Question Need decent mid-range coverage; thoughts?

[Audsred]

Reading your posts - I think you should focus on what you want to shoot and what lenses will work best. Just know if you shoot wide angle and you want a lens with some zoom range the port will be bigger, if that is that a deal breaker - then stay with the Oly 8mm and small port.

So here is my experience from using Olympus Pens w/Olympus housing and now I have Nauticam with OMD1.

I have the panasonic 8mm and love the fisheye and small dome port. Great for traveling but, like you said, it is only 8mm - no zooming.

I have the 9-18 but rarely used as it doesn't have the sharpness I want. I got this lens when first starting to shooting with Olympus Pens, it was ok then but there are better options now. Mine is gathering dust - if you really want a 9-18 - would love to trade you for the Oly 8mm and some extra $$(the Oly 8mm was not out when I bought the pany).

I have the 12-40 Pro with a Zen dome, which I really love underwater when I am not going to shoot only macro - but the dome is big and you have to put the lens 12-40 on after the camera is in the housing - to big (for me) to travel with unless I am only going to shoot big stuff, but locally I love to use it. This dome works with 7-14,9-18 and Oly 8mm.

I have an 12-50 lens I got with my first OMD camera, and if I want the whole range I can use this lens, but I have the port that allows for switching to macro. This lens is not as sharp as the 12-40 but you get the extra range. I don't use this much unless I travel and think I might want a WA lens for a day.

When traveling I will take my 60mm for macro, and my 12-50 for wide angle (they use the same port) and if I have room, the 8mm and dome (just because it's so small). If I'm shooting really big stuff (mantas, sharks) I would use the 12-40, but I wouldn't be taking most of my other ports/lens. I have 2 strobes, focus light, housing, arms, batteries, in addition to camera and housing and the above. For 1 person this gets to be a lot. So depending where I travel, I try and pack for the critters I expect to photograph.

 

[Mike_4635]

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.

So I have the Olympus OMD-E5 II camera in the Olympus PT-EP13 housing and AOI DLP04 port. I mainly use the Olympus 14-42 and have had good luck with this configuration for both medium wide angle to close ups of seahorses. Attached are some of the pictures.

 

[Furnari]

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).

The perfect lens for this situation is the Panasonic 8-18- I had the Oly 7-14 but dropped it as soon as I could in favor of the 8-18. It works great in an OMD housing with a 170mm dome, but there's no way to make it fit in AOI's native PEN housings like the OM-1. Believe me, I tried; it has to do with the placement of the zoom ring. This is a huge bummer, and in my opinion it's the biggest downside to AOI's choice to use PEN ports instead of OMD ports- I'd gladly take on a larger form factor for just this lens alone.

 

[Mike_4635]

So I have the Olympus OMD-E5 II camera in the Olympus PT-EP13 housing and AOI DLP04 port. I mainly use the Olympus 14-42 and have had good luck with this configuration for both medium wide angle to close ups of seahorses. Attached are some of the pictures.

I have also used the Olympus 9-18. Attached is a picture using it

 

[AggressorBLUE]

Appreciate all the responses! Surprised no one has any experience with the 7-14 pany, but not surprised at the love for the oly 12-42, it is a great lens for what it is.

And yeah, super bummed at how limiting the pen port has become on the OM-1 housing. I still dont regret my purchase, as its otherwise a great housing that for my needs punches well above weight in terms of features, but that dam port adapter is a bummer.

And on that note, the Tokina 10-17 just arrived. Still waiting on amazon to deliver the adapter, but already I see the concept is dead in the water for me. You guessed it: the lens is too fat for the Pen port. I should have checked the diameter before buying the lens/adapter, but itnis what it is. I’ll still tinker with the adapter and lens to see how nicely they work in terms of autofocus and optic quality (and will report back!), but yeah, the tokina will likely be in the classified soon.

At this point Im mulling over just buying the pany 7-14 and trying it in the 4” dome first.

 

[bvanant]

Why not go to some more interesting water contact optics. No need for a dome (but you might need some $$$).
Bill

 

[WS007]

Appreciate all the responses! Surprised no one has any experience with the 7-14 pany, but not surprised at the love for the oly 12-42, it is a great lens for what it is.

And yeah, super bummed at how limiting the pen port has become on the OM-1 housing. I still dont regret my purchase, as its otherwise a great housing that for my needs punches well above weight in terms of features, but that dam port adapter is a bummer.

And on that note, the Tokina 10-17 just arrived. Still waiting on amazon to deliver the adapter, but already I see the concept is dead in the water for me. You guessed it: the lens is too fat for the Pen port. I should have checked the diameter before buying the lens/adapter, but itnis what it is. I’ll still tinker with the adapter and lens to see how nicely they work in terms of autofocus and optic quality (and will report back!), but yeah, the tokina will likely be in the classified soon.

