The big question - get a 12-60mm and sell on the 11-22mm and 14-54mm...
Posted 12-09-2007 at 11:55 AM by Paul Shields
This is the conundrum I'm faced with now, after picking up a nice 12-60mm from my usual grey market US importer.
I've always liked the 11-22mm as it's a fairly tight zoom range so you always know what you're going to get with it. It's also very sharp and has little pin or barrel distortion to comment on. However, the new 12-60mm does have a lot of nice features that overlap somewhat with the 11-22mm, and especially with the 14-54mm. On the E-3 it's a revelation in how quickly it locks on to a subject, regardless of light availability. It's also a very useful length - almost overlapping the 11-22m and extending beyond the 14-54mm. With pretty good close-up capability too it does pose a big question to those like me who already have the other two lenses.
I did some quick measurements to determine distortion. For this I used the 12-60mm at 12mm, the 11-22mm at 12mm and the 7-14mm at 12mm. All were mounted on the E-3.
These need to be taken with the proviso that the prints were only on A4, so the close focusing of the lens could introduce a bit of macro distortion.
Regardless of that though, as each lens would suffer similarly from the close focusing it should show relative performance for each lens. I also took some test shots of an ISO 12233 chart to see if resolution is any different between the three lenses. All were taken at f/7.1 in RAW and the following are 100% crops. I used Live View to manually focus in each case.
12-60mm @ 12mm
11-22mm @ 12mm
7-14mm @ 12mm
Resolution tests - 12-60mm / 11-22mm / 7-14mm
Conclusions? Well, I think the 7-14mm covers the 12mm end quite well, and the 12-60mm is not particularly stellar here (at least as far as pincushion and barrel distortion goes). Most zooms that cover such a range would also show some compromises, so it's not something that should be seen as unusual.
Selling on the 11-22mm and 14-54mm seems like a pretty sensible thing if you already have the 7-14mm. Certainly as far as sharpness goes the 12-60mm can more than hold it's own at 12mm. YMMV of course...
.
I've always liked the 11-22mm as it's a fairly tight zoom range so you always know what you're going to get with it. It's also very sharp and has little pin or barrel distortion to comment on. However, the new 12-60mm does have a lot of nice features that overlap somewhat with the 11-22mm, and especially with the 14-54mm. On the E-3 it's a revelation in how quickly it locks on to a subject, regardless of light availability. It's also a very useful length - almost overlapping the 11-22m and extending beyond the 14-54mm. With pretty good close-up capability too it does pose a big question to those like me who already have the other two lenses.
I did some quick measurements to determine distortion. For this I used the 12-60mm at 12mm, the 11-22mm at 12mm and the 7-14mm at 12mm. All were mounted on the E-3.
These need to be taken with the proviso that the prints were only on A4, so the close focusing of the lens could introduce a bit of macro distortion.
Regardless of that though, as each lens would suffer similarly from the close focusing it should show relative performance for each lens. I also took some test shots of an ISO 12233 chart to see if resolution is any different between the three lenses. All were taken at f/7.1 in RAW and the following are 100% crops. I used Live View to manually focus in each case.
12-60mm @ 12mm
11-22mm @ 12mm
7-14mm @ 12mm
Resolution tests - 12-60mm / 11-22mm / 7-14mm
Conclusions? Well, I think the 7-14mm covers the 12mm end quite well, and the 12-60mm is not particularly stellar here (at least as far as pincushion and barrel distortion goes). Most zooms that cover such a range would also show some compromises, so it's not something that should be seen as unusual.
Selling on the 11-22mm and 14-54mm seems like a pretty sensible thing if you already have the 7-14mm. Certainly as far as sharpness goes the 12-60mm can more than hold it's own at 12mm. YMMV of course...
.
Total Comments 1
Comments
-
You've got the best blog on photocamel.Posted 01-18-2008 at 06:04 PM by JDArt
Total Trackbacks 0
