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Macrophotography with the Micro Four Thirds – what options do we have?

Monday, January 11th, 2010

This post is an attempt to answer one of my reader’s questions on whether to buy a GH-1 for dental macrophotography.

As popular as the Micro Four Thirds cameras have been in 2009, the system is still very young, and one area that is yet to be developed adequately is macrophotography.

Micro Four Thirds allows you to embark on either an expensive auto-focus route with the Leica-D 45mm f/2.8 macro lens, or an extremely large range of very cheap but high quality, legacy manual focus macro options.

First, the bad news:

There is only one dedicated AF macro lens available for the M43 system at present – the expensive Panasonic Leica-D 45mm f/2.8 OIS MFT lens which is a very nice lens with focus range limiter and allows one to image a subject size 1/4 that of a full frame film, but its lack of focus scale makes manual focus more difficult than with other macro lenses.

The Olympus Four Thirds ZD 50mm f/2.0 macro lens, although one of the sharpest lenses ever made, it will not AF on a Panasonic M43 camera, and will AF slowly on an Olympus M43 camera. This AF issue also applies to the cheaper Olympus ZD 35mm macro lens for Four Thirds.

The Olympus SRF-11 Ring Flash for Four Thirds has a FR-1 adapter for the Olympus Four Thirds ZD 50mm f/2.0 macro lens but it is 1mm too wide to attach to the Panasonic Leica-D 45mm macro lens, and is quite a large flash to use on the small M43 bodies – but you do get TTL exposure and it is a lovely ring flash with full circumferential flash unlike the Canon ring flash.

The 14-140mm lens will have difficulty with AF inside the mouth given its f/5.6 aperture (I have tried that!)

The built-in popup flash of the GH-1 is not high enough to prevent lens shadowing when the 14-140mm lens is used at focal lengths 14-20mm, or when the ZD 50mm f/2.0 macro lens is used at closer than 0.26m focal setting.

The GH-1 will not allow TTL flash with legacy lenses – seems it needs to know what the aperture is and works on the assumption aperture is ~f/2.8, furthermore flash exposure compensation with legacy lenses gives strange results – please Panasonic fix this up with a firmware update! Fortunately, you can easily set the Ring Flash to a manual output setting (you can’t do this with the built-in flash though!).

Now the good news:

1:1 macro on these cameras is HIGHER magnification than 1:1 on 35mm cameras as it gives subject size of 23mmx17mm not 36mm x 24mm.

From dpreview.com’s review of the Panasonic 45mm f/2.8 macro lens:

“On Panasonic G-series models, the 45mm becomes capable of something that’s simply not possible with any DSLR system – genuinely usable autofocus when shooting macros. These cameras allow you to choose an extremely small AF point and place it wherever you like within a large area of the frame (although not at the extreme borders). This means you can tell the camera to focus precisely where you want within your composition, and it will just do it without any fuss – it’s a very useful tool indeed.”

Most photographers who are serious about macro work do not use autofocus but use manual focus – often setting the lens to a given magnification setting (ie. a focus point), and then move the camera in or out from the subject until focus is achieved.

Autofocus is generally a challenge in macro work, particularly when the subject is not in a plane parallel to the camera, and in the low light levels inside someone’s mouth, and where there is low contrast such as on mucosa or teeth, combined with specular reflections of the light source.

Thus, the lack of AF macro lenses is not a big deal.

The absence of a mirror means you have much more efficient access to accurate manual focus and you can choose any area of the screen to magnify, plus you don’t have to worry about vibrations of the mirror and having to use mirror lock up for each shot at high magnification.

For instance, to see how easy and accurate it is to manually focus with the Olympus ZD 50mm f/2.0 macro lens on a Panasonic GH-1:

turn GH-1 on and set it to Manual Focus, set desired aperture/exposure mode as usual.
turn focus ring of the lens to closest focus
half-press shutter to return view to full view and then move camera in to get approximate focus
either press the AF button on the rear of the GH-1 and press OK button, or better still, rotate the lens focus towards more macro (and thus it won’t change the focus point as it is already at closest focus, but this will activate the magnified view function of the GH-1)
now magnified view is activated, move camera in or out to achieve perfect focus
take the shot even while in magnified view mode if you wish – there is no mirror to drop down as with dSLRs
manual focus with this lens on a M43 camera is super easy and accurate, much better than on ANY dSLR I have seen.

