Fully manual lens vs Bricked lens on E-M5

My Olympus 40-150mm PRO lens recently bricked during an update, right before going hunting for comet NEOWISE. Meh. So I figured, big deal, I just use it manually as you do for all astrophotography anyway. But, when I attached the lens, the view from the sensor goes dark (view screen all black, save for camera OSD info).

After fiddling a bit, I realized that when the contact pins have nothing to communicate with and the locking pin is down, the sensor goes limp. If that is correct, then how is an E-M5 (mk 1) able to use fully manual (not electronic) lenses or dumb mount adapters and still take photos?  I've searched around, on the web and in camera menus, to see if there's some option to override this behavior, but I don't see it.

Can someone provide some insight on what's going on here?

Thanks!

j y g wrote:

My Olympus 40-150mm PRO lens recently bricked during an update, right before going hunting for comet NEOWISE. Meh. So I figured, big deal, I just use it manually as you do for all astrophotography anyway. But, when I attached the lens, the view from the sensor goes dark (view screen all black, save for camera OSD info).

After fiddling a bit, I realized that when the contact pins have nothing to communicate with and the locking pin is down, the sensor goes limp. If that is correct, then how is an E-M5 (mk 1) able to use fully manual (not electronic) lenses or dumb mount adapters and still take photos? I've searched around, on the web and in camera menus, to see if there's some option to override this behavior, but I don't see it.

Can someone provide some insight on what's going on here?

Thanks!

There’s an option to Shoot Without Lens.
That’s what it’s called on Panasonic cameras. It’s something similar on Olympus.

So, when using a fully manual or adapted manual lens with no electronic contacts, the camera isn’t “looking” for a lens and you can use it. I’d suppose it would work the same way.

Whether or not that lens needs power from the camera to even use it’s manual focus is up for grabs.

j y g wrote:

My Olympus 40-150mm PRO lens recently bricked during an update, right before going hunting for comet NEOWISE. Meh. So I figured, big deal, I just use it manually as you do for all astrophotography anyway. But, when I attached the lens, the view from the sensor goes dark (view screen all black, save for camera OSD info).

You cannot use an electronic lens like a manual lens. Since your lens is "bricked", the camera detects that a malfunctioning lens is attached and refuses to use it. But even if it did not (like if you put an insulating tape over the contacts), you would still have no way to set aperture and focus mechanically on that lens, since both are strictly "fly by wire".

After fiddling a bit, I realized that when the contact pins have nothing to communicate with and the locking pin is down, the sensor goes limp. If that is correct, then how is an E-M5 (mk 1) able to use fully manual (not electronic) lenses or dumb mount adapters and still take photos? I've searched around, on the web and in camera menus, to see if there's some option to override this behavior, but I don't see it.

For purely mechanical lenses, the camera detects that no lens is attached, and simply works. You have to enter the focal length for ibis to work properly (obviously very impractical for say an adapted zoom lens).

In my Pen-F, I can also enter and save a lens name and description in "gear" menu K "lens info settings". It then displays that in the exif data. I assigned both ibis fl and description to a user mode.

For the old em5.1, here some hints for manual lenses:

http://www.ayton.id.au/wiki/doku.php?id=photo:olympusem5_fourthirds

PS: before sending the lens for repair, which will certainly cost you some $150, you could try to revert the camera back to an older firmware, and then have another try at updating the lens firmware. To load an older camera firmware, use the in-camera-firmware-update method described here: https://lightsnowdev.com/Olympus/

Chances of it working are not that great, but if you have time and feel confident doing it, worth a try.

PPS: if you also have a Panasonic camera, you could try using that to update the lens firmware - it may do it in a slightly different way and it may just work if you are lucky.

Guy Parsons wrote:

jeffharris wrote:

j y g wrote:

My Olympus 40-150mm PRO lens recently bricked during an update, right before going hunting for comet NEOWISE. Meh. So I figured, big deal, I just use it manually as you do for all astrophotography anyway. But, when I attached the lens, the view from the sensor goes dark (view screen all black, save for camera OSD info).

After fiddling a bit, I realized that when the contact pins have nothing to communicate with and the locking pin is down, the sensor goes limp. If that is correct, then how is an E-M5 (mk 1) able to use fully manual (not electronic) lenses or dumb mount adapters and still take photos? I've searched around, on the web and in camera menus, to see if there's some option to override this behavior, but I don't see it.

Can someone provide some insight on what's going on here?

Thanks!

There’s an option to Shoot Without Lens.
That’s what it’s called on Panasonic cameras. It’s something similar on Olympus.

That feature is peculiar to Panasonic, Olympus has no such equivalent.

I can take pics with my old Nikon lenses on any of my Olys by using a dumb no contact adapter without having to tell the body anything, except to set the IBIS focal length if needed.

I can remove the lens altogether and still take a photo but it is just a bunch of blur. The lens mount size makes it a poor pinhole.

I activated SHOOT WITHOUT LENS on day ONE with ALL my Panasonic cameras and that’s the LAST time I had to think of it.

It seems kind of stupid to have a setting like that, but whatever.

Thank you for all of your advice. I've learned a lot.

Epilogue...

Following the advice of the Olympus customer support person, I sent my four year old lens into Olympus, marking it as under warranty so I could get the repair order started without paying.  Sure enough, once the lens was received and inspected they paused the process and sent me an email asking me to authorize the repair. That's code for "please pay".  So, I called up Olympus again and explained the situation and that it could not possibly be my fault.  Apparently there had to be two levels up the support ladder to discussion my case, but the repair was finally approved for free.  I was very pleased by this, of course. Aside from that pleasant surprised, Olympus support was excellent. As I was going to be in a different location when the repair was to be completed, they jumped through hoops to catch the package before it was actually shipped, modify the shipping lens, and send it to the new location.

All's well that ends well.

Thanks for following up and letting us know how everything turned out. Excellent support case.

Reminds of my old sunglasses, manufactured by Maui Jim. I stupidly dropped them, they hit the ground directly on one curved glas element and completely smashed it (like into hundreds of pieces, all still connected within the frame). So I sent the sunglasses in for repair, years after warranty (well, what warranty would cover user error...?), without any invoice or anything. I was expecting a quote to decide if the repair costs would be reasonable or not - if possible at all.
Couple'a days later I received a box with brandnew sunglasses, same model. A little handwritten note (with smiley) said: "we found a tiny area where the polarizer coating was peeling off and considered that as a production defect. Enjoy your new sunglasses."

Wonderful.