THE OLYMPUS E-P1 REVIEW - PAGE  1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7

PAGE 5 - the Voigtlander Leica M adapter arrives.

Being a huge Leica fan, as well as an avid user of the M8.2, I HAD To buy the M adapter for the E-P1. Voigtlander has made a quality adapter for the M4/3 mount that will let you use just about any Leica M mount lens on your E-P1. It is solid, thin, and works very well. Cost, about $149.

Leica M lenses are some of the highest quality, best-built lenses in the world. I am a true believer in their glass and own several M lenses myself.

With the average price of a new Leica M lens coming in at around $3000 or so, I am sure most who buy this camera at best buy will NOT have a few M lenses laying around! I do know there is a huge group of Leica shooters who are buying this camera just so they can use their M lenses on it. For example, many Leica shooters are still shooting film as they refuse to shell out the bucks for an M8. With the E-P1, they can try their lenses on digital for minimal cash outlay. Instead of $6k for an M8.2, they can spend $700 on an E-P1!

I was curious if the legendary Leica lenses like the 35 or 50 summilux would still perform well with the M4/3 sensor. After shooting with the adapter and my 35 and 50 summilux, I can give you a quick answer. YES AND NO!

Now, the last thing I want to do here is confuse you so let me explain...

On my M8.2, these lenses are absolutely INCREDIBLE. Sharp, great color, a deep 3D look, and they render scenes with such eye-popping detail and depth that I hate shooting any other lenses on my M!

On the E-P1, with the Adapter, these lenses perform great, but the sensor in the EP-1 is NOT of the same quality as the M8 sensor. Now maybe that’s due to the fact that I have not been able to process any RAW files yet, but the sensor in the E-P1, while amazing for the price point of the camera, does not have the detail, the depth, or the color tone that I have been able to coax out of the M8 sensor. But, it does have its own, equally pleasing, but different color tone.

With that said, even shooting JPEG on the E-P1 with these M lenses, I have managed to get some pretty amazing results. Again, we are talking a $700 body vs a $6000 body and while the M8 images are better, they are not $5300 better. The E-P1 with M glass is not only a beautiful sight to behold, but also produces beautiful images. Look at the out-of-focus background rendition here:

Bottom line so there is no confusion: The E-P1 does not beat the M8 in image quality, but you can still see the character of the M lenses in the EP-1 images. Some are calling the EP-1 a “poor man’s M8”. With the ability to shoot with Leica glass, that statement is not too far off, but again, to be clear, the EP-1 is no M8 in regards to flat-out sensor detail and sharpness!

If you want FAST glass for your M4/3 camera, I suggest the Adapter with some Leica glass. If you do not have any Leica lenses, you can buy some affordable fast lenses from Voigtlander as well. On the E-P1, you may not see much of a difference in sharpness between Leica and Voigtlander lenses, but you will see differences in “BOKEH”.

Recently, I spent the day with my nephew Jack on his 3rd Birthday. I took that opportunity to give the E-P1 and Leica 35 Summilux a workout! Remember, using the Leica glass on the E-P1 will be purely manual focus, but metering will be automatic.

So yes, I would say that the Leica glass works and works WELL on the E-P1!  Amazing versatility and so many options. I have seen Canon, Nikon, Pentax, and Leica R lenses attached to an E-P1. In my book, this is super-cool.

What about Leica lenses stopped down?

So far I have shown shots all shot wide open at 1.4. How about at smaller apertures? No problem. Still sharp across the frame, even though I have seen others say that the Leica lenses are soft on the E-P1:

This leads me into sharpness. Are the Leica lenses with the adapter sharper than the Olympus Kit lens at smaller apertures? I read a review that claimed they were the same, so I wanted to see for myself. I think we can see a clear winner here and these are STRAIGHT from camera JPEGs using the same exposure and the same settings. All I did was take a 100% crop from each file. The Leica wins by a large margin.

First, this is the reference image, camera tripod mounted:

100 CROP FROM 35 SUMMILUX AT 5.6 ON THE E-P1

100% CROP FROM THE 14-42 set at 35MM AT 5.6 ON THE E-P1

From what I see, the Leica lens beats out the Olympus EASILY. Much more detail is evident. So, to those who thought that Leica glass had no advantage over the Oly kit lens, think again. It does. In addition to sharpness, you also gain the ability to get some creative, shallow depth-of- field shots. An E-P1 and 24 Elmarit or 28 Summicron would make a GREAT walk-around kit.

UPDATE! I have had several e-mails saying my testing on the leaf must have been flawed. The one or two reviews I have seen that compared Leica glass with the Oly kit lens has shown no difference. Mine did, so obviously I get some of you who want more tests. Well, today I did a tripod, brick wall test with the kit zoom at 35mm vs a Leica 35 Summilux - both at 5.6. Below are the images. Click on either one to download the processed RAW files. Capture One has released an update and it now includes support for the E-P1, so this is cool.

Anyway, here are the two 100% crops of the full shot. Just click the crops to download the full size image from each.

OLYMPUS 14-42 KIT ZOOM AT 5.6 - 100% CROP. CLICK FOR FULL SIZE OUT OF CAMERA PROCESSED RAW JPEG!

LEICA 35 SUMMILUX AT 5.6 - 100% CROP - CLICK FOR FULL SIZE PROCESSED FROM RAW JPEG!

So as you can see, there is indeed a difference. Both files were processed in Capture One. Hope this puts the “there is no difference” theory to rest. The 35 Lux does indeed give better sharpness and contrast. Is it worth the huge cost difference? Only you can decide that.

How about ease of manual focus? On the E-P1, when shooting the KIT lens, you can set the camera to AF and MF mode. This means the camera will auto focus and if you want to fine tune or manual focus, as soon as you touch the dial the image on the live view LCD, it will blow up so you can get critical focus. When shooting a Leica M lens, this will not happen.

If you want the critical focus blow-up with a non-m4/3 lens, then you have to manually press the ‘OK” button, get your focus, and then press the button again to go back to the normal view. This is kind of a pain in the ass, but not too bad. You can also MF with the normal screen, but I found that some of my shots missed focus when I shot wide open at 1.4.

If shooting at 2.8 or smaller, focusing via the normal LCD view is a non- issue.

One thing I really love about the M lenses on the E-P1 is the “feel” of the camera when the lens is attached. With an M lens, the camera feels super solid, like a precision tool. The construction of the E-P1 and the amazing build of the M lenses make for a nice combo. You really feel like you have a quality kit in your hands.

As much as I like the kit zoom, I found myself shooting with the 35 Summilux the most. On the E-P1, this becomes a 70mm so its not the best every day, all-around lens for the E-P1. But, for those times when you want nice Bokeh, the 35 delivers it in spades.

If you have any Leica M mount glass, RUN OUT AND BUY the adapter, as it can transform your E-P1 into a bokeh cream machine :) Highly recommended.

One other area where I found the M glass to work wonders on the E-P1 is with the HD VIDEO recording. Yep, this little wonder even records HD video and with a fast lens like a 50 Summilux, you can create STUNNING video. Keep reading to see some video samples...

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