The M43 cameras allow you to use a wider 16:9 aspect ratio which may be more applicable to cosmetic dental photography.

The EVF or LCD means that even if you stop down a lens, your viewfinder does not become dark as it would in optical dSLR viewfinders.

If you use the GH-1 on a tripod, you also have the wonderful advantage of the flip out swiveling LCD to make your life that much easier.

This means you have access to using almost every macro lens ever made with or without extension tubes or bellows or teleconverters.

For example, you can pick up an excellent Olympus OM 50mm f/3.5 macro lens on Ebay quite cheaply, and as this is a legacy lens, it has magnification markings (although you will need to double these for the 2x crop factor).

If you are going to routinely use the same magnification, then manual macro flash photography becomes a LOT easier and you could even use a Canon Ring Flash on your M43 camera in manual mode, and attach it to whichever lens you wish to use via the appropriate filter adapter – see using Canon flash on M43 cameras here.

If you have the Olympus Ring Flash, it can be used without an adapter for a lens by holding it as the lens sits inside the ring, and of course you will have TTL auto exposure, even if using legacy macro lenses (as long as you use an Olympus M43 camera as TTL on Panny’s seems to assume lens is set to f/2.8!)

The hopefully near future:

I posted a blog in August 2009 suggesting that it was time for Olympus to revamp their macro system, in particular, a faster focusing 50mm f/2.0 macro lens for Four Thirds – in fact, Olympus has announced a M43 50mm macro lens will be available in 2011 – hopefully a f/2.0 so it can be used as a portrait lens as well, and a more compact macro ring flash kit with ability to adapt onto M43 lenses.

Although neither Olympus nor Panasonic have announced a new Ring Flash for M43, I am sure it can’t be too far away, presumably it is more likely to be 2011 than 2010.

In the meantime, there are many options to consider, and the many Canon dSLR users who have adopted M43 as their 2nd camera system will be thankful that their Canon flashes can be used without modification on a M43 camera – albeit only in manual mode.

What options now for dental work using a Panasonic GH-1?

Option 1 for AF and TTL flash but need to hand hold the ring flash:

Panasonic Leica-D 45mm f/2.8 OIS ($US899 or $A1549 RRP) + Olympus Ring Flash ($A1299)
manual focus more difficult as no focus distance scale thus hard to preset a focus distance
perhaps the best macro AF system available with any camera system
softer corners on imaging flat surfaces as not a true flat field lens

Option 2 for MF only and TTL but no need to hand hold the ring flash:

Olympus ZD 50mm f/2.0 macro ($A769) + Four Thirds adapter ($A345) + FR-1 Ring Flash adapter ($A100?) + Olympus Ring flash ($A1299) +/- EC-20 2x teleconverter for 23mmx17mm subject size ($A675)
focus distance scale makes presetting manual focus distance easier
f/2.0 allows better use as a portrait lens for blurring the background
very sharp edge to edge image quality
can add the EC-20 teleconverter to give a 35mm equivalent 200mm focal length reach at f/4 light levels, and subject size 23x17mm
FR-1 ring flash adapter makes a very handy and effective lens hood as well as helps to protect the lens – I leave mine on!
can be used with full AF on Four Thirds cameras, and with slow AF on Olympus M43 cameras
only marginally larger than the 45mm f/2.8
this would probably be the best option for those who also have Four Thirds dSLRs.

Option 3 for good quality on the cheap, manual flash and hand hold the ring flash:

Olympus OM 50mm f/3.5 macro ($A150 Ebay) + OM-M43 adapter + Olympus ring flash ($A1299)

Option 4 for good quality on the cheap, manual flash but no need to hand hold the ring flash:

Olympus OM 50mm f/3.5 macro + OM-M43 adapter + Canon ring flash + 49mm ring flash adapter (or 49mm step up ring)
Olympus OM bellows or OM 65-116 auto tube with OM macro lenses + OM-M43 adapter
Nikon micro lens + Nikon F-M43 adapter ($A40)
Canon FD macro lens + Canon FD-M43 adapter ($A40)

NB. of course, you may find the cheaper Olympus E-P1 is adequate for your needs instead of a GH-1, in which case you will get some slow AF with the ZD 50mm macro and you will also get image stabilisation for non-flash uses, and presumably you will get TTL external flash even with legacy lenses (unlike the GH-1 but I have not tested this on the E-P1).

