Question Need decent mid-range coverage; thoughts?

[AggressorBLUE]

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.

Agreed, and thats what has me still keeping to the wider side of things, but still wanting to move a notch or so closer to the mids; ie not committing to a full 12-40 working range, but something like 7-14. I consider it to be less about ‘reach’ and more about being able to crop the image optically, where getting a few feat closer with the 8mm fe isn’t feasible, so that I have more IQ headroom to work with when cropping digitally. At the same time I want to be able to capitalize on those moments where a wider scene presents itself, and/or the subject lets me get ultra close.

 

[Nemrod]

Agreed, and thats what has me still keeping to the wider side of things, but still wanting to move a notch or so closer to the mids; ie not committing to a full 12-40 working range, but something like 7-14. I consider it to be less about ‘reach’ and more about being able to crop the image optically, where getting a few feat closer with the 8mm fe isn’t feasible, so that I have more IQ headroom to work with when cropping digitally. At the same time I want to be able to capitalize on those moments where a wider scene presents itself, and/or the subject lets me get ultra close.

I understand. Just keep in mind, which you know of course already, even a little further distance away requires huge jumps in strobe power and allows more stuff in between your lens port and the subject.

 

[AggressorBLUE]

Update, the Pany 7-14 seems to work well with the 4” AOI dome when using the same extension the 8mm Oly FE requires. No immediate cropping or optical oddities. I 3D printed myself a zoom gear today and got that working, and now have a working zoom setup.

Haven’t had a chance to upload photos to the computer to do some pixel peeping. Will update if I notice anything I missed in the optics.

Overall the good news is this staves off having to buy the 8” dome in the PEN size range, which would have been wasteful as there isn’t a lot of native glass that works with that. Instead, down the line I’ll potentially take the plunge and get the OMD adapter and OMD ported 8” dome, if I want to upgrade to the Oly 7-14, and use my 12-40 2.8 Pro.

 

[gummybun]

there is a decent crop factor imparted on the lens from the adapter.

Which adapter did you end up trying on this? I have had to read this thread a few times - all the references and combinations has my head spinning! All the content offered is very valuable but keeping it straight ... I will need to make a chart!

 

[AggressorBLUE]

Which adapter did you end up trying on this? I have had to read this thread a few times - all the references and combinations has my head spinning! All the content offered is very valuable but keeping it straight ... I will need to make a chart!

This adapter

 

[SHaase]

@AggressorBLUE, I've been looking into getting a wide angle lens for my OM-1 and stumbled across this thread. I know you've decided against the Tokina 10-17mm but I'm trying to determine if it will work in my case and would really appreciate any pointers.

Is this the Metabones Speed Booster to use (Canon EF Lens to MFT T Speed Booster ULTRA 0.71x Mark II )? If so, it seems to be available now ( Metabones EF-MFT mount Speed Boosters Upgrades ) so that issue may be a no-op at this point.

I'm using a Nauticam NA-OM1 housing which, according to my AI query so you know it HAS to be right , says my housing supports 85mm wide lenses compared to 74.4mm for the AOI/Olympus PEN Ports system so this may also not be a problem in my case... That said, the Tokina is 70mm wide so it seems like that should have worked for you, so maybe AI lied to me...