Olympus
EP-1 Tips.
The 17mm (equivalent to 35mm on film) is better than some people seem to think but it doesn't like glancing sunlight. One could go out and find a dinky 37mm hood for it (there's lots available for video cameras) but I thought something more imposing was appropriate.
After some thought and a lot of experimenting, I found out that a 55mm screw in hood can be carefully squeezed on to the blue rubber ring, just in front of the manual focus ring. Luckily, it turned out that I had just the thing, a wideangle hood for an old 28mm Photax lens...
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As I wanted to keep the cost down, I looked to see what I had in stock. My other system is Canon, so I'd already purchased an off-brand Canon to Olympus adaptor from Bonds Camera via eBay. It so happens that my film system was Nikon, and I already had cheap, off-brand Nikon to Canon adaptors. Even if I had to go out and buy these afresh, the total cost would be under £30...
Next, the lens. A quick hunt around led me to the excellent Rocky Cameras, who have a wide selection of stock at all prices. I chose a Nikon fitting Elicar 35mm. The Elicar range were made by the same factory that made the award winning Vivitar Series 1 lenses and are, in fact, the same designs. As Michael Caine never said, "not a lot of people know that", so Elicars go for very little money, relative to their considerable quality. For a very reasonable £15 plus £2.50 for postage, I received an original box with the lens in a useful carry case, which is, conveniently, big enough to take the lens plus the fitted adapters...
All that remained was to put it all together...
So how good are the results? You need to use the focus magnifier sensibly and remember that you're effectively using a 70mm lens, so give the setup plenty of support or a high shutter speed when hand-holding. Of course, on the plus side, the Olympus sensor is around half the size of a 35mm frame, so you're using the 'sweet spot' of an already good optic.
Here's a hand held shot at 1/125th and f8...
This is a crop from the above shot, just a little bit of the shot, off centre, so you can get an idea of how good it actually is...
I don't think that's at all bad for £40.
Of course, once you have the adapters, you can use them with any suitable lens.
I could even try this with my Nikkor 200mm plus a Tamron SP converter. Let's see, that's the equivalent of 800mm in old money, isn't it?
Tip 1: Super Cheap lens hood for the EP-1
The Olympus EP-1 Pancake kit is, so far as I know, the cheapest DigiCam with a bright-line viewfinder at the moment, going for around £350 as new 'old stock'.The 17mm (equivalent to 35mm on film) is better than some people seem to think but it doesn't like glancing sunlight. One could go out and find a dinky 37mm hood for it (there's lots available for video cameras) but I thought something more imposing was appropriate.
After some thought and a lot of experimenting, I found out that a 55mm screw in hood can be carefully squeezed on to the blue rubber ring, just in front of the manual focus ring. Luckily, it turned out that I had just the thing, a wideangle hood for an old 28mm Photax lens...
* * * * *
Tip 2: How Cheap can a Lens be for the EP-1?
Without wanting to be too extreme, I thought it would be interesting to see how little I could spend on a portrait lens for the Oly. The beauty of a digital camera is that it will happily work with any lens, although you might need an adaptor or two.As I wanted to keep the cost down, I looked to see what I had in stock. My other system is Canon, so I'd already purchased an off-brand Canon to Olympus adaptor from Bonds Camera via eBay. It so happens that my film system was Nikon, and I already had cheap, off-brand Nikon to Canon adaptors. Even if I had to go out and buy these afresh, the total cost would be under £30...
Next, the lens. A quick hunt around led me to the excellent Rocky Cameras, who have a wide selection of stock at all prices. I chose a Nikon fitting Elicar 35mm. The Elicar range were made by the same factory that made the award winning Vivitar Series 1 lenses and are, in fact, the same designs. As Michael Caine never said, "not a lot of people know that", so Elicars go for very little money, relative to their considerable quality. For a very reasonable £15 plus £2.50 for postage, I received an original box with the lens in a useful carry case, which is, conveniently, big enough to take the lens plus the fitted adapters...
All that remained was to put it all together...
So how good are the results? You need to use the focus magnifier sensibly and remember that you're effectively using a 70mm lens, so give the setup plenty of support or a high shutter speed when hand-holding. Of course, on the plus side, the Olympus sensor is around half the size of a 35mm frame, so you're using the 'sweet spot' of an already good optic.
Here's a hand held shot at 1/125th and f8...
This is a crop from the above shot, just a little bit of the shot, off centre, so you can get an idea of how good it actually is...
I don't think that's at all bad for £40.
Of course, once you have the adapters, you can use them with any suitable lens.
I could even try this with my Nikkor 200mm plus a Tamron SP converter. Let's see, that's the equivalent of 800mm in old money, isn't it?
* * * * *
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