See also my links to macrophotography information although this article was written before Micro Four Thirds system was developed and some of my macrophotography photos (mainly taken with an Olympus E510 before I bought my GH-1)

Panasonic GH-1 with Olympus ZD 50mm f/2.0 macro, flash adapter and Olympus Ring Flash. The hand grip on the GH-1 is very handy here.

Finally, Metz offer a Mecablitz 15 MS-1 Slave Ring Flash which is compatible with Olympus and Panasonic Four Thirds wireless TTL, however, as no M43 camera yet has remote TTL capability you may need to resort to also using its 6 level manual output control and either an in-built or external flash to trigger it optically (I presume that is what is meant by Slave Flash with pre-flash suppression). It has adapter rings for 52, 55, 58, 62, 67, and 72mm filter threads.

Posted in flash | 13 Responses »
Tags: flash, Four Thirds Micro, macro, Olympus Ring Flash

Olympus macro system – time for a re-vamp?

Friday, January 9th, 2009

I love the Olympus dSLR macro system introduced in Dec 2003 because:

it’s relatively light for hand held use
availability of swivel live preview LCD screens so you don’t have to get down on the ground – eg. Olympus E330, E30, E3 dSLRs
a high optical quality macro lens – the ZD 50mm f/2.0 macro with circular aperture for nice bokeh, and edge to edge sharpness that is usually not found on full frame lenses
availability of superb teleconverters to allow higher magnification whilst maintaining working distance
availability of excellent complete ring flash and twin flash which share the same flash controller, and as is standard, provide full TTL auto exposure metering or full manual control as well as modeling lights, and for the twin lights you can control light ratio and importantly there are diffusers to improve the quality of the light

the Canon ring flash is actually segmented tubes giving a poor catchlight
Nikon don’t currently make a ring flash for their system
whilst the small size of macro ring flashes are not adequate to create the beauty ring catchlight of large pro ring flashes, they make great shadowless fill-in flash for portraits as well as their use for almost shadowless macro shots

it’s easy to use, particularly the flash module settings
image stabilisation is available for all lenses when using an IS-capable body such as E510/520/E30/E3

whilst Nikon make a VR macro lens, there are no image stabilised macro lenses available for Canon dSLRs

ability to use almost any macro lens ever made (Nikon, Leica R/M, Carl Zeiss, Olympus OM,etc) with notable exceptions such as Canon EOS
you can combine it with non-Olympus flashes in manual flash output mode by setting the Olympus macro flash to Manual mode (to switch off pre-flashes which prematurely trigger your other flashes), and use an optical trigger device on your other flashes

ring flash

The system is capable of taking some great shots such as this one I took of a bee:

Hold on to your dreams:

BUT I believe its time to make it even better, so here are some of my suggestions:

First, the ZD 50mm macro lens:

the AF can be a bit frustrating – time for SWD and compatibility with contrast-detect AF
focus range switch to allow switchable settings such as 1:1 macro to 1m and 1m to infinity
1:1 macro instead of only 1:2 – could we dream of 1:0.5 even?

Next, make adapters to allow the existing macro flashes to attach to almost any lens.

unfortunately Olympus designers seem to have been on hallucinogens making the current macro flash – the bayonet mount will only mount on certain lenses and even for the 50mm macro lens, one needs to buy a separate adapter.
the bayonet fitting used to fit the original ZD 50-200mm lens but the new SWD version of this lens amazingly has an incompatible bayonet mount
it’s time to make some adapters as is available in the Canon system so that these flashes can be mounted to various filter threads such as 58mm, 67mm, etc.

