{"id":3558,"date":"2010-07-25T17:52:06","date_gmt":"2010-07-25T07:52:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/?p=3558"},"modified":"2010-07-25T19:15:30","modified_gmt":"2010-07-25T09:15:30","slug":"micro-four-thirds-with-leica-d-25mm-f1-4-plus-olympus-wcon-08b-0-8x-wide-converter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/?p=3558","title":{"rendered":"Micro Four Thirds with Leica-D 25mm f\/1.4 plus Olympus WCON-08B 0.8x wide converter"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ok, perhaps I was a bit silly, but I just couldn’t resist the opportunity to buy a superb Olympus WCON-08B 0.8x PRO quality wide converter which was designed for the Olympus E-20 when it came out in 2001.<\/p>\n

In the USA, they come up on Ebay regularly for the price of a good polarising filter, but they don’t come up much on Ebay in Australia so I snapped it up.<\/p>\n

Here is the combination on my Panasonic GH-1 Micro Four Thirds<\/a> camera (but it would also work on a Four Thirds dSLR and you would get image stabilisation as well):<\/p>\n

\"GH-1<\/a><\/p>\n

Why, oh why would I buy something like this in this day and age??<\/strong><\/p>\n

Number 1 – it was a reasonable price – albeit twice the price of a good polarising filter here.<\/p>\n

Number 2 – it is said to be one of the BEST wide converters you can get – although it is big and heavy for a wide converter<\/p>\n

Number 3 – it’s rear thread is 62mm – perfect for my superb Leica-D 25mm f\/1.4 lens, and the unique Panasonic Lumix 14-140mm HD lens for Micro Four Thirds.<\/p>\n

Number 4 – it may save me carrying around my heavy and expensive Olympus 7-14mm lens, if it gives me just that little bit more width.<\/p>\n

Number 5 – it looks good with the Leica-D and makes an interesting talking point while impressing those who know little about photography – after all, the whole idea of Micro Four Thirds is to be under-stated and look more like a casual camera belying it’s awesome image quality for its size, but sometimes you need to give people some confidence in your photographic capabilities \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Why it may end up being false economy:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Number 1 – while it converts the Leica-D 25mm f\/1.4 to a 20mm f\/1.4, it is very soft on the edges at f\/1.4 but pretty good at f\/2.8, but I suspect I will be much better off buying the far smaller and lighter Panasonic 20mm f\/1.7 pancake lens one day when I can afford the $A700 for it.<\/p>\n

Number 2 – while it converts the Lumix 14-140mm lens to a 11-110mm lens, I would be much better off getting the very nice Olympus 9-18mm lens for Micro Four Thirds which still allows me to use ND gradient filters, etc and is much smaller and lighter.<\/p>\n

So, I took it out for a test run today at one of my favourite Melbourne locations, the old artist colony at Montsalvat:<\/strong><\/p>\n

at f\/2.8, it performed very well, first, without the wide converter<\/strong>, no sharpening just a little extra contrast added to the jpeg:<\/p>\n

\"no<\/a><\/p>\n

and with the wide converter ON<\/strong> – showing almost no vignetting or barrel\/pincushion distortion and reasonable but acceptable loss of sharpness at the edges – remember, I am pushing the image circle of Four Thirds lenses here by using native 16:9 image aspect ratio which is a wider sensor than a normal Four Thirds sensor!<\/p>\n

\"with<\/a><\/p>\n

I think that is a very acceptable result indeed!<\/p>\n

But at f\/1.4, the edge softness becomes quite noticeable, although depending on your image, this may not be an issue:<\/p>\n

\"wide<\/a><\/p>\n

Indoors into the window light is often problematic for many lenses, but even at f\/1.4, this combination did a wonderful job of controlling flare:<\/p>\n

\"wide<\/a><\/p>\n

More photos here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I think this wide converter will be useful and fun to play with – as long as I don’t drop it while screwing it on!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ok, perhaps I was a bit silly, but I just couldn’t resist the opportunity to buy a superb Olympus WCON-08B 0.8x PRO quality wide converter which was designed for the Olympus E-20 when it came out in 2001. In the USA, they come up on Ebay regularly for the price of a good polarising filter, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,3],"tags":[17,18,496,14,184],"class_list":["post-3558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lenses","category-photography","tag-four-thirds","tag-four-thirds-micro","tag-lenses","tag-olympus","tag-wide-converters"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t