Frozen Stratford

[pdk42]

All with E-M1ii and Panasonic 8-18.


Holy Trinity Church and River Avon, Stratford by Paul Kaye, on Flickr



Tramway Bridge Stratford in Winter by Paul Kaye, on Flickr



Figures on The Tramway Bridge, Stratford by Paul Kaye, on Flickr



Muted by Paul Kaye, on Flickr



Holy Trinity Church, Stratford by Paul Kaye, on Flickr




Frozen Lock by Paul Kaye, on Flickr



The Bridge at Stratford upon Avon by Paul Kaye, on Flickr

[Zuiko]

Re: Frozen Stratford

That 8-18mm is proving quite a lens and this set proves you don't always need sunshine to get good landscape photographs.

[OM USer]

Re: Frozen Stratford

Good stuff; really like the first.

[Beagletorque]

Re: Frozen Stratford

ND sans tripod?

[pdk42]

Re: Frozen Stratford

ND sans tripod?

Yes, indeed - sans tri-pied! I find that with the E-M1ii and the 12-100 I can reliably get 4-8s exposures sharp. It's less easy with the 8-18 though - maybe only 2s or so. Still - it's pretty amazing really.

Interestingly though, I have found an odd effect with the 8-18 that doesn't seem to happen with the 12-100. If I hand-hold the 12-100 for a multi-second exposure then I find that either it's all sharp or there's some motion blur. On the 8-18 though I've noticed that I get quite a few shots where the centre is tack sharp but the edges get a little blurred. With shorter exposures, or with a tripod on long exposure, this doesn't happen so it's clearly an IBIS artefact. I'm guessing it's some skew caused by the IBIS moving at right angles to the sensor plane and so throwing off the focus at the edges.

Maybe the fact that the 12-100 has its own IBIS is what stopping it on that lens. I must try with some other non-IS equipped lenses. I didn't notice this with the 7-14 though, so maybe it's something specific to that lens.

[drmarkf]

Re: Frozen Stratford

I really love the glow in the 'Muted' one, but all are excellent.

Interesting what you say about the possible IBIS artefacts, because I've got one or two similar-sounding issues with some I took in Grenada with the 12-100.

For example, a couple of short bursts of street shots at full aperture, without significant panning and at decent shutter speeds (between 320th and 1600th) and focal length (26 and 28mm), where one corner of the frame looks surprisingly defocused to me. This isn't a lens decentering issue since it's different corners in the two series. It's just part of the fairly flat background buildings that are de-focused, where a single figure is walking across the mid-ground of the frame and is in perfect focus, and the rest of the background buildings are as sharp as one would expect.

I've still got some more images to process so I'll see if I can find any more issues, and will post them to see what people think. Mostly I used the Pan-Leica 15 f1.7 for street shooting there, and I've reviewed all those and can't find any further examples.

[Guest]

Re: Frozen Stratford

I have never considered the idea of an IBIS artifact until I read Paul's post, but I wonder if it might explain some things I have noticed with my PL 8-18, which is normally sharp, but occasionally produces blurry edges. The first time this happened it worried me enough to lead me to check for decentring (using Roger Cicala's method) but that was not the cause. I wonder if this lens is in some way prone to this: it might explain some of the adverse comments and claims of decentring that were made in the early days after release. I remember a while back reading a reference to a German forum where there was a discussion about suspected focusing problems with the PL 8-18, but as my German is at the "holiday-ordering-beer-and-asking-directions" level I never followed the link and now cannot remember where it was. In any case it might have concerned field curvature, rather than the problem at issue here.

Six years ago I had a Pentax K-5 with a Tamron 17-50 f2.8 lens which generally produced excellent results, but which occasionally produced blurry patches at the edge of frames. As the K-5 had similar IBIS to the OM-D range I am now wondering if that may have been the cause.

David

[pdk42]

Re: Frozen Stratford

Over my time with Olympus m43 I've noticed odd sharpness issues across the frame from time to time. It's not lens decentering since it tends to move around and it's intermittent. My guess is that skew perpendicular to the sensor plane can sometimes get things wrong and in essence move the sensor out of the in-focus plane of the lens.

The 8-18 seems to be more sensitive than other lenses though.

[Bikie John]

Re: Frozen Stratford

If the problem is with the IS, it makes sense that it would show up more with shorter focal lengths. We are used to the idea of having more in focus in front of the camera with wide angles, this is depth of field. The payback for this is that tolerance behind the camera becomes less, this is sometimes called depth of focus. It means that the positioning of the sensor becomes more critical as the focal length gets shorter.

Of course there may other factors at play here as well.

John

[alfbranch]

Re: Frozen Stratford

Nice work Paul the frozen lock is my fave follows by the river reflections.


Sent from my SM-T580 using Tapatalk

[James]

Re: Frozen Stratford

Wonderful photos Paul, particularly like the lock but they're all very good.

[raichea]

Re: Frozen Stratford

All nice, Paul. I know Stratford reasonably well having spent many summer days there in my youth, but haven't been back for quite some time.

My eye keeps being drawn back to "Muted"... really good.