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Panasonic S 85mm f/1.8

Jayneboo said:
I have the 85 1.8 and the little Sigma 90, hard to choose which I like best, both being pretty light and compact, Sigma has the slight advantage for weight but the Pan wins for speed. ;)
These from the CL:
Click to expand...

Wonderful images, Jayne!
 
Tried the 85mm for astro for the first time last week and have to say I like it. Unfortunately, the light pollution was very high in that location so I had to colour things slightly differently in post, but I was positively surprised and will definitely use it again. It's made out of a foreground and one sky photo, both 60s, f2.2, foreground at ISO800 (could have been 640) and sky on a tracker at ISO640.

PANA0664-Edit-1 copy_2048x2560_U_100_Original ratio.jpg
 
Some portraits of my daughter. Shot at f 2.2-2.5. I've happened to see that this lens loses a lot of contrast when shot wide opened so I prefer to close it's aperture a bit.







 
Snowcat said:
I've happened to see that this lens loses a lot of contrast when shot wide opened so I prefer to close it's aperture a bit.
Click to expand...
Maybe if you wrote something like that 25-30 years ago, or in the era of analogue film usage.
With the equipment and lenses used in that time, I could imagine it.

However today's quality of lenses, digital camera output is so much higher, in combination with good processing tools available,
that any contrast (within certain limits) and tonal scale can be generated.

You are doing yourself a disservice if you do not use the maximum full opening of a lens only "because of a lowered standard contrast".
Just choose some other base settings by post processing.

Lumix 85mm - wide open F1.8
(Had to lower contrast in post processing stage) - natural light / sun coming in by a window.

P1012901_1080px.jpg


Lumix 85mm - wide open F1.8
Shadow / dark areas in the face brightened with a fold-out reflection screen - silver.
(Held up by a girl-friend of the model). Catching sunlight from the back.
By processing still I had to lower the contrast by brighten up dark areas, and lower down highlights (hair).
Model: Skating hall employee. (That's why she is wearing just some ordinary clothes and shoes :cool: ).

P1013002_1-prb_pp_600px.jpg


Lumix 85mm - "by accident" just a tiny bit closed F2.0
Shadow brightened with a fold-out reflection screen - silver
(Just the other way round by the model above). Catching sunlight from the back.
Model: Employee healthcare for elderly

P1013124_4_pp-3_pp-(+hair)_600px.jpg



Lumix 85mm - aperture closed to F2.5 to have just a tiny bit more DOF (eyes obliquely to the camera)
Natural light (from the north) coming in by a window - model in front of a wall in the living room.
Model: Employee organisation for nature (landscape - soil - forest).
But educated as an industrial designer - making of building materials from waste. (Recycling).

P1012551-3_pp_600px.jpg


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Babylonia said:
However today's quality of lenses, digital camera output is so much higher, in combination with good processing tools available,
that any contrast (within certain limits) and tonal scale can be generated.
Click to expand...
Yes you're right, that lack of contrast can be postprocessed quite successfully. I did this on many shots. Or it can be compensated like you did with a reflector. However, I see this as a negative thing. For example, Sigma 85/1.4 Art does not have this - it gives great contrast right from 1.4. But it's heavier or course, the optical scheme is much more complicated...
 
Snowcat said:
....Or it can be compensated like you did with a reflector.
Click to expand...
Compensating by reflection screen is just to "lower" light contrast, not to increase contrast. So just the opposite.
I have two Sigma lenses as well. And yes e.g. the Sigma 50mm/F1.4 is more "punchy", has another rendering style than the Lumix lenses.
But is more about micro contrast / sharpness. Than light / dark contrast.

But whether you find it negative or positive is simply a matter of taste and habit, just the first starting point to begin and are familiar with.
One could also interpret that difference in rendering as "negative" in the way Sigma lenses behave?
At least when doing portraiture, I have to use post processing settings to get rid of the very "harsh" rendering of the Sigma lenses.
Far more compensating than the Lumix lenses. But OK, it can be done.

E.g. "Matt Osborne" - Leica man, a well-known English model photographer. Doesn't want to use Sigma lenses at all by that rendering.
So he has just another "starting" point.

OUCH! How Sharp Is TOO Sharp? | Sigma 35mm f2 DG DN (Leica L) --- YouTube video

All brands of lenses, optical designers of these lenses have a different view and philosophy in imaging.
Whether you are using Leica, Panasonic, Nikon, Canon, Zeiss, Sigma, Samyang, and whatever other lenses.
The rendering and "taste" is "different" for all of them.

By the sake of using different lenses,
you have to compensate the rendering in one way or another, to bring character together and personal preferences.
Luckily we have so much and wide available digital tools for it today, we can do "all that" by post processing.
And can use lenses from any brand and use it for all kind of jobs.

That is different for about 40 years ago, doing photography and using film only in those days.
I borrowed a Hasselblad with Zeiss lenses to do a job for imaging indoor photography for a kind of big high tech interactive museum.
The rendering of these Zeiss lenses however gave me difficult rendered high contrast images I didn't like.
Difficult for lithography too, for printing catalogues of this high tech museum.

Not finished the job than. (But didn't want to borrow the Hasselblad longer).
I bought a Mamiya RB67 camera and lenses. And went further to finish the job.
The result for this indoor pictures was so much more better in fine gentle light /dark areas and manageable contrast.
That I rephotographed all previously recorded images done with the Hasselblad and Zeiss lenses.

Where those Zeiss lenses bad?? Not by the idea of many photographers in these days.
But for me, it didn't fit for the jobs I was doing with it.
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So this turned up in the mail tonight. Lol. Another sale price I couldn't resist. I passed on one the day before for $630 Australian I think it was, sold by Amazon US, this popped up for $749 Australian, pretty sure it's local stock sold as it turned up in 2 days from an Australian seller, I think I'm going to really like it

53708106452_5ab38ad1ff_h.jpg
240509-P1002691 by Markus Welder, on Flickr
 
It was basically dark when it (the lens) arrived, not the best time to try it out, but I was curious as to the drop off in contrast wide open that has been talked about here. I couldn't see it myself, shot in aperture mode, exact same settings used in the raw converter, just bumped the shadows a tad. WB is slightly different but who knows what weird lighting is in the car park light poles?
Couple of shots, one wide open, the other @ f2.5. I left the fog/running lights on to try & make conditions a bit worse, all I can see is the aperture blades are starting to make their presence known in the f2.5 shot. Focus point on the number plate. Pretty happy with it myself. Oh, IBIS seems to work pretty good too :)

53709477705_bf681a12da_h.jpg
240509P1002686 by Markus Welder, on Flickr

53709050461_940a22f5cc_h.jpg
240509-P1002687 by Markus Welder, on Flickr
 
Well done, on both the photos and the bargain price for the lens.

How do you keep finding these bargains??
 
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