4/3 Rumors: Olympus to announce 30mm macro lens

Michael M Fliegel wrote:

Agreed. No reason to compete with themselves or duplicate Panasonic. Can they make one with built in illumination?

Oh please no.

One of the most boring lighting for macro is ring flash or other near lens.

I have own dual-head 6 LED lighting system (the lights are powered by 9V battery, that is about 40% larger than the LED lamp heads together) that are attached to bayonet around 60mm Macro.

Gives nice ISO 200, f/5.6 and 1/125 exposure value for 1:1 but it is just so boring looking lighting.

Far nicer is to use the pop-up flash and bounce it with a piece of paper from above of the subject to front of the lens.

bluevellet wrote:

Wait for the full specs. You don't know anything except it is some sort of macro lens and it's 30mm. you don't know if it has any special features or if it's made to be a bargain lens or conversely, some sort of Pro prime.

Oly used to have a 50mm macro and a 30mm with their 43 DSLRs.

By now, you people have to get used to overlapping lenses between Olympus and Panasonic, especially when they're not uber expensive niche lenses.

Can't think of any special features I would want in a macro that the existing lens hasn't got.

The point of my post though is why 30mm when 60mm is already so compact?

There are times when wider angle macro is useful. For example if you're shooting close-ups of a flower and want to use a wider perspective to include a somewhat blurred out but identifiable mountain range in the background. So I think wide angle (wider than the 60mm FF equivalent of this lens) can really provide some interesting perspective. That said, we already have the Panasonic and the system doesn't have a native macro lens in the 90-100mm range. So not a lens announcement that excites me.

SkiHound wrote:

There are times when wider angle macro is useful. For example if you're shooting close-ups of a flower and want to use a wider perspective to include a somewhat blurred out but identifiable mountain range in the background. So I think wide angle (wider than the 60mm FF equivalent of this lens) can really provide some interesting perspective. That said, we already have the Panasonic and the system doesn't have a native macro lens in the 90-100mm range. So not a lens announcement that excites me.

Fair enough.

I guess if it were f1.2 or f1.4 it would serve well as a standard prime and the macro capability would be a nice bonus.

As primarily a macro lens.... No thanks.

I don't see myself being interested either. I'd be much more interested in a longer focal length macro that gives more working distance and tighter framing. One can always add an extension tube or closeup filter to wider angle lenses to get that wide angle macro perspective. And 60mm efl really doesn't seem like a focal length I'd use much for general purpose photography. I do know some folks really loved the old 43 35mm (I think 35, might have been 30) macro.

They made a 50mm macro lens for the OM mount, it is a classic . why not ?

SkiHound wrote:

I do know some folks really loved the old 43 35mm (I think 35, might have been 30) macro.

I have the 4/3 50mm and the 35mm macros. More useful and easier to use is the 60mm macro, got that too. But even that's a bit short at times for very nervous insects.

The 35mm was way too close at 1:1 and the 30mm would be even worse.

Maybe those shorter ones like 30 & 35mm are of use to stamp collectors and document copiers as they manage to keep the copy stand shorter.

More use would be a nice macro in the 100mm to 150mm range. Easier for lighting and happier for insects.

Regards....... Guy

Len_Gee wrote:

Photo Pete wrote:

Why?

They already have the tiny 60mm macro.

Post link.

See title.