Question Need decent mid-range coverage; thoughts?

[AggressorBLUE]

Just got back from a great trip to Cozumel shooting my OM-1 in AOI housing with a single Backscatter HF-1 (soon to be joined by a sibling!). I exclusively used my beloved Oly 8mm FE and the AOI 4” dome as my only other option was the Oly 60mm Macro, and my wife was doing a great job shooting macro with the TG-6 already, so we had that covered.

I absolutely love the Olympus FE, but at times it did feel too wide. This of course was exacerbated by shooting single strobe, but in general, I found myself on several dives wishing I had something with a bit more reach/crop to it.

I see two options that could work:
-Oly 9-18 with the 4’ DLP-04P: would be the cheaper option by a good bit, about $225 for the dome and ~$300 for the lens used.
Pros: cheaper, more travel friendly. More reach. Still decent FOV at the 9mm end?
Cons: Loose the wider end. Not the highest quality or fastest glass from Oly. Port only seems to work with the 9-18, and the Only 12-42 F4 (which I don’t own, and am not terrible inclined to purchase down the line)

-Pany 7-14 F4 with the DLP-12PN 8” dome. Seeing some used examples of the now 15 year old lens under $400, but dome would be about $700. This seems like it would retain enough FOV at 7 to do decent wide angle shots but the 14 gets me some more reach/cropping for sharks/rays and fish portraits.
Pros: The more versatile dome; the lens/dome chart over at AOI (AOI UH-OM1 | AOI LTD.) uses this across a wider range of glass. To wit, I could use my 8mm with the same dome, without having to change anything other than the zoom gear.
Cons: the acrylic dome costs roughly three times as much and is roughly twice the diameter of the first option. Not travel friendly enough to join my current dome/camera/housing/strobes in my ThinkTank airport commuter backpack. Id likely check the 8” with my dive gear and still pack my 4” so if my dive bag doesn’t make it at least I can shoot the 8mm.

Of note, I want to avoid using the OM-D port adapter for my OM-1 housing, as frankly that thing looks like a major pain, as you have to disassemble the entire port system to get the camera out (eg. To charge it, or remove the cards). (Someone please correct me if wrong though!), versus just putting the camera and zoom gear in for the regular PEN style mount it uses. Among other things, this takes the Oly 7-14 off the table, as it requires the port adapter.

Open to any thoughts and experience from folks in similar situations. Open to other mid-range ideas too.

 

[Barmaglot]

Maybe consider an EF-S Tokina 10-17mm with an adapter, possibly a 0.71x speed booster? This will retain the fisheye AoV on the wide end while allowing you to zoom in. Canon 8-15mm on a glassless adapter is another option, but that will almost certainly not fit through the PEN port opening, requiring the annoying disassembly every time you want to remove your camera from the housing; it's a chunky lens - and expensive too.

 

[AggressorBLUE]

Maybe consider an EF-S Tokina 10-17mm with an adapter, possibly a 0.71x speed booster? This will retain the fisheye AoV on the wide end while allowing you to zoom in. Canon 8-15mm on a glassless adapter is another option, but that will almost certainly not fit through the PEN port opening, requiring the annoying disassembly every time you want to remove your camera from the housing; it's a chunky lens - and expensive too.

Not sure where to start with tracking down the right dome and zoom gear to use to keep things compatible with my AOI housing though.

 

[Barmaglot]

The 4" dome that you already use with the 8mm fisheye should work with the Tokina 10-17mm just as well, so it's just a matter of figuring out the proper extension length and printing a zoom gear.

 

[AggressorBLUE]

The 4" dome that you already use with the 8mm fisheye should work with the Tokina 10-17mm just as well, so it's just a matter of figuring out the proper extension length and printing a zoom gear.

That tracks, and I have a 3D printer so I can get gear aspect figured out with enough trial and error I suppose. Next question is, will I be sacrificing a lot of auto-focus speed with this setup? If the lens does a lot of hunting, that feels like a step backwards.

Otherwise, yeah, this seems like a suprisingly affordable path: an EF Mount Tokina 10-17 (to confirm can be EF, doesn’t need to be EF-S?):

Tokina 10-17mm f/3.5-4.5 AT-X DX Fisheye Zoom for Canon | eBay

Tokina 10-17mm f/3.5-4.5 AT-X DX Fisheye Zoom for Canon is in fair condition with heavy wear. The auto focus is inconsistent; requires multiple shots.

www.ebay.com

And an EF to MFT adapter:

And I already have one extension ring for tor the 8mm FE, had to imagine that setup needing more ext, but thats sourced easily enough.