Now the macro flash system:

the obvious need is to add capability for it to be a master controller for remote TTL flash so that one could control FL-36R or FL-50R flashes used to light the background
it would be nice to be able to control light ratio of two halves of the ring flash – perhaps make the ring flash with 2 tubes as with Canon, but make them seamless so that you still get a full circle catchlight instead of the segmented ugly Canon ring light catch light

Lastly, perhaps some new macro lenses:

a 1-5x macro lens similar to the Canon lens although these are unlikely to sell in large quantities given the difficulty in using such high magnifications, the absence of AF or ability to focus to infinity, but such macro capability is essential in a complete macro system
a 100mm f/2.0 macro lens to provide a longer working distance and at the same time be a relatively compact, high quality f/2.0 lens for portraits, indoor action, astrophotography and whatever other applications one can think of

currently, the ZD 50-200mm f2.8-3.5 SWD provides good macro performance at 1.2m close focus and 200mm focal length (400mm equivalent reach in 35mm terms), but I think a 100mm f/2.0 SWD macro would be a brilliant, even sharper lens in the pro line (rather than super-pro) and also compliment the current ZD 150mm f/2.0 lens which is probably due for a SWD upgrade
Stan has reminded me of the Sigma 105mm f/2.8 macro lens but this does not appear to have the resolution wide open that I would like – see 105mm lens review.

More information on macrophotography here.

Posted in flash, photography | 5 Responses »
Tags: macro, Olympus, Olympus Ring Flash, wish lists, ZD 50mm macro

Olympus ZD 50mm macro – flowers with Olympus Ring Flash

Thursday, October 16th, 2008

What else to do on a lovely sunny Spring morning with not much wind (wind is BAD for macro shots!), than to take a wander and see what you can find….

and, attaching the Olympus EC-20 2x teleconverter allows 1:1 macro, such as these Mt Fuji cherry tree blossom with tiny Argentinian ant which have now created one of the biggest ant super-colonies in the world, here in Melbourne.

Click on the images for larger views.

Posted in photography | 3 Responses »
Tags: E510, flower, Olympus Ring Flash, ZD 50mm macro

Portable portrait lighting with Olympus E510 & flash/strobe

Wednesday, October 1st, 2008

There are several requirements for portable portrait lighting:

a portrait lens if you wish to blur the background
a key light – the main light that will light the face
a fill-in light – a light to fill in the shadows and thus modify contrast, hopefully without adding its own shadows
optionally a hair light or kicker rim light

I use a Ring Flash here, but you could use the built-in flash instead, it just give more shadows as it is further from the lens.

With the E510 we do not have the joys of wireless TTL automatic flash exposure, so we need to stick with manual flash if we are going to use more than one flash, but I prefer it that way anyway.

Of course, if you have the E520 or E3 with the R Olympus flash units you could go down the wireless TTL route as an additional option to my proposal here.

A further issue is that we can’t use the Ring Flash in TTL mode as the pre-flash prematurely fires other flashes (at least with my optical triggers), so I am resorting to full manual exposure and trial and error.

When doing complex things like this and people are involved, it is best to test things out and standardise your procedure so when the time comes, they don’t lose interest and get bored or frustrated.

Thus, in the name of standardisation, here is a setup I propose:

Olympus E510 with ZD 50mm f/2.0 macro + macro adapter + Olympus Ring Flash

the Ring Flash is handy here as it will fulfill three roles:

triggering the other flash(es) optically
providing a catchlight in the eyes (but at this distance it won’t be a beautiful ring as in the glamour magazines) – and hopefully not too much red eye as we will be under-exposing this flash
finally, the almost shadow-less fill-in lighting

a second flash with an optical trigger attached

I use a Metz 45CL-4 on its W (1/64th output) setting inside a Westcott Apollo umbrella softbox held ~1.5m from the subject – but you can use any flash/umbrella/bounce option you want

optionally, other manual flashes with optical triggers, eg a flash with a snoot attached for hair light

Now how do we set exposure for each when we don’t have a flash meter?

Let’s set the E510 to ISO 100, auto WB or daylight, manual exposure mode, 1/180th sec (the flash sync speed), f/2.5 (you could use any aperture but then you would have to adjust the flash outputs accordingly, and in case you want to use a wide aperture to blur the background, f/2.5 is a good aperture to start with).

Set the Ring Flash to manual mode and dial down the output to 1/256th second so we can see the effect of the other flashes.

Set the output of your main flash (or its distance to subject) until you get the exposure just right when checking your histogram.

Now do the same for any other flashes.

Ensure you are at the desired distance to your subject (as changing this will alter the effect of the Ring Flash).

Finally, adjust the output of the Ring Flash until you get the fill-in level to your desired aesthetics – you will probably find its between 1/256th to 1/16th when using f/2.5 and dependent on effect needed.

Write down these settings and perhaps make lengths of string so you can quickly reproduce the flash to subject distances.

