Amin
Hall of Famer
Having looked at the performance of the Samsung EX1 versus that of the Panasonic LX3 at wide angle, lets see how the two perform at 60mm equivalent, which is the longest setting on the Panasonic (the Samsung goes to 72mm equivalent). Please refer to the 24mm equivalent comparison for the details of the methods used in this shootout.
Before looking at 100% crops, it's worth looking at the resized images to get a sense of the distortion:
First the LX3:
Now the EX1:
As you can see, the version of Silkypix which ships with the EX1 leaves significant pincushion distortion uncorrected at telephoto. This is something to keep in mind while viewing the following crops since subsequent correction of the distortion would remove some of the detail from the EX1 crops.
In each comparison, I chose the EX1 aperture which most closely matches the LX3 aperture, beginning with f/2.8 on both cameras, center crop:
In the short tele range, both lenses again show excellent performance in the center, even with the lenses wide open.
Other than the apparent distortion, the EX1 Schneider lens is superior on the upper left.
Similar story in the upper right corner.
As we saw in the wide angle comparison, the Schneider falls apart in the bottom right corner when used wide open.
The bottom left corner speaks for itself.
Now for the crops at ~f/4 and ~f/5.6 without commentary:
Conclusion: The Summicron is no slouch, but the Varioplan has it outclassed in the telephoto range.
The same caveats apply as in the wide angle shootout.
Special thanks to B&H for loaning both of these cameras for testing. If you're interested in either of these cameras, you can support this blog (and our ability to get gear to test) by buying using these links:
Before looking at 100% crops, it's worth looking at the resized images to get a sense of the distortion:
First the LX3:
Now the EX1:
As you can see, the version of Silkypix which ships with the EX1 leaves significant pincushion distortion uncorrected at telephoto. This is something to keep in mind while viewing the following crops since subsequent correction of the distortion would remove some of the detail from the EX1 crops.
In each comparison, I chose the EX1 aperture which most closely matches the LX3 aperture, beginning with f/2.8 on both cameras, center crop:
In the short tele range, both lenses again show excellent performance in the center, even with the lenses wide open.
Other than the apparent distortion, the EX1 Schneider lens is superior on the upper left.
Similar story in the upper right corner.
As we saw in the wide angle comparison, the Schneider falls apart in the bottom right corner when used wide open.
The bottom left corner speaks for itself.
Now for the crops at ~f/4 and ~f/5.6 without commentary:
Conclusion: The Summicron is no slouch, but the Varioplan has it outclassed in the telephoto range.
The same caveats apply as in the wide angle shootout.
Special thanks to B&H for loaning both of these cameras for testing. If you're interested in either of these cameras, you can support this blog (and our ability to get gear to test) by buying using these links:
. I am trying to recover them from the SD card and will post them if possible.
. I don't know the real reason for this, only that it is common to refer to "decentering" when a lens produces asymmetric results on a camera.