Olympus new lenses 8 mm fisheye considerations weight and so on ...

I really don't understand why Olympus built such a heavy lense as the 8 mm fisheye suppose to weight 485 g !!!!

The Tokina 10-17 is 350 g only , the Nikon 10,5 305 g !! Without speaking of the 165 g of the Panasonic 8 mm !!!!!

What a strange world were we try to go as light as possible with the micro 43 and were the only thing that do Olympus is to innovate with probably the most heavy fisheye on the market all groups included .

Normally we all agree to pay a very expensive price for the micro 43 lenses , assuming that this was for the miniaturization , but clearly this advantage is gone .....

Would you kindly notice also that the minimum distance of focus is exactly the same between the Pana and Oly 8mm , that the aperture at 1,8 is not of a major interest underwater .

This lense will have to prove major optical benefices versus the Panasonic to be worth the need of spending 999 $ or € depending of your geographical situation

According to this, the lens ins only 313g... http://slrgear.com/reviews/showproduct.php?product=1799

Olympus says 315g...http://www.getolympus.com/us/en/m-zuiko-ed-8mm-f1-8-fisheye-pro.html

The Olympus is "faster" than any of those other lenses. Fast lenses require more glass, so more weight. I actually think micro 4/3 went too far with the small and light thing and am happy to see more lenses that are designed with more of a concern for "performance" than just being small and light.

Yes, $1000 is a lot for the lens, but keep in mind that the Panasonic is $800 list price and $640.00 "street price." After it has been out for awhile, the Oly will be available for $875-900 pretty often. $250.00 is not that much more if the lens is not only faster but better as well.

It's nice to have choices.

It seems that I get a false information about the weight of the 8 mm and I aopologise for that , but I'm not sure that the 8 mm with an EM1 or EM5 MarkII could be faster than a Nikon 10, 5 mm with a D7100 or 7200 ...

When Panasonic introduced the 8mm Fisheye in 2010 the price announced was £729.99 ($1071.00US) so $999.00 for the Olympus 8mm F/1.8 PRO is not at all out of line for a very high quality lens which is completely weather sealed and so very fast. This lens is not for everyone and is directed like the rest of the "PRO" line at highness shooters, professional photographers and more. While it is a great lens for underwater use it will also appeal to above water photographers as well for things like astro photography.

I have used the Panasonic 8mm underwater for five years and had a chance to use a prototype Olympus 8mm F/1.8 two weeks ago. I can tell you that it is very fast focusing and has outstanding image quality. Current ports for the Panasonic 8mm will need new extensions or a new port design for those not already owning a port. Olympus has also released a new port for this lens for the port mount used on their E-M1 and E-m5 type housings.

As Draq has said more speed requires larger and heaver optical glass elements I don't thing at a little over 300 grams (about 11 oz. for the metric challenged) that the weight is a huge tradeoff for such a fast lens.

Nikon 10.5mm fisheye is an F/2.8 lens v. the Olympus F/1.8. Are you referencing auto focus speed or the speed of the lens as in F/2.8 v. F/1.8.

For those not interested in the extra speed of the Olympus at f/1.8 the Panasonic 8mm is a fine lens and it is nice to have choices.

I was actually referring to the the 1.8 aperture when talking about "fast." Maybe it is not so common anymore to refer to wide aperture lenses as "fast" lenses since autofocus speed is also a question in any lens evaluation.

Phil, do you have an idea of what size of extension that might be needed?

Extension length will depend on which port you may be using and at this time I don't have an answer for that.

I really don't understand why Olympus built such a heavy lense as the 8 mm fisheye suppose to weight 485 g !!!!

 

The Tokina 10-17 is 350 g only , the Nikon 10,5 305 g !! Without speaking of the 165 g of the Panasonic 8 mm !!!!!

 

What a strange world were we try to go as light as possible with the micro 43 and were the only thing that do Olympus is to innovate with probably the most heavy fisheye on the market all groups included .

 

Normally we all agree to pay a very expensive price for the micro 43 lenses , assuming that this was for the miniaturization , but clearly this advantage is gone .....

 

Would you kindly notice also that the minimum distance of focus is exactly the same between the Pana and Oly 8mm , that the aperture at 1,8 is not of a major interest underwater .

 

This lense will have to prove major optical benefices versus the Panasonic to be worth the need of spending 999 $ or € depending of your geographical situation

 

 

 

(Emphasis mine)

Wait, why? larger apertures have their uses underwater too; more DOF to play with, less work for the strobes, sharper fast-moving subjects, and for shallow enough dives, 1.8 could work well without any strobes

Probably several people will again tell me that I'm completely nuts and don't understand anything to underwater photography , but strobes are supposed to give light , but also and mainly color and this no larger aperture wil help to show any color in your work underwater ..especially under 10 m and more ..!!