At this point Im mulling over just buying the pany 7-14 and trying it in the 4” dome first.

I had the Pana 7-14mm and used it behind Zen DP170 (Nauticam housing with EM5II and EM1II). I did not use it often, it just did not perform well (not much (microcontrast)). Same with the Zuiko 9-18mm (there is a new version II now, but as far as I know the optics is the same)...
Now my wife uses the Zuiko 8-25mm (and 12-40mm f/2.8) behind Zen DP170 and these two lenses are great performers (I never had a 12-42mm standard zoom with WWL-1, but I believe IQ with 8-25mm and 12-40mm behind domeport is much better)...

=> I do not know how these lenses can be used with AOI plastic housing, but here must be a way. You just have to find it out (same with Tokina 10-17mm which is a great performer; you will have to mount the lens on the camera when the camera is already in the housing and then add the domeport)...

Wolfgang

 

[Nemrod]

Just to say, depending upon the amount of cropping needed, (I think) it is better to crop a wider angle close up shot than to back further away with a longer focal length lens and not crop.

 

[AggressorBLUE]

Appreciate all the responses! Surprised no one has any experience with the 7-14 pany, but not surprised at the love for the oly 12-42, it is a great lens for what it is.

And yeah, super bummed at how limiting the pen port has become on the OM-1 housing. I still dont regret my purchase, as its otherwise a great housing that for my needs punches well above weight in terms of features, but that dam port adapter is a bummer.

And on that note, the Tokina 10-17 just arrived. Still waiting on amazon to deliver the adapter, but already I see the concept is dead in the water for me. You guessed it: the lens is too fat for the Pen port. I should have checked the diameter before buying the lens/adapter, but itnis what it is. I’ll still tinker with the adapter and lens to see how nicely they work in terms of autofocus and optic quality (and will report back!), but yeah, the tokina will likely be in the classified soon.

At this point Im mulling over just buying the pany 7-14 and trying it in the 4” dome first.

Update on this: After a bit of playing with the Tokina, I’m ‘meh’ on it in the given application. Auto focus was workable, but noticeably slower and could often get tripped up and start hunting in low contrast situations. It’s possible a better adapter like what Metabones offers would help here, but notably their current smart adapter doesn’t work with the OM-1 due to clearance issues with the viewfinder housing, and the 2.0 version that is supposed to be OM-1 compatible is still ‘coming soon’.

More damning though: there is a decent crop factor imparted on the lens from the adapter. If I have to sacrifice the wide end 8mm FOV, then to me that generally brings it back into the territory of a native 7-14 anyway, so might as well go with the more direct (and faster focusing approach).

That being said, I decided to rent a Pany 7-14, which is due in today. I’m curious to see if it might play nice enough with my current 4” dome to be serviceable without having to upgrade to the 8”. I also want to see if the purple spotting that plagued this lens on Oly bodies when it first came out is still present on the OM-1.

 

[AggressorBLUE]

I had the Pana 7-14mm and used it behind Zen DP170 (Nauticam housing with EM5II and EM1II). I did not use it often, it just did not perform well (not much (microcontrast)). Same with the Zuiko 9-18mm (there is a new version II now, but as far as I know the optics is the same)...
Now my wife uses the Zuiko 8-25mm (and 12-40mm f/2.8) behind Zen DP170 and these two lenses are great performers (I never had a 12-42mm standard zoom with WWL-1, but I believe IQ with 8-25mm and 12-40mm behind domeport is much better)...

=> I do not know how these lenses can be used with AOI plastic housing, but here must be a way. You just have to find it out (same with Tokina 10-17mm which is a great performer; you will have to mount the lens on the camera when the camera is already in the housing and then add the domeport)...

Wolfgang

The Oly 8-25 unfortunately requires using the annoying OMD adapter (so would have to disassemble the entire front housing and remove the lens to get the camera out of the housing). This would also be the setup I’d have to go with to get the Tokina to work.

With that said, if the Pany 7-14 just doesn’t do it for me, I’ll probably have to just suck it up and deal with the adapter. It’s becoming increasingly apparent that without it, my flagship camera is road-blocked from using most of the brands flagship glass.

The silver lining is, if I buy the AOI OM-D adapter and the AOI 8” dome made for the OMD housings, that works with a wide range of Oly pro lenses; I’d just need individual zoom gears and i could use the 12-40 2.8 pro (which I already own), the excellent Oly 7-14, the 8-25 you cited above, as seen from the AOI port chart.