Gear News and Reviews

I’ve just picked up a Leica X1. Stay tuned for an unboxing video and first impressions.

I’ve been scouring the internet the last few days looking for reviews and other information regarding Leica’s new X1. I thought it might be useful to start gathering these items in one place. If you have something new you’d like to add let me know. To kick it off, here we:

Luminous Landscape – Field Review “Tested and Recommended”
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/x1-field.shtml

Dpreview – Review “Recommended”  http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/leicax1/

Steve Huff Photo – Hands on Review “…the X1 just has something about its quality that sticks with me…”  http://www.stevehuffphoto.com/2010/01/05/the-leica-x1-digital-camera-review/

Photography Bay – Hands on Review “This will suit the needs of a photographer very well.”  http://www.photographybay.com/2009/10/26/leica-x1-hands-on-review/

PhotoRadar – Leica X1 Review “5/5 Stars”
http://www.photoradar.com/reviews/product/leica-x1-review

I recently purchased the 45mm macro lens for use with the E-P2 and GH1. I’ve never owned a true 1:1 macro lens before, but have some experience using extension tubes with various Canon lenses. Please keep in mind that this is the first macro scene I’ve shot. It’s easy to say that with more experience, you’re likely to get more out of the lens than what you see in these initial samples.

I’ll wait a few more weeks before commenting on the optical qualities of the lens, however I’ve had enough experience with it to share some other observations.  The build quality is very high, though not as high as some of Canon’s L lenses it is certainly a step above most consumer lenses that I’ve handled.  One outstanding feature of this lens is the relatively large manual focus ring.  The manual focus ring occupies just under half of the entire lens’ length and has silky smooth movement.  It’s important to note that it is a focus by wire system and does not physically move the internal focusing mechanisms.  For manual focusing this macro lens is by far the easiest to use compared to the other m4/3 lenses I’ve used.

The MEGA OIS system seems to lag a little behind the one used in the 14-140mm lens, but I have no way of proving this, it’s just based on my experience with the two lenses.  Esthetically speaking it is a great looking lens.  The proportions when mounted to the GH1 or E-P2 are perfect.  It looks right at home on these bodies.  The square lens hood is good looking, although I’m not sure how much more/less effective it is compared to a standard round or pedal shaped hood.

The setup was strait forward, two inexpensive modeling lights, a Joby Gorillapod SLR Zoom and a few household objects. The samples were shot in raw, custom white balanced, using a 10 second timer with various aperture values. Raw files were converted and processed in Adobe Lightroom V2.6 with ACR 5.6.

Below you’ll find a few full sized samples and crops.

Panasonic GH1, Leica DG Macro-Elmarit 45mm, f/5.6, 1.3s, ISO100

In this crop you'll see just how shallow the dof can be even at f/5.6.

GH1, Leica DG Macro-Elmarit 45mm, f/13, 1/25s, ISO100

Crop from above file.

Just how big, or small rather is the Canon S90? Here it is compared to the already small Olympus E-P2.  While there are some cameras out there that claim to be pocketable and aren’t even close unless you are wearing some kind of large pocketed cargo pants, this Canon S90 truly is made for the pocket.

Front view of E-P2 with Panasonic Lumix 7-14mm and the Canon S90 with lens retracted.

Same two cameras, this time with the Canon S90 lens extended.

Rear view of E-P2 and S90.

Another rear view of these two cameras.

Side view with the S90's lens extended.

Canon S90 size compared with iPhone 3Gs.

The Canon S90 is about twice the thickness of the iPhone 3Gs.

I’ve had several comments and questions from friends and family about the format change from a full frame DSLR to the Micro Four Thirds. My previous gear included a Canon 5D Mark II and a compliment of fast “L” primes and “L” zooms. It was a lens selection that I had been working towards for many years and they served me quite well. I was never a professional by the dictionary’s terms, as it wasn’t my main source of income. However, shooting with this gear did help offset the cost of most of it. Money came in from a variety of ways including portrait work, stock work and the dreaded event shoots (corporate dinners, awards ceremonies…) I was never a fan of event shooting, but it did help me thoroughly learn my gear inside and out since there’s NO down time.

I recently sold my entire DSLR system in favor of a Panasonic Lumix GH1 and Olympus E-P2. There were several months of overlap to make sure I was making the right choice. The selling of all my gear raised many questions from family, friends and an assortment of curious friends from various photography forums.