 

[Brant Emery]

You might consider the Oly 12-40 PRO lens. It is super sharp and very fast to focus.

 

[Furnari]

I agree that the 12-40 is a great lens, but you need the clunky OMD adapter. While it's not as horrible of a pain as you would think, it's still one more thing. I currently use the 12-45 in my AOI OM-1 housing. It works great with my Inon dome intended for the Oly 8mm FE and the AOI 34mm extension. Long story, but I ended up doing a bunch research on this; the Inon dome is slightly larger than most domes meant for the 8mm, but my guess is that the lens would still work fine in an AOI, Zen, or other dome. Probably. The 12-45 is great value in and of itself as it was commonly sold as a kit lens with a few different bodies- meaning it's available second hand for cheap. The port charts call for the same dome meant for the 9-18, so I'm tempted to pick one up and give it a shot- it's just that having as few ports as possible for travel is a bonus. With my Inon dome and the macro port meant for the 30mm, you can mix and match extension rings to use the 8mm, 12-45, 30, and 60 lenses.

All that said, I'm interested in the Tokina if the AF performance is decent; M43 really needs a native fisheye zoom.

 

[Barmaglot]

Next question is, will I be sacrificing a lot of auto-focus speed with this setup? If the lens does a lot of hunting, that feels like a step backwards.

I can't comment on OM-1, but on my Sony a6300, I've been using an EF-S 60mm macro lens via a Metabones adapter for blackwater diving, and it focuses very well given sufficient light. I got an a6700 recently, along with a Tokina 10-17mm, and it seems a lot more tolerant of poor lighting than the a6300 was, but I haven't tested it underwater yet.

(to confirm can be EF, doesn’t need to be EF-S?):

EF and EF-S are the same physical mount, with EF-S cameras being APS-C rather than full-frame. There are some lenses with a protruding rear element that fit APS-C cameras with their smaller mirror but block the larger mirror of full-frame cameras, but this is not relevant here.

@Interceptor121 has an article on using EF-mount fisheyes on micro four thirds, although his is more focused on GH5 and Nauticam.

 

[AggressorBLUE]

I agree that the 12-40 is a great lens, but you need the clunky OMD adapter. While it's not as horrible of a pain as you would think, it's still one more thing. I currently use the 12-45 in my AOI OM-1 housing. It works great with my Inon dome intended for the Oly 8mm FE and the AOI 34mm extension. Long story, but I ended up doing a bunch research on this; the Inon dome is slightly larger than most domes meant for the 8mm, but my guess is that the lens would still work fine in an AOI, Zen, or other dome. Probably. The 12-45 is great value in and of itself as it was commonly sold as a kit lens with a few different bodies- meaning it's available second hand for cheap. The port charts call for the same dome meant for the 9-18, so I'm tempted to pick one up and give it a shot- it's just that having as few ports as possible for travel is a bonus. With my Inon dome and the macro port meant for the 30mm, you can mix and match extension rings to use the 8mm, 12-45, 30, and 60 lenses.

All that said, I'm interested in the Tokina if the AF performance is decent; M43 really needs a native fisheye zoom.

Yeah, I have the Oly 12-40 2.8 Pro, and it’s a solid lens for what it is, and I used a bit with my previous EM5-II/Ikelite setup, but found 12mm to be a bit confining for several subjects. And for that lens in particular I’d have to get the port adapter. Plus its hard to spend money on another 12-~40 lens when I already have that range covered top side.

That said, my thinking was the 7-14 or even 9-18 would be a decent mix of ‘middish wide’, with the 7-14 in particular playing a bit of the role of the missing native FE zoom (obviously its rectilinear, but thinking more in terms of FOVs).

I can't comment on OM-1, but on my Sony a6300, I've been using an EF-S 60mm macro lens via a Metabones adapter for blackwater diving, and it focuses very well given sufficient light. I got an a6700 recently, along with a Tokina 10-17mm, and it seems a lot more tolerant of poor lighting than the a6300 was, but I haven't tested it underwater yet.


EF and EF-S are the same physical mount, with EF-S cameras being APS-C rather than full-frame. There are some lenses with a protruding rear element that fit APS-C cameras with their smaller mirror but block the larger mirror of full-frame cameras, but this is not relevant here.

@Interceptor121 has an article on using EF-mount fisheyes on micro four thirds, although his is more focused on GH5 and Nauticam.

Good to know, appreciate it! I’m sold on trying out the 10-17. I figure worst case I return the adapter to amazon and sell the 10-17 here in the classifieds

 

[Brant Emery]

I have the 9-18 and it is not as sharp as the 12-40 PRO. The 9-18 is now sitting in the corner waiting to be sold.