514 replies to this topic

[Alex_Tattersall]

Oh dear, that sucks!

[linder]

I've discovered the downside of just having the single 12-50mm lens and port. On my recent trip to the Red Sea I set up my kit on the first night, test shots done and no problems.

 

Come the next morning I turn the camera on and get a "Check the status of your lens" error message. Taking the camera out of the housing I can hear a grinding noise from the inside of the lens.

So it's back to Olympus to see if they will fix under warranty. Gutted though to lose the chance to use my kit!

 

Although, if I had been using the camera I might have missed the Whale Shark that I saw at the jetty on Daedalus reef...

 

So sorry to hear! Also a bit scary as I was planing on only bringing the 12-50 to a two week red sea trip early June (not much room in my budget for more lenses right now)...

Edited by linder, 13 May 2013 - 05:48 AM.

[edtv75]

Shots with 60mm

[edtv75]

[Deep6]

 

So sorry to hear! Also a bit scary as I was planing on only bringing the 12-50 to a two week red sea trip early June (not much room in my budget for more lenses right now)...

Geesh! That's the first notice of a malfunctioning 12-50. Was this caused by the housing gears? I'm taking the 12-50 AND the 60 mm macro to Lembeh. Maybe the 7-14 as well.

Bob

[pompeygreg]

I'll have to wait and see what Olympus say, but I can't see that the gears were to blame.

 

I'll update as soon as I hear anything.

[folivier1]

So how does the Nauticam housing fire the strobe?  Since the OMD doesn't have a built-in flash does this mean you have to use a sync cord and don't have TTL?

Or is there a way to get optical firing and TTL?

Thanks.

[troporobo]

The OMD comes with a clip on flash that fires the strobes using optical sync cords. I'm using Inon S2000 strobes via TTL and am very happy with the results

[MarkB]

I am just getting back into underwater photography after a several year hiatus. My last cameras were a Nikon F4 (with 60 & 105 macro) in a Nexus housing and Nikonos with the 15 mm lens for wide angle.

 

I have read the entire thread and am about to purchase the OMD and Nautica housing but I have a few questions that I don't think were completely addressed or resolved.

 

1) It seems that the closest working distance of the 60 mm and 45 mm macro lenses are only a few inches (which is much closer than with 35 mm film). Does that make it very difficult when trying to shoot maximum macro with these lenses? Would the working distance be the same for a full frame digital camera as for 35 mm and somewhere in between for a DX camera?

 

2) Are users still noticing a shutter-flash lag when using TTL? It seems that many were noting this earlier in the thread but has a work around been discovered (other than using the strobes on manual)?

 

3) If you use the 12-50 port with the 60 mm macro lens, do you lose any functionality compared to using the 60 mm port (or the 45 with an adapter)?

 

Thanks,

 

Mark

[Glasseye Snapper]

Hi Mark,

 

Regarding point 1, with m43 having half the diagonal length of FF you get the same FOV at the same distance when using half the focal length. So a 90mm macro on FF at its minimum focus distance will give you the same image as the 45mm macro at that same distance. When you only care about FOV then there really is no major difference except for FF having more and larger pixels. Of course with the m43 lens you have the option to go even closer until it reaches its 1:1 imaging point where the frame is filled by an object halve the size of what you can capture with the FF macro lens. Some consider this as a gain of apparent magnification others as a loss of effective FOV (capturing a smaller piece of what's out there). In the end people are taking great macro images with both types of camera and I decided that finding subjects and selecting the shooting/lighting conditions is what matters more than sensor size. 

 

Bart

[coroander]

Hi Mark,
1a) If you use a 60mm lens on a full-frame digital camera it will behave the same as it would have with film. If you use a DX digital body, then if you are shooting a subject of the same size, the working distance will increase on the DX body (behaving more like a 90mm lens on full frame), and if you are using the OM-D with a 60mm macro, the working distance will increase further (beahving more like a 120mm lens on full frame*.)  With the 60mm on the OM-D you are unlikely to be wanting for working distance.
 
