Incidentally, I recently purchased an Olympus E-P2 and have found that my volume of street photography has skyrocketed. The ease of shooting from the hip (due to autofocus, no doubt) is amazing and the size of the camera is just right. While I find that the camera has that distinct digicam shutter sound, unlike my Leica M3, people don’t seem to notice if you aren’t holding the camera out in front of your face.

At first I was planning to use just my Leica glass with an adapter. But after trying both the adapted M-mount lenses and the native MFT Olympus glass, I’m not really seeing any difference, unless I’m trying to shoot wide open for OOF backgrounds. I’m starting to wonder how much use my true rangefinders will see anymore.

Thanks,
Gus

That’s a good point James but I wonder if this happens only with the MFT lenses by Panasonic, Olympus and Leica? How about if you’re using Leica M lenses with an adapter? I don’t yet have a G1 but am considering it and am trying to learn all I can beforehand. I plan to use M lenses mostly if I decide to get a G1.

Thanks,
Gus

I have to wonder if you were to pull the anti-aliasing filter from the G1 whether you would see that it is at least a partial cause of diffusing (defocussing) the circle of confusion in a gradient as you move center to edge.

The image pases into the anti-aliasing filter at an angle causing a cascade of light within the depth of the filter. This introduces more off-axis radial scatter than the symmetrical scatter of the perpendicular image forming rays in the center of the image.

I have M and R lenses, a Liecaflex SL-Mot and M-3 + 35mm Summilux W Frogeyes. I always liked the larger mag of the M-3 finder over the M-2,M-4 etc..

I use the R lenses w/adapter on my Canon 5D with no visible image defects in 17×26″ prints. (Canon IPF5000 printer)

Here is a series of images from a recent trip to Taiwan taken with the Leica D-Lux4.

Great articles, keep it up!

Eric

well perhaps its because of the incident angle of the summilux? If you try something with a longer flange distance it might be better. I found that FD lenses and OM lenses work nicely on the G1 … better than the native lenses if you ask me.

I’ve put up a lot on my blog about this (listed above)

A friend of mine who was a photographer went out on day-old ice just before Christmas. Unfortunately he was too focused on taking the perfect picture of the sunset and fell through the ice.
The Police found him in the hole in the ice for five hours later. It was too late.

His and your story may serve as a wake-up call for us. It’s good to be alert to the dangers that surround us photographers.

My warm greetings!
/ Lars
Ostersund, Sweden

Peter

Have a wonderful summer!

/Lars
Sweden

I have been reading a lot about G1, your experiences of using it are very interesting and shifts me more on to the point of buying it, but what still makes me uncertain is the image quality, which appears to be something coming from tiny censored point and shoots, even though pictures in dpreview showed excellent image quality no worse than in common DSLRs. Auto focus responsibility is another matter bringing plenty of uncertainty, yet it is said to be about similar with common DSLRs. And what about the future? I want G1 and that 17mm 1.7 prime lense from Panasonic, and I want to freaking use that lense for years and not see Panasonic calling it quits with MFT cameras. So, dunno. Life feels so hard at times for a man who lives in consumerists world.

Wahyu: I’m very glad to see another Micro Four Thirds camera appear on the market. More cameras = more development = better cameras = better lens support. That said, the form factor of the E-P1 doesn’t appeal to me, personally. Aesthetically, I very much like the appearance of the Olympus (much more than the G1) but, functionally, the G1 does more of what I need. Specifically, I need a street camera that can be zone focused, and I need a viewfinder. Zone focusing with the E-P1, like the G1, can be accomplished by mounting M-mount lenses. Viewfinders are another story. The G1 has one. The E-P1 doesn’t. I find I simply cannot use a camera that has only a non-articulating LCD on its back panel. It’s a fine form factor for the under-40 crowd. But, if you’re over 40, it can be difficult to see the rear panel LCD well enough — particularly if you’re using it to focus manual, M-mount lenses. I could, of course, mount an optical viewfinder on the E-P1, but external viewfinders only let you frame a shot, not focus it. To focus I would need to use the rear-panel LCD. That means I would need to hold the camera at arm’s length to focus. Once focused, I couldn’t move the camera back to my eye because that would change the focus. That would necessitate moving my body toward the camera, so I could frame the shot through the external viewfinder. I’d look like a guy that was dancing on the street with his camera. Inevitably, the cops would haul me in, and send me to the psych ward. Like I said, I hope the Olympus does very well, and that it entices more people into Micro Four Thirds. Different people need and want different types of cameras, and the E-P1 is certainly different from the G1 — it’s just not right for me, my eyes, or my methodologies.