OM system lens compatibility

[pbromaghin]

I hope this doesn't get dumped as off-topic, but it is about 35mm lenses.

A friend of mine plans to do some whale watching, but he has only a modern follow-on to the fabulous Olympus Pen model with a non-film light receptor 18 x 13.5 mm. He is looking at longer lenses than he has, but is choking on the prices of the new auto-everythings. I made him aware that all the old manual OM lenses would still work on this camera. I am wondering how the shorter distance to the "film plane" and the smaller size of the non-film receptor affects the operation and performance of the lenses. Does the adaptor for these lenses correct for the distance? Does it then just act as if the camera has a mask down to 18 x 13.5?

 

[chriscrawfordphoto]

Focusing works fine, but be aware, its manual only and those little 'non-film' cameras are a pain to manually focus. As for field of view, it acts like the film has a mask down to the sensor size, so his wideangle lenses will no longer be very wide, but his longer lenses will be 'longer'

 

[pbromaghin]

Ohhhh, no split prism..... Yes, that will be hard on that useless little screen.

 

[chriscrawfordphoto]

Yep. Your friend is best of buying an OM film body and shooting film if he wants to use his OM glass, and buying Micro 4/3 glass if he wants to shoot the new camera.

 

[pen s]

Tell your friend to check out www.bifos.com

Lots of information there about legacy lenses used on (unmentionable) modern Olympus cameras.

correction; should be www.biofos.com

 

[wblynch]

How could anyone even see the screen of such a camera in a moving boat out on the ocean in the sunlight?

A sad day when Olympus reassigned legendary camera names to unworthy objects d'plastique.

 

[pen s]

If it is the model that uses a VF-2 then manual focus is possible but of course that adds $250 to the set-up.

 

[pbromaghin]

If it is the model that uses a VF-2 then manual focus is possible but of course that adds $250 to the set-up.

I don't understand this. Would you elaborate? He has the first Pen digital.

 

[pen s]

There is nothing in the original post to indicate which model. Only the E-P1 cannot use the VF-2, all following models can. That is why I used the word 'If' in the reply, I did not know which model he had.

 

[AgX]

I hope this doesn't get dumped as off-topic, but it is about 35mm lenses.

Yes, but not about analogue photography.

 

[pbromaghin]

Shhh! Don't tell anyone.