Olympus 9mm f/8 - is this normal?

It’s been a while since I’ve owned this lens and I have a vague memory of having to gaffer tape mine into this position, but was curious if people find this position to be the best general-purpose position? Gets everything from about 3 feet to 30 feet in focus? The “detect” position seems to be pretty useless, not to mention the infinity setting.





Finally got some useable photos with it today at least!











--
Sam Bennett
Instagram: @swiftbennett

I have this lens but have not played with it for years. In my current state of not being able to do heavy work for a little while longer I should dig it out and experiment with best universal focus spot. Jumping into this thread may get me off my backside and do something of interest.

One thing I did find was that the image quality at the centre was as good as the best centre quality of my 12-40/2.8 lens, it's just that the 9mm needs to have more sharpening applied than the 12-40mm needs.

When I bought the 9mm at a serious discount, I immediately had loads of unexpected fun so retired it and bought the way more useful Samyang 7.5mm f/3.5 fisheye, which in turn more lately has been retired and replaced by the Laowa 6mm f/2 rectilinear lens.

Saying that though I am one who likes to always focus on the furthest detail in any scene and let the close foreground fall where it may in or out of clear focus. ref http://www.trenholm.org/hmmerk/DOFR.html

Let me have a late Sunday breakfast soon and then I will dig in my dry cabinet for the 9mm.....

Guy Parsons said:

I have this lens but have not played with it for years. In my current state of not being able to do heavy work for a little while longer I should dig it out and experiment with best universal focus spot. Jumping into this thread may get me off my backside and do something of interest.

One thing I did find was that the image quality at the centre was as good as the best centre quality of my 12-40/2.8 lens, it's just that the 9mm needs to have more sharpening applied than the 12-40mm needs.

When I bought the 9mm at a serious discount, I immediately had loads of unexpected fun so retired it and bought the way more useful Samyang 7.5mm f/3.5 fisheye, which in turn more lately has been retired and replaced by the Laowa 6mm f/2 rectilinear lens.

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I’ve got the 7.5mm, but I don’t have room for it in my little bum bag - the 9mm you can really take anywhere!

Guy Parsons said:

Saying that though I am one who likes to always focus on the furthest detail in any scene and let the close foreground fall where it may in or out of clear focus. ref http://www.trenholm.org/hmmerk/DOFR.html

Let me have a late Sunday breakfast soon and then I will dig in my dry cabinet for the 9mm.....

Click to expand...

Thanks, lemme know what you find!

In order below, Infinity focus, dot and min as per lever indication on lens. The jpegs here are via Photolab with some mild HDR as it is very shadowy in winter here on my deck.

The Lego toys are spaced so that nearest one front wheels are at 1 foot away from camera, then at 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 feet away for the rest. The end of the deck is about 30 feet away.


Lens at infinity setting




Lens at dot setting




Lens at closest focus setting

Camera on heavy tripod with IBIS off.

I regard the central furthest tree in this test as good enough for infinity distance. The second toy at 2 feet is a most likely closest thing to worry about. The lens when at closest focus seems to be a shallow DOF at around 1 foot away.

I would regard the click stop Dot setting as the best compromise for general use (the infinity tree is then at a pretty good compromise), unless the featured item is closer than 2 or 3 feet, when it would be better to use 14x magnified view and carefully focus on the subject.

Later today when the sun gets around to the west and would shine nicely along the deck I may repeat the test so the toys are clearer to check focus.

More fiddling, sun a bit better but clouds and rain looming from behind me.

First a quick comparo of my widest lenses....


Left 9mm body cap lens - middle is Samyang 7.5mm fisheye - right is Laowa 6mm rectilinear.

Now to the details...


400% smoothed view, left is 9mm at infinity focus, right is at Dot focus.

Left side of both images is barely visible toy at 30 feet, right is more visible toy at 20 feet




9mm again at 400% toy at 2 feet left is infinity focus and right is Dot focus.




9mm at 400% toy is at 1 foot from camera, left is infinity focus and right at Dot focus.

Conclusion again is that the Dot focus of the 9mm is good enough for any general shot having content from about 1 or so feet to infinity.

Sam Bennett said:

It’s been a while since I’ve owned this lens and I have a vague memory of having to gaffer tape mine into this position, but was curious if people find this position to be the best general-purpose position? Gets everything from about 3 feet to 30 feet in focus? The “detect” position seems to be pretty useless, not to mention the infinity setting.

Click to expand...

After my experiments today I would have to conclude that the setting above would favour only very close detail and throw away anything more than a few feet further. The weather turned on me before I could do more and try that exact setting shown above.

I simply reached the conclusion that the Dot setting was the good enough one for everyday outdoor shots that covers from fairly close out to infinity, as long as you don't pixel peep. Plus of course that little lens is of surprisingly good quality.

Guy Parsons said:

More fiddling, sun a bit better but clouds and rain looming from behind me.

First a quick comparo of my widest lenses....


Left 9mm body cap lens - middle is Samyang 7.5mm fisheye - right is Laowa 6mm rectilinear.

Now to the details...


Left side of both images is barely visible toy at 30 feet, right is more visible toy at 20 feet


9mm again at 400% toy at 2 feet left is infinity focus and right is Dot focus.


9mm at 400% toy is at 1 foot from camera, left is infinity focus and right at Dot focus.

