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.
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.
