yehuda
Mu-43 Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 14, 2013
- Messages
- 200
Hi.
Just received the Olympus 9mm BCL fisheye yesterday.
Took it out to a short test against the Rokinon 7.5mm.
Both shot with the same camera (G5),
the exact same settings (ISO 160, F8, focused at infinity, same object at the center of the frame),
the same RAW processing in LR5.
The same sharpening was applied to all images, I also created an upsized version of the Rokinon files in order to better compare with the 9mm in terms of FOV (as the 7.5mm is a true 180 degree, vs. the 140 degree of the 9mm BCL). The zoomed-in image was sharpened with the same PS action *after* enlarging it by 130% (and cropping to the same file size).
All images were downsized to width of 3000px due to size limitations in uploading to mu-43.
The results? the Rokinon was MUCH better than I expected (even thought F8 is very far from its sweet spot at F4). In the center the difference is quite noticeable, at the edges - embarrassingly so (the BLC looks VERY bad at the edges).
The images (I hope they remain in order) show:
1. Oly 9mm
2. Rokinon 7.5mm
3. Rokinon 7.5mm enlarged and cropped
The side by side crops are 100% pixel size (no resizing) with the Oly 9mm on the left, the zoomed-in-and-cropped Rokinon on the right.
I hope this comparison is beneficial to you. I googled the lens quite a bit before buying it and have not seen such a comparison done before.
Had I seen such results I would probably not have bought the BCL as it looks very bad.
Trust me - we're talking bad in any measure. This is not pixel-peeping here. The soft corners are evident even when viewing on your regular 1080p monitor.
This is something your average non-photog Joe will notice when viewing the image on a good quality good sized smartphone.
IMO Robin Wong gave an extremely wrong impression of the lens in his mini review of the 9mm BCL.
Do I regret buying the 9mm BCL? I'm not sure. Yes - it's very very poor when comparing with the Rokinon (which is one of the best, if not best fisheye for any camera format) but the BLC is something you'll never give a second thought about taking with you (extremely small and light). But this comes in the cost of extremely bad optics.
Only time will tell what actual use it'll get by me.
Just received the Olympus 9mm BCL fisheye yesterday.
Took it out to a short test against the Rokinon 7.5mm.
Both shot with the same camera (G5),
the exact same settings (ISO 160, F8, focused at infinity, same object at the center of the frame),
the same RAW processing in LR5.
The same sharpening was applied to all images, I also created an upsized version of the Rokinon files in order to better compare with the 9mm in terms of FOV (as the 7.5mm is a true 180 degree, vs. the 140 degree of the 9mm BCL). The zoomed-in image was sharpened with the same PS action *after* enlarging it by 130% (and cropping to the same file size).
All images were downsized to width of 3000px due to size limitations in uploading to mu-43.
The results? the Rokinon was MUCH better than I expected (even thought F8 is very far from its sweet spot at F4). In the center the difference is quite noticeable, at the edges - embarrassingly so (the BLC looks VERY bad at the edges).
The images (I hope they remain in order) show:
1. Oly 9mm
2. Rokinon 7.5mm
3. Rokinon 7.5mm enlarged and cropped
The side by side crops are 100% pixel size (no resizing) with the Oly 9mm on the left, the zoomed-in-and-cropped Rokinon on the right.
I hope this comparison is beneficial to you. I googled the lens quite a bit before buying it and have not seen such a comparison done before.
Had I seen such results I would probably not have bought the BCL as it looks very bad.
Trust me - we're talking bad in any measure. This is not pixel-peeping here. The soft corners are evident even when viewing on your regular 1080p monitor.
This is something your average non-photog Joe will notice when viewing the image on a good quality good sized smartphone.
IMO Robin Wong gave an extremely wrong impression of the lens in his mini review of the 9mm BCL.
Do I regret buying the 9mm BCL? I'm not sure. Yes - it's very very poor when comparing with the Rokinon (which is one of the best, if not best fisheye for any camera format) but the BLC is something you'll never give a second thought about taking with you (extremely small and light). But this comes in the cost of extremely bad optics.
Only time will tell what actual use it'll get by me.
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