5D mk2 shooting Olympus OM lenses?

......just realised that my prior post shoudl have had a better subject so others can see a comparison of these lenses.

Just thought I'd offer this piccy to show how shallow the DoF is at f2 on the OM24mm f2 when the subject is close to the lens.

.....not the greatest photo in the world, granted, but it does kind of show the limited DoF wide open.

.....Anyone wanting a more critical back to back of teh OM 24mm f2 vs OM 24mm f2.8 vs Canon 24-105L at 24mm, then please see my prior posting in this thread 'msg to Klaus', or 4 of the shots in my gallery.

I have (or had in the past) the following Olympus OM lenses and have used them on a 5D or 5D mk2.

Lens

21mm F3.5 - Very Good
24mm F2.8 - Very Good
28mm F3.5 - Edges soft until F8. Good thereafter
35mm F2.8 - Similar to 28mm above
35-70 F4.0 - nothing special
40mm F2.0 - Good - Very Good. Rare as hen's teeth.
50mm F1.8 - Soft wide open. Very good from F4.0.
50mm F3.5 Macro - Very Good
70-150 F? - Nothing special
80mm F4.0 Macro - Excellent
85mm F2.0 - Very good
100mm F2.8 - Good to Very good
135mm F3.5 - Mediocre
200mm F4 - Good. Some CAs wide open
300mm F4.5 - Good

My overall observation is that they excel in wide angles where canon lenses are not so strong so are well worth having. The longer the focal length the less attractive they are as the optical quality falls off and the lack of AF and IS becomes more of a problem. My favoured travel combo is 21, 40 and 100 which makes for a very compact but good quality outfit.

Avoid zooms as they dont tend to be as god as thier modern equivalents and are more prone to mechanical failure.

As for adaptors my advice is to fork out for something decent. I have a cheapo adaptor which is fine but the lenses focus a little past infinity. Useing Liveview for fodcussing works well albeit a little cumbersome at times.

Luke, nice line up of old OM glass not that dis-similar to my own which I posted the highlights of in an earlier post to this thread, which I'll duplicate here to save you hunting:-

18mm f3.5
20mm macro
38mm macro
21mm f3.5
24mm f2 & f2.8
35mm shift
50mm f1.8, f1.4's
55mm f1.2
50mm macro
80mm macro
85mm f2
100mm f2.8
135mm macro
135mm f2.8
180mm f2.8
300mm f4.5

.....Like you, I find the wide angles to be more usable than the tele's .......purely I miss AF & IS on the tele's too much & I guess my usual subject matter with a tele's benefits from AF & IS, where as my usual wide angle fodder usually gives me time to focus & hold camera steady. I also have found the macro lenses (& bellows, extension tubes, telescopic extension tubes) to be very usable.

Most of all, I enjoy collecting the old OM kit & when I use it on the 5dmk2, I kind of feel that I am somehow 'cheating' the system by buying relatively cheap but mostly good quality glass.

If you ever want to sell some old OM glass, let me know, I'm usually in the market!

....I wanted to add that I appreciate your grading of the lenses too.

....One other comment I'd like to pick up on was the one you made about getting a quality adapter - if you mainly use liveview to focus (as I have been), or if you buy one of the cheap-ish adapters with AF confirmation, then why does it matter getting an expensive high quality adapter?............besides, there only seems to be cheap ones available on ebay, & I am rather suspicious that an expensive one advertised may just be a cheap one in disguise so someone can make an even larger profit.

I have been buying olympus lenses for my 5D mk2 over the last few months

24mm f2.8 OM - it's excellent, great for street work. from F4 -F8 across the frame

Also have 55mm f1.2 - soft at f1.2 but can sharpen up well - stunning at f2 up

28mm f2.8 - very good from f4, needs stopping down for extreme corners

35-70 f3.5/4.5 - tiny zoom with macro!! - again a gem - not parfocal so focus at each focal length.

50mm f1.8 - "made in japan" branded late version -very good from f2.8 but vignettes at 1.8 a lot

135 f3.5 - tiny and sharp wide open.

with live view these lenses are reborn, I have a Canon 24-70L and various other L non L lenses and these OM lenses hold up very well on a 5D mk2.

I got them for travel as they are tiny and ultra light and the quality is so high for the price.

....I have the lenses you mention too,

all three of my 55mm f1.2's are very soft wide open, but do sharpen up when stopping down.....but it kind of defeats the object somewhat.

However, the softness wide open is akin to an intentional softfocus lens & may suit some portraiture wide open or 'dreamy' landscape work.....so the 'softness' wide open can potentially be exploited - just if anyone was hoping for a cheap, sharp very fast lens to generally use, then I can't really recommend this one.

The 24mm f2.8 always seems to get glowing reviews, & I've been watching their 2nd hand price on ebay steadily going up.

I managed to get an f2 version, & I think that is even better!

yes 55mm f1.2 is soft wide open, but it is a beautiful soft & I wouldn't be without it. At f2 and up the detail and micro contrast is amazing, corners are still soft but the centre is sharper than any nikon or canon 50mm I've tried so far and that's almost in double figures. It also had 180 degree focus throw and is remarkably compact for a f1.2.

The 24mm f2.8 goes from around £75 to £150 in good condition, 24mm f2 cost a lot more but i have no experience as to their quality.

Most lenses need to close down a stop to get the quality out of the lens, so a 24mm f2.8 is good from f4 to f8 and a 24mm f2 is probably amazing from f2.8 to f8, some people mention diffraction after that but I haven't looked for it or noticed it.