The history leading up to this format change had been several years in the making. I had been a Canon shooter for no other reason than my Dad was a Canon shooter. I could have just as easily been a Nikon or Olympus shooter. I had no particular allegiance to a system, except economics. Once you’re invested in a certain lens mount, then that pretty much dictates your camera bodies. Digitally speaking I started with the now ancient Canon D30, no that’s not a typo I didn’t mean the 30D. The Canon D30 was a 3.1MP, APS-C, DSLR introduced in 2000. It was a revolutionary body because it finally brought acceptable image quality to a digital format and was reasonably priced. It also accepted Canon’s huge inventory of EF mount lenses. Additionally, it came in the familiar SLR format that so many film shooters were already familiar with.

I plugged along shooting happily for several years, eventually upgrading to the 20D, 5D ‘classic’ and finally the 5D Mark II. Along side all of those DSLRs were a wide assortment of point and shoots, from Olympus, Canon, Panasonic, Ricoh, Fuji… All of these compacts play an important role in my decision to make the format change. The big gear was always available. I used it for all my paid work and most of my travel photography. I wouldn’t say that it was a burden to carry all that gear but it was a lot of work. My typical bag might include the 5D, 16-35 f/2.8L II, 85mm f/1.2L II, 135mm f/2L and the wonderful little 50mm f/1.4. In between all this gear would be a small point and shoot, but it never delivered the image quality that I wanted, namely high ISO capability.

A few months ago I gave up paid work and wanted to only shoot for personal satisfaction and the occasional stock work. Although I was never a full-time photographer I started to see weekends filling up. I couldn’t see any reason to grab the 5D over the GH1 or E-P2 anymore. All those compacts I mentioned earlier were nearly perfect in form factor, but didn’t give me the IQ I wanted. The DSLRs had the IQ, but didn’t have the form factor going for it. When the mirrorless Micro Four Thirds systems were introduced by Panasonic and Olympus I was interested. I shrugged it off for a while, but then started seeing more examples of it popping up around the Internet. I eventually saw that it offered the potential to meet the form factor AND IQ requirements I had. I ended up purchasing the GH1, used it for about a month and knew that there was a lot of potential for the m4/3 format. I quickly added the Olympus E-P2 and have never looked back.

If there were a drawback to the m4/3 format it would be in the lack of fast primes and zooms. With one exception, the outstanding Panasonic 20mm f/1.7, there are few other choices at this time for a fast prime. This can be overlooked if you have some patience since the system is still in its infancy. Already, Panasonic has at least one other fast prime in the pipeline, a 14mm f/2.8.

In the end it came down to a combination of size and image quality. Even though they are just slightly larger than most compacts these m4/3 bodies are delivering nearly the same results as many APS-C sensor cameras. These two factors led me to the sale of all my DSLR equipment in favor of a new format, the Micro Four Thirds format.

My shelf of large DSLR gear and lenses is now empty; my large camera bags that carried all that gear is next to go. I’ve whittled down my system to a small selection of m4/3 bodies and lenses that fit my shooting style and meets my image quality requirements. Now, I actually find myself bringing out my gear much more often, because they are not much bigger than the point and shoots I used to carry when I didn’t want the big gear.

Image quality and compact size…a perfect combination.

A few days ago I posted some high ISO samples from the Panasonic Lumix GH1 and the Olympus E-P2 and thought that a few sample from the Canon S90 might be interesting to add to the mix.  The following samples were taken on a tripod under the same lighting conditions as the GH1 and E-P2.  Camera settings: Aperture Priority, f/5.6, large Jpg, iContrast turned off.

Canon S90 ISO800

Canon S90 ISO1600

Canon S90 ISO3200

Open up the GH1, E-P2 and S90 ISO1600 photos and take a look at the images. I have to say I’m really impressed with the S90’s results. Clearly, Canon had low light capabilities in mind when they designed the S90. Having a truly pocketable camera with a lens that starts at f/2, has image stabilization and great noise handling is a recipe for success.

Not long ago Olympus brought us the Olympus E-P1 Micro Four Thirds camera. Not long after the E-P1 was released, the lightly massaged E-P2 was announced. Now we get this little teaser from Olympus:

Could this be a new Micro Four Thirds fixed lens camera?

