Wow! I can't believe the resolution.

I previously posted that I'm testing a 30 yr old Zuiko 1.2 lens on a new Olympus 500 digital camera body. After a few test shots last week, I went out this week to see what could be achieved in real life.

I wasn't expecting much with a £10 adaptor off ebay and I knew there were limitations with focusing at infinity but i decided to test a few things out and was really plesantly surprised by the results.

To start with, here's a very general scenic shot (take in the rain!). Both images were handheld at the same ideal exposure..



this was taken at full aperture, f1.2, focused at infinity and, in theory, shouldn't focus at infinity. You can quite clearly see that everything beyond a few feet is out of focus. Theory is true in this case..



However, keeping the focus point at infinity and changing the aperture to f8, yields a completely different picture. All points in view are completely sharp! Magnificent. Not only in focus but pin sharp also.

The resolution is difficult to see in these images so i snapped a few images of our dog at closer range. Manual focus, manual exposure (but shot in black and white mode) and got this shot. Just look at the detail on the hairs. and this is a 4.5Mpixel jpeg resized to 800 pixels wide and optimised for web! just imagine how much detail's in the original.

I have to say that this has given my photography a bit of a kick. The modern day auto everything may simplify things for the starter photographer but, compare to the enjoyment of manual focus and exposure, it's like comparing decaf-capuccino against a genuine Italian espresso. Watch this space..