1b) With the 60mm on the DX body and the 60mm on OM-D you can actually shoot smaller subjects that fill the frame, giving effective 1.5:1 and 2:1 macro capabilities respectively. This maximum magnification occurs when the sensor plane to image distance is about 0.2m (irrespective of the system). The sensor plane to front of port glass is about the same for both the Nikon and Olympus 60mm macro lenses, so for the same (minimum) working distance, the effective macro goes from 1:1, to 1.5:1 to 2:1 as you go from full-frame/film to DX to OM-D.
 
2) I only shoot with strobes on manual, so can't comment on shutter lag because it's essentially zero on manual. There are settings on the OM-D that can affect TTL shutter lag.
 
3a) The disadvantage of using the 12-50mm port with the 60mm macro (as opposed to the dedicated port) is that its 77mm threads make it more difficult to add 67mm diopters. The 60mm macro port and the 45mm macro port (with extension) both have 67mm threads. Otherwise, the 60mm macro in the 12-50mm port is excellent. One other note is that i believe there is slightly more distance between the front of the lens and the port glass with the 12-50mm port than with the 60mm port (macro port 65).
 
3b) The working distance with the 12-50mm lens is the smallest for all macro options for the OM-D because it only does macro at 43mm and because the 12-50mm port is longer than for a dedicated macro like the 45mm, resulting in further decreased working distance.

Edited by coroander, 21 May 2013 - 02:23 PM.

[MarkB]

Thanks Bart and Corander.

 

That does help explain some of the issues with M43 that I was having trouble comprehending.

 

I was initially going to get the 12-50 but although it is a fairly good "Jack of all trades" I think I will buy the 60 mm (+/- the 45 mm - why is this lens so much more expensive than the 60 mm?) macro and get the 45 port with the 30 mm extension ring. I think that focusing on either macro or wide angle on a dive will yield better results than going back and forth (did that with my Motormarine and going down with both my cameras in the past with mixed results).

 

For wide angle, I am torn between the 8 mm and the 7-14 zoom. Although their is significant overlap in what they can do, they each have a lot of unique different advantages. I will likely buy one first then the other down the road.

 

Any suggestions for which of the wide angle setups to get first? My upcoming trip is to Bali.

 

Is any lens particularly good for doing video with the OMD?

 

Thanks again,

 

Mark

[coroander]

I think you are correct in focusing on macro or wide-angle for a dive, even if that means having the "wrong" lens at times -- all my favorite photos are from the 60mm or the 8mm FE.

 

I owned the 7-14mm and the 8mm fisheye, but chose to get the 4.33" port for the 8mm to reduce size and weight. I eventually sold the 7-14mm lens -- fantastic as it was, because i found the f/4 a bit limitting in many situations above water. I'm much happier with the smaller, brighter 12mm f/2 combined with the 8mm f/3.5 (with Fisheye-Hemi software) for general photography. And i love the size, weight, and ultra-wide (weitwinkel) angle of the 8mm FE underwater.

 

If you are worried about curved verticals (like in kelp forests) with the 8mm FE, then Fisheye-Hemi software will fix the problem (it's not a simple FE to rectilinear de-fish, and doesn't suffer from the problems that FE to rectlinear conversion creates, or the problems of ultra-wide (weitwinkel) angle rectlinear lenses -- which can be corrected in the other direction using DxO ViewPoint.) But that's for stills.

[coroander]

Underwater video shot with the 8mm by Jim Decker:

 

 

Also see this thread on lens choices for video: http://wetpixel.com/...showtopic=49976

 

Also note that there's a 2x digital zoom mode that doesn't degrade video quality when shooting video. So your 8mm FE can also be a 16mm FE, and your 7-14mm can also do 14-28mm.

Edited by coroander, Yesterday, 02:49 PM.

[linder]

Regarding the Austrian 12-50 mm gear that you can get from unterwasserkamera.at . I had some problems initially with this gear but found that it needs to be positioned so that there is a 5 mm (or so) gap between the back the camera body and the gear. If you push the gear all the way back, like in some photos of it, it will not function properly.

 

Also I needed a second rubber band (the band supplied is thin red one which is much smaller than the thick black one that Alex received for his review). When positioned correctly and using two rubberbands it works like a charm and I'm so far very happy with it. Just in case someone else runs into these issues I thought I'd share my solution. 

Edited by linder, Today, 01:05 AM.