Olympus Versus Inon Macro Lens

[Eli]

For about $150 I can get either the Olympus PTMC-01 or the Inon UCL-165M67 macro lenses for my Olympus C-5060 with PT-020 housing. Both have 67 mm screw thread.

For less than $40 I can buy a full set of above water diopter close-up lenses with 67 mm screw thread.

Does anyone have experience comparing these different options? I never see any mention of the Olympus macro lens. Is it any good? Alot of people have posted wonderful photos using the Inon lens.

Thanks in advance.

 

[jlyle]

The Olympus macro lens adapter is good, but it isn't threaded on both sides. The Inons are threaded so that you can easily stack them - which is what you will want to do. One macro lens adapter gives you no advantage over what the camera can do on its own; buy two and stack them.

For $40, it would be worthwhile experimenting with the diopters. If you go this route, please report back on your experience.

 

[AndyT]

Ditto all of the above advice - double stacked macros are great !!!

 

[herman]

From some of the reading on UW add on lenses I have done, the problem with topside lens are they tend not to be strong enough to do much good UW. Basically, when water is introduced between the lenses it reduces the effective magnification power of the lenses by a factor of 4. To get the equivilent of a 2x diopter UW you would have to get a AW 8x. Topside diopters don't commonly come in high diopters. A 5x AW would be 1.25 UW...not worth the trouble.
If the Oly does not come threaded on both sides, them by all means get the Inons. I would also suggest buying the double lens caddy while your at it. Well worth the money.

 

[Wiggsy]

Herman's got it right - I tried topside diopter lenses with startling results - nothing happened! They need an airspace to work properly.

 

[Eli]

Thanks Wiggsy! I ordered an Inon lens.

 

[Divr56]

Does anyone have any leads on where to find wide angle lens for a C-5050 and underwater housing PT015?

 

[jlyle]

Does anyone have any leads on where to find wide angle lens for a C-5050 and underwater housing PT015?

reefphoto.com click on "lenses - wet mount."

You want the Type II - 67mm

 

[Ryan]

Thanks for the link Jim!

The Inon UCL-165 M67 is around a +10 Diopter, meaning you could stack up an entire 67MM Closeup Kit (+4, +2, +1) and still have less power. The dedicated underwater macros are more better.

I've boycotted UN(Olympus' vendor for that lens) products where possible for nearly four years after we had issues with PWC-01 wide angle lenses and bad coatings that were not supported. The Inon lenses are very high quality.