Recommendations for E-PL10 beyond macro

[BoltSnap]

Long years ago, I chose to go with 9-18 due to reasons described by you but I still sometimes think I should have gone with 8mm fisheye. Rectilinear super wa lenses are versatile but if you are looking for a spectaculer shot, they are often captuered with a fisheye imho.

The problem with fisheye lens is that any subjects that are further than 1-2m away will start to look tiny in the picture. Unless a shark is right in your face, it will look tiny in the picture. Same thing for a wreck's picture. The rectilinear 7-14mm, or the newer 8-25mm, do a much better job in taking Wide Angle shots from a distance.

 

[scubaozy]

The problem with fisheye lens is that any subjects that are further than 1-2m away will start to look tiny in the picture. Unless a shark is right in your face, it will look tiny in the picture. Same thing for a wreck's picture. The rectilinear 7-14mm, or the newer 8-25mm, do a much better job in taking Wide Angle shots from a distance.

My point is; are the images of a wreck with rectalinear more spectacular or fisheye? Every time I end up at the bow or prop of a wreck, I wish I had 8mm with me. When I look at magazines, often most impressive images are taken with specialised lenses. For sure they are 1 trick ponnies but is your goal to capture really good few images per dive trip or 100 passable images? Versatile = compromise.
Anyway, opinions and experiences might differ. This is the experience and learnig I made and I gave the very same advice to my sister when she was upgrading her system and she is very happy to have listened to it. Versatile is very tempting but using specilised tool will give the best result. Otherwise why do we even bother with 60mm? I could easily attach a external bayonette lense to stock port and use stock 14-42mm.

 

[Dann-Oh]

Hi Dann-Oh,

I also love reading through wetpixel and believe it or not your posts specifically over there have saved me a lot of effort as I've been building out my kit and learning what I should be doing. So far I just have the 14-42 kit lens and the oly 60 mm macro and the necessary extension ring. I actually just got back from a two week trip in the Philippines where I shot exclusively with the 60mm and I have to say I'm extremely pleased with the results. Most of my griping at this point is really just improvement I could make to framing, exposure, strobe placement, snoot placement... aka be a better photographer.

On the wide angle front, I guess what I'm trying to accomplish is a good question. I absolutely love shooting macro, so one of my first thoughts is I think I'd enjoy giving close-focus wide angle a shot and going from there. That being said, after diving with the whale sharks and thresher sharks over there and having done Tiger Beach a few years ago, I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't love to try to shoot the real big things. After reading over on WP I've come to the same conclusion that the 8-25 just isn't worth it for underwater and the 7-14, while it might be really nice, would he more trouble than it's worth. The decision I'm at now is whether it makes more sense to pursue an 8mm fisheye (either Pany or Oly) with a dome port, or go the other direction and find a wet wide lines like the Nauticam WWL-1 (which I believe supposedly works really well for mft) or the AOI-UWL 09 or 09 PRO and just shoot with the 14-42. So far I've yet to really see a major benefit either way, as I'd need to swap ports between shooting macro and wide regardless of whether it's to a dome port or just to the flat port without an extension. I think the price points are also honestly fairly similar given the choice of 8 mm fisheye + dome vs. Wet wide lens. Do you have any suggestions or recommendations?

Personally I choose to use the specific lens and port combo over using a wetlens kit. My rational is that I would rather choose one type of image to focus on, Wide angle, macro, or scouting (aka 14-42 kit lens). l think this decision forces me to stick to one type of image for each day of diving. I find it hard try to go back and forth between wide angle and macro on the same dive, don't get me wrong many many times Ill put on the 60mm macro and then only find larger items or vice versa.

The other factor I had to consider is what kind of diving do I do? I do a lot of Southern California beach diving, which means dealing with surf, sand and cooler water temps. All of these make me nervous about loosing a wetlens.