No release date on this camera, but there are a few things visible in this teaser photo worth mentioning.  Clearly there’s a hot-shoe above the lens and the control dial has been moved from the left side of the camera to the right side.  And if you look closely, just to the right of the hot-shoe, you’ll notice some small lines where a pop-up flash could be placed.  A pop-up flash would be a welcome addition to many E-P1 and E-P2 owners out there.

I’ve been watching the Eye-Fi SD cards for a couple of years now and haven’t felt inclined to purchase until I came across the information about the soon-to-be-released Eye-Fi Pro X2. This card will be the first of their cards to meet Class 6 specifications.

From the Eye-Fi site:

Eye-Fi Pro X2: the most powerful memory card ever.

Class 6 read & write speeds for high performance shooting. The power of 802.11n wireless uploads from your camera to your computer & favorite sharing site. And that’s just the beginning.

8GB, Class 6, Wireless N, Geotagging...I'm interested

I’ve owned a few different noise canceling/isolating headphones and earphones in the past, a set of Bose QuietComfort 2s, a pair of Ultimate Ears SuperFi 5pros and now the Bose QC15s.

I wanted to hold off on this review until I had racked up a few dozen hours with the QC15s. Now that I’ve had enough time with them it’s time for the final verdict.

Noise canceling headphones come in many shapes, sizes and price these days, so do your research. Decide if you want passive or active noise canceling, on ear, in ear or over ear and then your price limits.

A Little History
Just before getting these QC15s I had relied on my Ultimate Ears SuperFi 5Pro Noise Isolating earphones to get me through long flights, until I decided to replace them with the QC15s. The decision to replace them was not based on sound quality though, because they sound fantastic. The decision was more based on long-term comfort. Since we live overseas, most of our flights are 10-15 hours in length and by the end of those journeys my ear canals were starting to get sore. That never happened with the QC2s, but I wasn’t too impressed with the sound quality which lead me to the UEs.

Now that Bose has updated their Quiet Comfort line I thought it was time to give them another try, especially since I had been reading about how significantly they had increased the level of noise suppression. It was also good news to hear how they had remedied the sound quality. The QC2s had lows that were overpowering the already weak mids and highs. Fortunately though, Bose did not touch the near perfect design.

Comfort
Clearly when you are shopping for headphones in the $300 range you’d expect excellent sound quality, but just as important to the traveler is long term comfort which unfortunately can’t be experienced while just trying them on in the store for 3-5 minutes. For this, you’ll just have to trust me; the QC15s are just as comfortable to wear as the QC2s. After 32 hours of flying on a recent trip I did not experience any soreness on or around my ears. For this reason alone the Bose are worth the price.

Noise Canceling
The passive noise canceling of the Ulitmate Ears was very good, but at a cost of comfort from having the foam inserts sitting in your ear canal for so long. Bose uses active noise canceling to overcome the drone of jet engines, air conditioners, fans, road noise, etc. When listening to the QC2s and the QC15s back to back the difference in noise suppression was stunning, the QC15s were that much better.

Once the plastic packing is removed there is plenty of room to throw in a spare battery, your iPhone, Zune, iPod...

Battery Life
The battery is supposed to last about 35 hours, and I have no reason to doubt that. I didn’t time the amount of use, but the AAA battery easily lasted the 32+ hours of flying. It should be noted that when your battery dies so does your music. So, since there is plenty of room inside the headphone case you might as well throw in a spare AAA battery.

Sound Quality
I’ll say this up front, I love my music and high quality sound, but I’m not an audiophile in the purest sense of the word. No, I don’t own $1000 power cords for my audio gear, but that doesn’t mean I love my music any less. Ok, on to the sound quality of the QC15s. The QC2s were always good enough to make me happy, but I did notice the overpowering bass and the lack of mids and highs. The QC15s have a much more balanced sound. Sufficient bass for the times I’m listening to Thievery Corporation and delicate enough for Jeff Buckley’s vocals.

Drawbacks
One of the best benefits of the Ultimate Ears was their diminutive size. They easily packed up into a bag half the size of a deck of cards, while the Bose are considerably larger. The price is another factor you’ll need to consider. At $300 they aren’t the cheapest option so you’ll have to decide what’s your comfort worth.

Final Verdict
Our household now has two pair of Bose QuietComfort 15s and we wouldn’t ever think about packing for a flight without them.

GNAR Rating 5-Stars