Now, to tweak this a bit, you can adjust the shutter speed to longer duration to allow adjustment to ambient light exposure of the surroundings (as long as you are not in bright outdoors as this may require smaller apertures to allow a shutter speed at the flash sync).

Hope this makes sense, have fun with experimenting – if you have a macro lens with ring flash, you may as well use it for portraits as well as your macro work.

Posted in photography | 2 Responses »
Tags: Olympus Ring Flash, portrait, ZD 50mm macro

Macrophotography – which aperture to use?

Sunday, September 28th, 2008

Aperture has a big role to play in how your macrophotography images come out.

With the smaller sensor on the Olympus/Panasonic Four Thirds system, there is the issue of decreasing resolution and thus image detail with small apertures as a result of the physical limitations imposed by diffraction.

At the same time we want to increase depth of field and this requires small apertures, thus creating opposing image quality effects on the aperture we choose.

So what aperture is best?

To answer this I ran some simple tests which will ONLY precisely apply to using the Olympus ZD 50mm f/2.0 macro lens combined with the excellent Olympus EC-20 2x teleconverter, however, the general principles can be applied to ANY camera system.

For simplicity, aperture f stops mentioned below are those shown in the camera – ie. f/8 is actually f/4 on a lens and multiplied by 2x to account for the 2x teleconverter. The camera automatically does this for you and records the calculated aperture in the image EXIF data.

Check out the tests of aperture versus depth of field at 1:1 macro (this should apply to ANY camera system at 1:1 macro as depth of field is a function of subject magnification and aperture and is independent of sensor size or lens focal length – at least that is my understanding of the theory).

Check out the tests of aperture vs resolution. Although these are not at 1:1 macro, the relationship of resolution vs aperture should be applicable for all focus points with this combination. Perhaps surprisingly, diffraction limitations really only started to become evident at 100% pixel peeping at f/16 which was still not much different to the best resolution at f/5.6. This is surprising because it seems to be contrary to what would be expected according to table 3 on this article which suggests on this sensor, diffraction should be limiting resolution to 2mp at f/16 when clearly the results seem to be MUCH better than that.

ps.. have now added some images of aperture vs resolution for the ZD 50mm macro alone at 1:2 macro, its closest focus.
optimum apertures for 50mm without the teleconverter at 1:2 macro seem to be f/5.6-8 while f/11-16 starts to get a bit soft

In general for optimum DOF vs resolution with the 50mm + EC-20, use:

f/5.6-f/8 for flat surfaces, and,
f/11-16 for non-flat surfaces (eg. bugs) – f/22 if DOF more important than resolution.
f/11 (f/5.6×2) if in doubt will give excellent compromise.
this suggests that the 2x effect of the teleconverter in light loss terms could possibly be ignored when factoring in diffraction issues

To avoid the shutter lag and pre-flash using the Ring Flash, you can set the Ring Flash to manual exposure and adjust as needed according to your macro combination, distance of flash to subject, aperture and ISO you select.

For simplicity, using this combination at 1:1 macro, ie. manual focus to closest focus with Ring Flash attached, you can try this setting:

ISO100, f/11 (f/5.6 x2), 1/180th sec, set Ring Flash to manual at about 1/4 power.
obviously you will need to manually adjust output if use different aperture or distance to subject.

NB. my Ring Flash seemed to be overexposing at wide apertures so if you use these, double check the exposure with the histogram.

Finally, does the EC-20 degrade image quality?

To test this, I imaged a maple leaf at 1:2 macro magnification – at the closest focus of the ZD 50mm at f/8 alone, and at ~double this distance for the 50mm macro + EC-20 teleconverter (at f/11 – f/5.6×2) so that the image magnification was pretty much identical. I used AF for both.

These are pixel peeping 100% crops near the centre:

First, the macro lens alone:

leaf - 50mm alone

and, the macro lens + EC-20 teleconverter:

leaf with teleconverter

In terms of image detail, I must admit, I can’t see much difference although for some reason the EC20 image has more contrast which appears to give it more detail which is counter to what we would otherwise expect.

This is how good this teleconverter is – no wonder Olympus claims it is one of the sharpest ever made!

Since writing this post, dpreview.com have posted their review of the ZD 50mm f/2.0 macro which confirms how good this lens is optically – although it really needs a SWD version with focus range limiter switch – hopefully Olympus will be updating this soon.