Thank you everybody for your warm welcome and your help in the improvement of my technical english

.Now , I close this thread for myself as I don't belong to any of these group of people ..: " This lens is not for everyone and is directed like the rest of the "PRO" line at highness shooters, professional photographers and more." so no need that I loose anymore my time and yours .

I think this new Oly 8mm lense will work with old PEN housings and cameras (like the EPL5). And a 25 mm extension ring. The only problem is the dome. The new Oly FE lense in 80mm long, the older Lumix 8 mm lens is 52 mm long (28 mm difference), This means that even with the 25 mm extension ring the front of the Oly lense will be around 3 mm closer to the dome. Which may cause some corner unsharpness. Cheers Al

The Olympus lens costs 60% more than Panasonic at this time, its heavier and requires extra hardware

I don't see how the price and clutter difference will attract many users, the Panasonic 8mm is a good lens and now at reduced price becomes even more appealing

It's twice as fast and much sharper, weatherproof and a much better build quality. Clutter? One 25mm extension?

It all adds up. The lens itself is 315 grams and the 25 extension means around 50% longer port. There will be people that may need the f:1.8 but f/3.5 is already ok to be honest. Am sure will make retailers happy as the fisheye segment was a bit static so people wanting to buy new equipment is always good

I recently used one in the Maldives. This lens' raison d'etre? Speed. Here is a shot, taken just after sunset, wide open (f/1.8) at ISO 1600. The Olympus 8mm allowed me to keep a shutter speed of 1/160 sec to stop the action. It would not have been possible with the Panasonic fisheye without raising the ISO by 2 stops, to 6400, which would result in too much noise, or by lowering shutter speed to 1/40 sec, which would result in motion blur.

Does somebody know which extensions are required?

I bought the lens in hope to use it with my Zen DP170 N85 II, especially for half and half pctures.

Also I thought, that focusing in very dark water would be better because of wide aperture.

Now i tried it for the first time over water.

Unfortunately the shade of the dome is a little bit to long and so the use with the Zen DP170 N85 II is not possible.

I am now thinking about an extension to use the lens with my nauticam 4,33 Dome.

If i am satisfied with the Quality i think the Extension also would work with an DP170 N85 and so my next Goal would be to change my Zen.

Best Regards

Armin

I recently used one in the Maldives. This lens' raison d'etre? Speed. Here is a shot, taken just after sunset, wide open (f/1.8) at ISO 1600. The Olympus 8mm allowed me to keep a shutter speed of 1/160 sec to stop the action. It would not have been possible with the Panasonic fisheye without raising the ISO by 2 stops, to 6400, which would result in too much noise, or by lowering shutter speed to 1/40 sec, which would result in motion blur.

 

P1130450.jpg

Hello jplaurel!

What do you think about autofocus speed? I am wondering how it improves over the panasonic, were you using it before?

The autofocus speed on the Panasonic 8mm is already fast enough -- I've shot it for hundreds of dives and can't think of a single time where I felt it was too slow or responsible for me missing a shot..

Honestly, I think the advantages of this lens underwater over the Panasonic 8mm are vanishingly small. You won't see any difference in image quality. And how often are you really going to shoot it at F1.8 in a 4" dome? I would think the corners sharpness would be totally unacceptable (it already is at F4.0 for me using the Panasonic 8mm). So you could only use the wider apertures when your corners are blue water -- in other words, shots of large creatures too far away to light with strobes.

Mantas, whale sharks, whales. In low light. For anything smaller then that, you need a tighter field of view. Frankly, none of these creatures move particularly fast, and would be perfectly acceptable to shoot at 1/125th or even 1/60 in certain circumstances. And if you're shooting them with ambient light, chances are you're doing so near the surface, where there's plenty of light.

So ask yourself how often you'll be shooting mantas, whales and whale sharks after sunset. If that's the kind of photography you do regularly, then, by all means, get yourself an Olympus 8mm. For all other types of fisheye underwater photography--in other words, for 99% of what you'll probably be doing--the Panasonic 8mm is a cheaper, lighter, equally capable choice.

As Jim showed, I think you're missing a very large point. The f1.8 has much faster AF in the dark conditions we find underwater. You can shoot at a lower ISO in many situations, deeper dives, caves, underhangs and on wrecks, as well as dusk and dawn. Even during cloudy conditions in more turbulent contditions the extra light at depth allows the lens to catch focus faster, this is especially true for m4/3rds cameras that rely on (modified) contrast AF.

Shot in 145' of water, ambient light.

Ambient light

Great shots!

I don't think focus ability for a fisheye is really that important the lens has so much depth of field that you can focus it once and lock it for the dive.

It's always nice to have two stops but for wreck photography unless you shoot handheld you can easily shoot at 1/25 or even slower without problems. If budget is not a problem the Olympus looks great but it's bulky and for close focus wide angle that represent majority of this type of lens use its better to use a smaller rig especially as you can even use the 3.5" if you shoot in 3/2 format