringing.  They both sharpen up nicely by f/2.8.  It looks like they both are starting to lose a little sharpness by f/8.

     The Rokinon wins hands down here.  The canon doesn't ever catch up.

 

     Once again the Rokinon wins and the Canon never catches up.  The Canon also appears to vignette more prominently. 

Now sharpness isn't everything.  How 'bout them bokeh balls?  These were shot on the full frame 5D, hand held.  Once again, not scientific.

     I think they are both pretty decent.  They both cat's eye a bit wide open.  You can see a little bit of spirally funky texture on the Rokinon, but it's pretty subtle.  The Canon is pretty smooth across the range.  Octagons vs. Pentagons.  I think octagons win, but it's not a huge win.

Following are some more bokeh comparisons from the backyard during the day.  Everyone says the canon has nasty bokeh when it comes to busy backgrounds.   

Rokinon f/1.4:

Canon f/2:

Rokinon f/2:

Canon f/2.8:

Rokinon f/2.8:

Canon f/4:

Rokinon f/4:

     I think the Rokinon might have the edge here, especially when stopped down.  Neither are stellar though, and I think they both look better wide open.  Obviously the exposures aren't perfectly matched.  The two lenses meter a bit differently on the 5D.

Here is busy background when focusing on an up close object.  Exposed for the background, so the tiki torch is blown out.  That's what happens when you shoot during the day.  I wanted you to see the background.

Rokinon f/1.4:

Canon f/2:

Rokinon f/2:

Canon f/2.8:

Rokinon f/2.8:

Canon f/4:

Rokinon f/4:

    Well, I don't know.  Neither are great, but I've seen far worse.  The Canon does seem to be a little warmer, though.

   I guess the proof is the the pudding though.  In regular use, it's obvious to me that the Rokinon is the better lens.  It just sharper, and in real world use, the bokeh feels creamier.  It just seems to be a smoother lens.  Check out the following photos and decide for yourself.  Both are a good alternative to the more expensive options.  The Rokinon is pretty amazing for the price, if you can handle the manual focus.  The canon is a perfect small normal lens for my T2i.

These pictures are all shot on the 5D at iso 400.  Aperture and shutterspeed vary.

Canon:

Rokinon: