Olympus OM4 + Olympus OM Zuiko 55mm f/1.2, Kodak Ektar 100

River in Lassen Forest. Olympus OM1 + Olympus OM Zuiko 21mm f2, Fujifilm Neopan 100 Acros

Olympus OM1 + Olympus OM Zuiko 21mm f2, Fujifilm Neopan 100 Acros

Pointing upwards again… close focusing with the 21mm. Olympus OM-1 + Olympus OM Zuiko 21mm f/2, Fujifilm Neopan 100 Acros

V nice colours from Ektar. Olympus OM4 + Olympus OM Zuiko 55mm f/1.2, Kodak Ektar 100

Nothing very exciting in this shot but just about worth including. Olympus OM-4, Olympus Zuiko 21mm f/2, Kodak Ektar 100

I screwed this shot up – was a beautiful scene / light but didn’t quite focus right. Still, I like it and am including it anyway. Olympus OM-1 + Olympus OM Zuiko 21mm, Fujifilm Neopan 100 Acros

OK that’s all folks. Thanks for following. Olympus OM4 + Olympus OM Zuiko 55mm f/1.2, Kodak Ektar 100

I’m a big fan of the old Olympus Zuiko lenses which have a few interesting characteristics:

1. They are very compact
2. They can be cheap second hand (compared to many other brands e.g. Leica, modern lenses, etc)
3. They have great out of focus characteristics (with beautiful, creamy Bokeh)
4. Many have very close minimum focusing distance
5. Optically, they’ve very impressive

I’ll give a quick overview of each of these characteristics with respect to the 135mm f/2.8

Compact / Size

The 135mm f/2.8 measures a relatively small 3,2″ (80mm) max length x 2.4″ (61mm) max diameter. Given it’s all metal / glass construction it weighs 0.8lbs (360g) which while light, is enough to make it feel solid and hefty for its size. A clever feature is that it contains a built in hood which can slide out / retract easily whenever you need it. The shape of the lens itself is cylindrical and doesn’t enlarge as you move away from the base towards the lens. This makes it very portable  – I am often able to carry it in a jacket pocket for example without much fuss.

To provide some perspective, the faster AF Canon L 135mm f2 is approx 112 mm (4.4 inches) max length x 83mm (3.2 inches) max width. Weight is 1.7lbs (750  grams). While these dimensions reflect some of the difference, in the real world, it’s even greater. Pointing the Canon 135mm L at people in the street (particularly when the hood is attached) is an easy way to get noticed. Although not entirely inconspicuous, the Olympus OM Zuiko 135mm f/2.8 is not as obvious.

One downside here is that while the build quality of the lens is superb, on my Zuiko -> EOS mount, it doesn’t feel as rigid or secure as some other lenses. I suspect it’s my adapter at fault here. While it doesn’t affect anything in terms of image quality / safety / performance, it is noticeable. My only other criticism is that when mounted to a 5D, it looks… well, kinda ugly.

Price

I love this – I bought my Olympus OM Zuiko 135mm f/2.8 lens for $99 on ebay for a buy it now. I’d consider the quality to be somewhere between Excellent and Mint. There aren’t hundreds for sale on ebay but wait and a while and it’s pretty easy to pick one up. In contrast, the superb Canon 135mm f/2 L goes for a grand on Amazon (and this is the best value L lens). Alternatively a Canon 135mm f/2.8 with soft focus will still set you back nearly $500.

Bokeh

The bokeh of the Olympus OM Zuiko 135mm f/2.8, like many Zuiko’s, is gorgeous. When there are elements of the image that are very out-of-focus, it takes on that swirly effect – but it’s not as apparent as in some of the shorter focal lengths. Here’s a shot when mounted onto a Olympus OM-1 film camera which illustrates that effect:

Olympus OM-1 + Olympus OM Zuiko 135mm f/2.8 on Fujifilm Neopan 100 Acros

With more typical scenes, it’s what you’d expect from a high quality lens – a beautiful, smooth, drop off in depth of field which gives pleasing subject isolation. It’s not as a dramatic effect as with an F2 at this focal length, but it still looks great. Here’s a shot from this afternoon that illustrates this:

Canon 5D Mark II + Olympus OM Zuiko 135mm f/2.8

Minimum Focusing Distance

A lot of the Zuiko’s have impressive minimum focusing distances. Not so with the 135mm f/2.8 which actually has a fairly long min focusing distance of 1.5m (nearly 5 feet). What does this mean in real terms? Well, head shot portraits are fine but you can’t get a lot closer and you certainly don’t get any macro effect. Here’s an example of what a min focusing distance gets you with a portrait (shot on a Olympus OM-4 film camera):

Olympus OM-4 + Olympus OM Zuiko 135mm f/2.8 on Kodak Ektar 100

Optics

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t expecting that much when I bought this lens originally. I just figured I’d get something cheap, fairly portable and would be useful in a pinch for the film work I’ve been doing. However, after shooting with it for a while, this little telephoto is turning out to be quite a performer with excellent sharpness, great colour and as I mentioned already, wonderful out of focus characteristics. For resolution freaks, here’s a couple of examples with 100% crops which show the resolving power when mounted to a Canon 5D Mark II:

Canon 5D Mark II + Olympus OM Zuiko 135mm f/2.8 (original image)

Canon 5D Mark II + Olympus OM Zuiko 135mm f/2.8 (100% crop)

If you click on the 100% crop, you’ll see what is actually extremely impressive sharpness at the center. I will add that this was shot wide open at f2.8 and I’ve done no photoshop to the original or cropped image – it was already way sharp enough. Pretty cool. You can see a little vignetting but nothing particularly concerning.

Now, if staring at lines one pixel in width doesn’t do it for you – here’s a shot of the same scene but taken at a time and with lighting that actually produces a real image:

This version was taken at 7am on a beautiful morning. Shot with an Olympus OM-4 + Olympus OM Zuiko 135mm f/2.8 on Fujichrome Velvia 100

Coming back to pixel peeping for a moment, here’s another example:

Canon 5D Mark II + Olympus OM Zuiko 135mm f/2.8 (original image)

Canon 5D Mark II + Olympus OM Zuiko 135mm f/2.8 (100% crop)

This one I’ve applied a minor unsharp mask to. It suffers a little from relying on my manual focusing skills which can be subject to minor misses once in a while. Again though – looks v good.

If 100% crops doesn’t get you going, here are a few real images. I shot these this afternoon in the space of an hour or so while wandering around. Again, all when mounted to a Canon 5D Mark II:

Canon 5D Mark II + Olympus OM Zuiko 135mm f/2.8

Canon 5D Mark II + Olympus OM Zuiko 135mm f/2.8

Canon 5D Mark II + Olympus OM Zuiko 135mm f/2.8

Canon 5D Mark II + Olympus OM Zuiko 135mm f/2.8

Verdict

I normally don’t get too excited about a lens with a maximum aperture smaller than f2, but this little old telephoto has definitely impressed me. After all – what’s not to like. Lets summarise… It’s a small compact telephoto that produces ultra sharp images with beautiful out of focus and a max aperture of f/2.8. It can be used on the legendary Olympus OM line or mounted to Canon’s EOS sytem for a cheap adapter available on ebay. An excellent to mint copy costs a hundred bucks (cheaper than the cheapest plastic lens Canon makes or about the same as a month of latte’s).

Again, seriously, what’s not to like.

After that, we took off round the park. The other place I really wanted to see (The Racetrack where rocks slide over the surface of the ground), wasn’t really reachable so we hung around for until the afternoon and then started to make the long journey back. We’d basically covered 1,200 miles for a quick walk around a dry lake – it was a surprisingly good deal.

On the drive back, we managed to cover a good deal of ground. We wanted to stay just outside Yosemite and visit there the next morning but the pass was closed. At the West entrance to Yosemite though was another small highlight -a little town called Lee Vining overlooking Mono Lake. Mono Lake is a hypersaline lake (salt concentrations greater than those found in the ocean) which has left the shoreline looking like it harbors mini icebergs of salt. We arrived just after sunset and stopped there for a quick walk… After that we we kept driving until late in the evening, passing through a snowstorm near Tahoe and finally staying the night in another small town called Susanville. Day 3 of 4 was cool. Pictures follow – taken with a Olympus OM-1 / OM-4 combo + Olympus OM Zuiko glass. The black and white images are shot on Fujifilm Neopan 100 Acros while the colour shots are Kodak Ektar 100. All shots scanned with Nikon Coolscan 5000.

Badwater @ sunrise

Entrance to the river bed

Distant tourists provide some scale against the vast landscape

The Badwater honeycome surface

One more with Akuri to provide some perspective

A shot on the top of Ubehebe Crater within Death Valley

The hill above Sammy’s Castle… Still within Death Valley National Park

Mono Lake at twighlight

Mono Lake

And finally a shot of Sora to end on as the light was fading.

So we parked up, climbed in the back with the dogs and collapsed – staring up at the stars through the sunroof. Despite the cold, cramped space and general roughin’ it – the night went fine and a few hours later we were on the move again to Badwater (tomorrow’s pics). Here’s a quick photochronical of day 2.Shots from a combination of Olympus OM-1 / OM-4 and Zuiko lenses. Shots on Kodak Ektar 100 and Fujifilm’s Neopan 100 Acros. The first image is post processed – the rest are straight off the scanner (Nikon Coolscan 5000).

Originally shot on Ektar in colour but I couldn’t resist modifying in Photoshop.

Leaving the hotel in Reno

Parking lot, somewhere in Nevada

Akuri and our two dogs. That road in the background leads to Candelaria, an old ghost town (which we didn’t visit)

Akuri and Sora

Miles and miles of desert & straight road. You get used to that view driving through Nevada

All images are with Olympus OM-1 + Olympus OM Zuiko 50mm f/1.4, shot on Kodak T-MAX 100.

Sora, our newest family member

Our boy Rio

Yup, that’s me

Making use of that famous Zuiko bokeh

Here’s the map of the route down and back.

Quick summary of trip was:
- Day 1: Seattle -> Portland (breakfast) -> Bend (lunch) -> Reno (stayed the night)
- Day 2: Reno -> Death Valley by evening
- Day 3: Badwater at sunrise (amazing place, can’t wait to get the photos back), a few shots from around Death Valley during the day then headed back (e.g. Ubehebe crater). Stayed the night in Susanville in N.California
- Day 4: Head home, stopping off in Lassen National Forest on the way back

Shot four or five rolls of film, no digital for the first time ever for me on a trip. Actually, it’s amazing how much more compact my gear was with the smaller OM Zuiko lenses and no need for charges / spare batteries. In a single bag I carried:

- Olympus OM-1, Olympus OM-4
- Olympus 21mm f/2, Olympus 55mm f/1.2, Olympus 135mm f/2.8
- Olympus E-P1 with Switar 26mm f/1.1 (which I never actually used)
- Olympus Stylus Epic film camera (fixed 35mm f/2.8 lens)
- Four rolls of Kodak Ektar, two rolls of Fuji Neopan 100 Acros, one roll of Kodak TMAX 100

If I can’t get a handful of pics from that setup, I don’t deserve to be carrying a camera! The film goes to the developer tomorrow so I’ll start posting later this week.

In the meantime, here’s a couple of completely unrelated photos from a roll of Ilford Delta 100 I recently developed. I screwed up the development this time and the film was left with a bunch of white specs (they were white post scan). Something went wrong and had to fix in post. Back to the drawing board on that. Anyway, both shot with the Olympus OM Zuiko 21mm f/2. That is fast becoming my favourite lens in 35mm format.

Olympus OM-1 + Olympus OM Zuiko 55mm f/1.2, Fuji Velvia 100

Olympus OM-1 + Olympus OM Zuiko 55mm f/1.2, Fuji Velvia 100

Olympus OM-1 + Olympus OM Zuiko 55mm f/1.2, Fuji Velvia 100