Posted in photography | Comments Off
Tags: macro, Olympus, Olympus Ring Flash, ZD 50mm macro, ZD EC20

Macro eyes again… this time with ZD 50-200mm lens

Monday, September 22nd, 2008

In an attempt to provide an alternative to prominent ring flash catch lights in the previous post when using a ZD 50mm macro lens with ring flash, I decided to try the ZD 50-200mm SWD which gives a much longer working distance and thus reduces the size of the catch lights significantly.

Whilst it is possible with the ZD 50-200mm alone, the magnification at its closest focus of 1.2m is about half that of the ZD 50mm macro and thus the diameter of the iris is only some 550 pixels on a 10mp camera.

ZD 50-200mm alone

Thus to get higher magnification (now we are back to about 1200 pixels for the iris diameter), I tried adding the EC-20 2x teleconverter to the ZD 50-200mm at f/11 and increasing the ISO to 400 given the greater working distance. The greater working distance means the flash is now illuminating the interior of the eye a bit causing a mild red eye appearance which I would personally prefer not to have in the images.

ZD 50-200mm with 2x TC

I could probably have got away with ISO 100 but at f/11 (f/5.6 x 2 for the TC) and 1.2m distance it is pushing the ring flash near its maximum output, and if I was serious about getting the best images, I would try ISO 100-200 and perhaps even try f/16 (f/8 x 2 for the TC).

My preference for obtaining a catch light smaller than the iris opening is to use the ZD 50mm macro lens with ZD EC-20 2x TC with lens focused at 0.3-0.4m instead of its closest focus depending on desired catchlight size:

smaller catchlight

For a complete comparison, see the rest of the images here

Posted in lenses, video | Comments Off
Tags: macro, Olympus, Olympus Ring Flash, ZD 50-200mm

Beautiful eyes …. fun with macro and ring flash

Sunday, September 21st, 2008

A few of my friends inspired me to start a fun mini project using my Olympus E510, ZD 50mm macro lens and Olympus ring flash.

Just set manual exposure to f/8, ISO 100, 1/180th sec, and set manual focus. Make sure the flash is set to TTL then rack out the lens to its closest focus. Then just move in and out until you have achieved focus … now this is a bit tricky given you have a subject that moves a little and your depth of field is very narrow still.

Here is a sample, … when Irish eyes are smiling

Irish eyes

For more beautiful eyes, see my little project on my website, in particular, the interesting distortion of the ring flash catchlight when photographing eyes with contact lenses on and those with subtle corneal distortions.

ps… not all are perfectly focused but my subjects would only tolerate a couple of tries, so I decided to accept a few less than perfect to thank them for volunteering.

also, these images have been cropped ~50% and resized for the web -use of the EC-20 2x teleconverter would enable images with minimal cropping.

Posted in photography | Comments Off
Tags: eyes, macro, Olympus, Olympus Ring Flash, ZD 50mm macro

Olympus ZD50mm macro + ZD EC-20 2x TC macro

Tuesday, September 9th, 2008

Another day out with the wonderful combination of Olympus E510 + ZD 50mm macro lens + ZD EC-20 2x teleconverter + Olympus Ring Flash.

This combo makes macrophotography a piece of cake – all you need do is find a subject, put exposure mode onto manual, select an aperture to give enough depth of field such as f/8 or f/11, select a shutter speed slower than 1/180th sec (you can adjust this to adjust degree of ambient background lighting you want instead of just getting a black background), set focus to manual and crank lens out using the focus ring until you get the desired magnification you need, then just move into your subject carefully until it appears in focus.

Olympus TTL flash will do the rest, although be warned, it needs to fire a pre-flash to determine exposure and this causes a bit of shutter lag.

You can easily avoid this by changing the Flash mode to manual (just hit the mode button) and dial up a manual output (eg/ 1/16) and adjust this according to exposure results – for the same macro magnification, aperture and ISO, this manual output can remain constant. In manual mode you can also trigger additional flashes by optical triggers as there is no preflash to cause premature firing.