Once more people realise what is achievable with a 5D mk2/liveview/good om optics their price will rise so get them now while they are a bargain.

If you look at my earlier post to Klaus on this thread:-

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1032&message=36381088

I've posted some back to back crop shots of the OM24mm f2 vs OM24mm f2.8 vs Canon 24-105L @ 24mm.......minimal post processing (just turned sharpness up in DPP & shot in my usual Landscape picture style that I prefer, saved in TIF from DPP then cropped & converted to jpg in Photoshop Elements - no playing with levels, contrast or USM in photoshop).

I started collecting old Olympus camera gear a few years back - it started innocently enough, I has two young boys (a 2.5 year old & a new born) & thought it would be a good idea to pick up examples of camera's that I started my hobby with when I was 15, so I could show the boy's when they grow up a bit (my old OM kit was stolen & that is when I moved onto Eos film bodies - a new 620 at the time which I still have). Of course, it did not stop at the OM2n & om4 that I used to have, I now have practically every varient of OM1, 2 , 3 & 4.....then I started to add a few lenses, then I realised that lenses I could actually use rather than just put on display, & that is when it really got out of hand.....like a drug habit ;-) .....I now have examples of over 50% of the fixed focal length OM system lenses, some boxed & multiple examples of many (I have 50mm f1.8's coming out my ears!).

I really enjoy using the wide angle & macro lenses the most on 5dmk2 with Live view, finding that I miss AF & IS too much on the tele's.

Vignetting is a bit of an issue on some of the lenses wide open, but it should be correctable post process (once I get around to figuring out how).

....so you have the OM collectors pushing prices up, & now you have the enlightened Canon users aswell......not to mention the DSLR video makers who find the nicely damped manual focus & aperture rings of the OM lenses adventageous......prices are only going to head one way......I think the days of the £70 OM 24mm f2.8 are very limited - they rarely go for that now, a year ago that was the norm....

.....I have an old OM 300mm f4.5 & an OM 2x converter in my Olympus collection.

I had a thought in the past week (but only found time last night to trial the thought) about mounting the OM 300mm with OM 2x converter, not onto the 5dmk2 but onto my canon 2x converter with the OM-Eos adapter sandwiched between, then to mount the canon 2x converter onto the 5dmk2 (300x2=600, x2 = 1200mm).......& then I remembered that my father in law as left his canon 2x converter at my house, so I added that too (1200mmx2 - 2400mm). Crazy thought I know.

I then needed to find a suitable 'target' - it was late in the evening so I opened the front door & thought about just shooting down the road. As I stepped out - I was presented with a clear sky (rare in the uk!) & a bright full moon high up in the sky directly infront of my front door.

Grabbed the tripod, got it all setup, live viewed to focus & got the following:-





I also noticed a bright 'star' near the moon - I swung the old OM 300mm plus three 2x converters around to it, centered the 'star' using Liveview & then hit the 5x/10x Liveview digital zoom to assist in fine focus - I could hardly believed what I saw - I recognised this 'star' - it was Jupiter!!!! I could make out the bands & even a 'dot' on the planets surface which I believe is probably the great storm/eye feature on Jupiter. I had to turn the iso up to capture a still image - wanting to keep shutter speed up to minimise shake & relative movement, & to be honest Jupiter was a small image & the stills are 'poor' (being less than 250x250 pixels) & not instantly recognisable as jupiter unless you maybe knew the image was of an object in the night sky - My wife did not recognise my small blob as Jupiter, which got me questioning it alittle, so I went on line & googled 'Jupiter 2010 & moon' (or something similar) & found a site which gave dates for when jupiter is visually near the moon - first dates given were 22nd & 23rd September! I'll try some post process on my Jupiter shots to see if I can improve them & if I get them close to recognisable I'll post. I am still amazed that I could see this with my humble photographic equipment.

I also did a short video clip of the moon at full frame & of Jupiter - you can see the moons movement & shimmering in the atmosphere in the short clip. The video of jupiter is more compelling than the stills.

.......just wish I'd cleaned the Om 300 prior to using it - as I packed up I noticed that it was filthy - its the first time i have used it since buying off ebay some months ago - hence many of the specs in the image........but what do you expect for an old £150 Om lens????

I have recently acquired the following OM lenses:

24mm F2.0
50mm F2.0 macro

I would say from some quick tests that the 50mm macro is optically excellent. I would rate the 24mm as very good.

Both are quite good wide open which is of course important as otherwise what's the point in having the extra stop?

I also got a 35mm shift the other day which I haven't tested yet.....

I used to have whole collection of Zuikos, 28/2.8, 35/2.0, 50/1.4, 50/3.5 Macro, 100/2.8, 135/3.5, 200/4.0, 300/4.5-5.6. All were very fun to use, but eventually convenience of zooms won. I choose Olympus, as their SLR mirror is bigger than Canon's which makes all OM lenses fit on Canon DSLR with no problem. As someone suggested, Live View is a perfect help, as is S screen.

I use Olympus Zuiko Om lenses on canon EOS 5D Mark-II,There is a som test shots I deed for comparing this lenses,
Zuiko 28mm 2.0
Zuiko 28mm 2.8
Zuiko 35mm 2.0
Zuiko 35mm 2.8
http://www.flickr.com/photos/51235450@N03/

Thank you so much for these real world samples, Mr Dunn. I was trying to decide between the f2 or f2.8 and thanks to these samples I see (like many vintage lenses), I'd never use the soft f2 but will always feel the extra weight in my bag.