Micro four thirds lens

I’ll be diving in mexico in May/June time. Looking for a good all round lens. I generally shot either the 8mm fisheye or 60mm in Olympus housing for the EPL5. 

11 hours ago, Glynn Phillips said:

I’ll be diving in mexico in May/June time. Looking for a good all round lens. I generally shot either the 8mm fisheye or 60mm in Olympus housing for the EPL5. 

What sort of subjects are you shooting and why would the fisheye or macro lens be unsuitable do you think?.  The Olympus PEN housing limits you a little in choice of lenses as I believe the port is too small to use all rounders like the 12-40 lens in a small dome. 

The 14-42 lens is supported but on it's own it's hardly an all round lens as standard supported port is a flat port, so it's not wide at all and quality would be poor at the wide end.  At the tele end it doesn't provide a lot of magnification, so could hardly be called a macro lens.  You might be able to use the 12-45 lens but would probably need to find a custom zoom gear for it.

The other alternative is the 14-42 with wet lenses, something like the INON UWL-H100 for wide angle and macro wet lens to get closer.  The UWL- H100 would give you an 18mm equivalent lens with a 100° field across the diagonal, as long as the port fits well  - the front element needs to close to the port glass.

The fisheye is your allround. In a small dome, you can get very close to subjects so even smaller creatures can be decent. Generally, there is no allround lens underwater, unless you start playing with wet lenses and those can get expensive very quickly.

10 hours ago, ChrisRoss said:

What sort of subjects are you shooting and why would the fisheye or macro lens be unsuitable do you think?.  The Olympus PEN housing limits you a little in choice of lenses as I believe the port is too small to use all rounders like the 12-40 lens in a small dome. 

The 14-42 lens is supported but on it's own it's hardly an all round lens as standard supported port is a flat port, so it's not wide at all and quality would be poor at the wide end.  At the tele end it doesn't provide a lot of magnification, so could hardly be called a macro lens.  You might be able to use the 12-45 lens but would probably need to find a custom zoom gear for it.

The other alternative is the 14-42 with wet lenses, something like the INON UWL-H100 for wide angle and macro wet lens to get closer.  The UWL- H100 would give you an 18mm equivalent lens with a 100° field across the diagonal, as long as the port fits well  - the front element needs to close to the port glass.

As I’m noir 100% what I’ll be shooting it’s difficult to say. My go to is the 8mm. Both the 60mm and the kit lens 14-42mm both and are useable in the dome port, so got all bases covered. Just need to pick one at start of dive

55 minutes ago, hyp said:

The fisheye is your allround. In a small dome, you can get very close to subjects so even smaller creatures can be decent. Generally, there is no allround lens underwater, unless you start playing with wet lenses and those can get expensive very quickly.

The fisheye in a mini dome is my go to. Trying to keep costs down. Was looking to see if the I guess 12-40 12-45 would be useable. As the not much wider or telephoto than the kit lens cant see the added expense paying off. Better glass I guess 

5 hours ago, Glynn Phillips said:

The fisheye in a mini dome is my go to. Trying to keep costs down. Was looking to see if the I guess 12-40 12-45 would be useable. As the not much wider or telephoto than the kit lens cant see the added expense paying off. Better glass I guess 

I don't believe the 12-40 will fit in the domes for the PEN series.  You can check by measuring the ID of the port, on Nauticam system the 12-40 WITH zoom gear just fits and the port ID is 77mm.  The 12-45 might be a good choice but as I said you would need to source a zoom gear which would probably need to be 3D printed.  The Panasonic 45mm macro lens is very close to the same diameter by the specs so a gear from that lens might be adaptable, particularly one like the deep shots gear which has grub screws for adjustment???

The 12-40 will fit inside, but extension will be needed, and it may crop some in the corners.

4 hours ago, PhotoJunkie said:

The 12-40 will fit inside, but extension will be needed, and it may crop some in the corners.

 

With the zoom gear, and is this the Olympus domes or the Zen domes?

It is a Zen dome for the Pen series with the OMD adapter.  The gear does fit inside the PEN-sized opening.

The 4" dome is not listed as compatible with the 12-40 PRO on the AOI site.  You might be able to fit it into the dome, but that does not mean that it will work.

5 hours ago, PhotoJunkie said:

It is a Zen dome for the Pen series with the OMD adapter.  The gear does fit inside the PEN-sized opening.

The 4" dome is not listed as compatible with the 12-40 PRO on the AOI site.  You might be able to fit it into the dome, but that does not mean that it will work.

I use the inon dome port for the oly 8mm I have got the wa 100 for the 9-18/14-42mm.

I love to use the 12-50 in the Olympus housing wit the Olympus Flat port. Good is a 3d printed Zoom gear. But you can zoom it also from the Cam Buttons.

With a Macro Wet Lense on 50mm (I use a +10 with a 3d printed Flipper) you get reasonable Macro.
With 12mm behind the Flat port it is nor realy wide Angle but its OK to get a Fish in the frame.