Conclusion again is that the Dot focus of the 9mm is good enough for any general shot having content from about 1 or so feet to infinity.

Click to expand...

Oh wow. Yeah, seems like something is up with mine then.

--
Sam Bennett
Instagram: @swiftbennett

My understanding is that the 'dot' position set the hyperfocal setting for the lens. I have used mine extensivly and unless my main subject is really close the dot focus setting gives me the best results.

I do find that I get serious CA with this lens though so B&W is always a good option.



Crispy

Sam Bennett said:

It’s been a while since I’ve owned this lens and I have a vague memory of having to gaffer tape mine into this position, but was curious if people find this position to be the best general-purpose position? Gets everything from about 3 feet to 30 feet in focus? The “detect” position seems to be pretty useless, not to mention the infinity setting.

Finally got some useable photos with it today at least!

Click to expand...

Like the other posters, I too get best overall coverage at the dot position.

If I want to go closer, then I try and manually focus - not easy with that lens.

Allan




Olympus 9mm bodycap

Guy Parsons said:

Sam Bennett said:

It’s been a while since I’ve owned this lens and I have a vague memory of having to gaffer tape mine into this position, but was curious if people find this position to be the best general-purpose position? Gets everything from about 3 feet to 30 feet in focus? The “detect” position seems to be pretty useless, not to mention the infinity setting.

Click to expand...

After my experiments today I would have to conclude that the setting above would favour only very close detail and throw away anything more than a few feet further. The weather turned on me before I could do more and try that exact setting shown above.

I simply reached the conclusion that the Dot setting was the good enough one for everyday outdoor shots that covers from fairly close out to infinity, as long as you don't pixel peep. Plus of course that little lens is of surprisingly good quality.

Click to expand...

Yeah that certainly seems to be the way they designed it, and the manual says as much. Mine appears to be faulty.

--
Sam Bennett
Instagram: @swiftbennett

Mine has the lever stops at either the dot or 0.2, but yours is at somehwere in between?

Jazzychu said:

Mine has the lever stops at either the dot or 0.2, but yours is at somehwere in between?

Click to expand...

No. I have the same detents, but the focus planes at the detents are wrong.

Crispy61 said:

My understanding is that the 'dot' position set the hyperfocal setting for the lens. I have used mine extensivly and unless my main subject is really close the dot focus setting gives me the best results.

Click to expand...

Checking a couple of DOF calculators and they both say that the hyperfocal focus distance is 0,68 meters = about 26.77 inches. And that indeed where it appears to be focusing when at the Dot setting. In truth though at pixel peeping levels then it's definitely not quite good enough at infinity even with my lowly 16MP cameras.

Checking more carefully the true hyperfocal point is 0.684m yielding acceptable focus from 0.34m to infinity. That's focus at 26.93 inches to get acceptable results from 13.39 inches to Ꝏ. I always presume that measure is from the plane of the sensor.

Crispy61 said:

I do find that I get serious CA with this lens though so B&W is always a good option.

Crispy

Click to expand...

I never used mine much at all. Bought it on a whim when I had a serious discount coupon available from an Olympus sponsored night shoot in Sydney, then found that I had unexpected fun with it so immediately bought the more versatile Samyang 7.5mm fisheye. In reality the fisheye probably gets something 1 in 500 shots but is light to carry so it was usually with me.

Now of course the Laowa 6mm does the deed when I want extremely wide so the 6mm may graduate to 1 in 200 shots at a guess.

Just realised that the Olympus night shoot was now 11 years ago, just for fun here's one of mine from the night in 2014.... (reduced to 2000 wide)


Sydney Opera House it still there now. Used to be the site of an old tram shed when I was a kid.

12-40mm on E-PL5 on a tripod. Unexpected fireworks from the autumn evening on-harbour outdoor opera show happening on a barge near where the fireworks are coming from.

Guy Parsons said:

Guy Parsons said:

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Later.... I set my 9mm to what looked exactly like the above and I found that it only seems to have acceptable focus from about 7 inches up to 12 inches from the sensor, past 12 inches it was all getting really blurred.

At the Dot setting the closest acceptable looking detail at 14x magnification was at about 14 inches from the sensor and far distance was acceptable but not perfect focus.

Hyperfocal focus rules definitely do not work for any pixel peeping efforts. They only are good for normal viewing of 8x10 inch prints from the full captured frame.

I love this Lens!... errr... Body Cap!
I may have sold it long ago if it wasn't so darn great as a video lens, which it is by the way, but even as a still, I am rarely without this lens in my bag or pocket because it is simply so darn creative and small. It's infinitesimally tiny...and for MFT it's usefullness punched way above it's weight.
...
I put it in the same category as the 45mm f1.8, and the 'Plastic Fantastic' 40-150 f4-5.6R. All three lenses punch way above their weight, literally!
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I find the 'Dot' basically perfect, obviously lens variation matters with these non-pro lenses, but with mine, the 'Dot' seems to be the sweet spot. I have done some closer shots with the semi-Macro, and rarely the infinity, as even the Dot seems to give me the range even when shooting astro. But this lens is remarkably good at candid video, where it really shines. Point, shoot, forget!
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All shot on the 'Dot' except the flowers which I shot at '2'... minimal processing! ('NO AI')

--
Photography is poetry made visible; it is the art of painting with light!