 

[Barmaglot]

Not quite the same thing, as I shoot Sony APS-C rather than MFT, but I recently moved from a 10-18mm in a dome to 16-50mm with UWL-09F, and I'm quite happy with it. In MFT terms, this would be a 7-14mm going to 14-42mm + wetlens. At 130mm diagonal AoV it's not quite as wide as a true fisheye, but it still gives the fisheye perspective, i.e. shots like this:

(19mm, f/13, 1/30s, ISO 1600)

(19mm, f/13, 1/50s, ISO 400)

For comparison, some reef shots taken with 10-18mm in a dome:

(10mm, f/11, 1/50s, ISO 200)

(10mm, f/11, 1/1000s, ISO 100)

However, with the wet lens, I can also zoom in on more distant subjects, e.g.:

(50mm, f/11, 1/60s, ISO 200)

Or, in a pinch, take the lens off and shoot something approximating macro:

(48mm, f/11, 1/160s, ISO 100, about 25% crop)

 

[BoltSnap]

My point is; are the images of a wreck with rectalinear more spectacular or fisheye?

That's in the eye of the photographer/artist. It all depends on the "idea/store" you want to convey to the world.

Every time I end up at the bow or prop of a wreck, I wish I had 8mm with me.

The 8mm may give you the image you want but you have to be very close to the subject otherwise the subject may appear to be very small in the image with a fisheye. The 8mm may work with a very big wreck but it isn't going to work with big animals such as sharks unless you are right in their face. A better tool will be the 7-14 or 8-25mm in this case. The 7-14/8-25mm lenses will be more appropriate than the 8mm if you can only buy one lens. If I can afford it, I'd buy the 8mm in addition to the 8-25mm myself. I have the 8mm fisheye now but I want to buy the 8-25mm as soon as I can afford it (I have to upgrade my camera first anyways).

At the end, whatever makes sense to you and whatever creates the images you want to take.

 

[eanxdiver]

Hello,
Which port is used for the 12-50mm and AOI Housing?
Thanks

 

[Barmaglot]

Hello,
Which port is used for the 12-50mm and AOI Housing?
Thanks

You can see it on the AOI port chart here: https://www.aoi-uw.com/media/wysiwyg/AOI_Ports_Chart_for_OLYMPUS_Housings.pdf - there's a choice of FLP-04 flat port and a number of semi-dome options. Note that, AFAIK, the macro mode on that lens can be engaged/disengaged only in Nauticam housings/ports with Nauticam's special zoom gear, which, alone, costs over $700 and requires considerable effort to assemble.

 

[eanxdiver]

You can see it on the AOI port chart here: https://www.aoi-uw.com/media/wysiwyg/AOI_Ports_Chart_for_OLYMPUS_Housings.pdf - there's a choice of FLP-04 flat port and a number of semi-dome options. Note that, AFAIK, the macro mode on that lens can be engaged/disengaged only in Nauticam housings/ports with Nauticam's special zoom gear, which, alone, costs over $700 and requires considerable effort to assemble.

Thank you. Just what I was looking for.

 

[narayaana]

Hello,
Which port is used for the 12-50mm and AOI Housing?
Thanks

The same as for 60mm. That's my point, I just have one adapter port that fits both macro and wide.
I got the 60mm new, and 12-50 2nd hand. Lot of people buy these for some reason... But for surface, it really is not much use, whereas underwater... I bought 12-50 1000 HKD. 127 usd.

 

[scubaozy]

That's in the eye of the photographer/artist. It all depends on the "idea/store" you want to convey to the world.




The 8mm may give you the image you want but you have to be very close to the subject otherwise the subject may appear to be very small in the image with a fisheye. The 8mm may work with a very big wreck but it isn't going to work with big animals such as sharks unless you are right in their face. A better tool will be the 7-14 or 8-25mm in this case. The 7-14/8-25mm lenses will be more appropriate than the 8mm if you can only buy one lens. If I can afford it, I'd buy the 8mm in addition to the 8-25mm myself. I have the 8mm fisheye now but I want to buy the 8-25mm as soon as I can afford it (I have to upgrade my camera first anyways).

At the end, whatever makes sense to you and whatever creates the images you want to take.

Agree. 8-25 sounds like a versatile package. But again, in my experience in shark diving, there is very little middle ground for photography. They will either come very close because they are baited or particular species is inquisitive, docile, even stationary, or they will be too far off. When I can get to shoot with rectalinear usually fisheye will work as well.