Here is a portrait of a butterfly today, no Photoshop, no cropping, just resized for the web:

butterfly portrait

you can see more of my butterfly pics from today here, including this fabulous butterfly mating:

my macro photos

oh….and a nice frog (without the 2x TC or the ring flash – hand held):

butterfly portrait

Posted in lenses | 2 Responses »
Tags: E510, macro, Olympus, Olympus Ring Flash, ZD 50mm macro, ZD EC20

Olympus EC-20 teleconverter for macro use – 1st test images

Saturday, August 23rd, 2008

OK, the logical thing to do in the evening after buying the EC-20 2x teleconverter today (see my earlier post on its outdoor tests with the ZD 50-200mm to give 800mm reach) was to have a play and see how well it works with my lenses and Olympus Ring Flash.

The results are brilliant.

First, I re-checked its closest focus on the ZD 50-200mm f/2.8-3.5 SWD lens and hand-held the Olympus Ring Flash on the lens. Using manual focus and then just moving in and out from the subject until it was in focus was not so easy whilst holding the flash too but you can do it.

Here is a shot of the Microsoft stickers on my laptop from 1.2m (I didn’t measure this, but it seemed like it was as Olympus states as the close focus for this lens). I have placed a ruler there and you can see the width is indeed ~36mm which is the same as a 35mm film width, hence the conventional statement that this offers 1:1 macro in 35mm terms with this configuration.

This was shot at lens aperture of f/5.6 and thus with the 2x TC, the effective aperture is f/11.

ZD50-200mm macro

The upper part of this image is blurred as I intentionally angled the lens to reduce reflections from the flash.

And here is a 100% crop of that image:

ZD 50-200mm macro crop

That is not a bad performance at all given we are 1.2m away!

NOW, let’s try it with one of the sharpest lenses out there, the Olympus ZD 50mm f/2.0 macro.

Obviously, the Ring Flash fits nicely on this lens as long as you bought the optional adapter.

One thing worth noting with this combination is that AF does not work for the shorter focus distances and you have to resort to MF, but that’s OK, that’s what I prefer anyway, and you still get AF confirm light in the viewfinder flashing when you have it exact.

Now for the test photo of the same subject as above but taken at f/8 (ie. f/16 effective with 2x TC):

ZD 50mm macro

The long edge of this image represents about 18mm so it is a 2:1 macro in 35mm terms and this combination thus offers twice the magnification as the 50-200mm + TC-20 combination, but of course the working distance is much closer.

and check out the 100% crop:

ZD 50mm macro crop

Amazingly, this teleconverter also works on my Olympus ZD 7-14mm lens although I’m not sure I would really want to use it that way but given I often only take 2 lenses on my outings, the 7-14mm and 50-200mm, and now the 2x TC, if I desperately needed that gap in my focal lengths, the TC with 7-14mm would give me a 14-28mm lens (ie. 28-56mm in 35mm terms), albeit at f/8 wide aperture.

Note, the Canon teleconverters ONLY work with certain lenses, usually the L series telephoto primes and zooms as well as the tilt-shift lenses.

I will have more of a play with the TC on the weekend, more fun

Posted in lenses, photography | 2 Responses »
Tags: lens, macro, Olympus, Olympus Ring Flash, teleconverter, ZD 50-200mm, ZD EC20

Correction – ZD 50-200mm SWD incompatible with Ring flash

Friday, August 22nd, 2008

In an earlier post about the wonderful Olympus ZD 50-200mm SWD lens, I wrote that it matched nicely with the Olympus Ring Flash for 1:2 macro photography at 1.2m working distance. (I have now amended this post).

BUT I had made a BIG assumption and not actually tested it out until tonight.

That assumption was that the compatibility of the Ring Flash attaching to the original ZD 50-200mm lens would extend to the new SWD version of the lens.

Alas, Olympus for some strange reason, decided to change the lens hood mount in the SWD version of this lens and thus the Ring Flash no longer mounts onto it but must be hand held in place.

This works, but is a bit unwieldy holding the camera, lens in one hand which also needs to press AF button and take photo whilst other hand holds the flash in place.

Looks like it may need some velcro to keep it in place if I can work out a suitable system, and it would be nice then to be able to use it on the 14-42mm kit lens in a similar manner too for wide angle creative portraits.

Fortunately, it seems the Macro Twin Flash still is compatible with the SWD lens.

Sorry if I have misinformed anyone but Olympus did not advertise this incompatibility either to my recollection but I did find a reference here.

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Tags: flash, lens, macro, Olympus, Olympus Ring Flash, telephoto, ZD 50-200mm