A small fun lens from Olympus

Beneath the christmas tree there was a little box, which looking at the size i would not identified as a lens.

I’m talking about the Olympus 9mm 1:8 Fisheye, which is also called a body cap lens, surely becuase of the very small size.

The lens has a sliding switch which closes the lens and in this position it really functions as a (thicker) body cap. The sliding switch offers 2 more postion one for focusing to infinity and the other focusing to the nearest possible distance that is  0,20m.

This little lens is so small it will fit into a side pocket, maybe where you usually deposti your filters or other equipment. But how about optical performance for fisheye lens less than  100,– €.

Before you’re able to take picture you have to activate “taking picture w/o lens” in the setup menue, because are no electrical contacts. Therefore the EXIF data will not offer focal length or aparture, which is not necessary (if you want to filter in Lightroom just try focallength 0 mm).

Just for an orientation i show you this picture taken at f = 14mm, the shortest focallenght of the kit lens.

Don’t judge the motiv it is just an example and shown for comparism 😉 and now the same scene with the  9mm.

Both images are except white balance not processed, there was no sharpening applied to the images. If you click on the image there is link to a higher resolution image.

That is the fisheye effect that we expected, so you should use it not to often. The optical quality in the center is pretty good, corner areas are not so good. So my experience is the same as the review from  photozone. Iy you kneed more quality with this type of lenses we’re talking about  Samyang 7,5mm/3.5 or the Panasonic 8mm/3.5. But these lenses have price tags about  3 to 6 times the price of this fun lens.

This gap is filled with our fun lens, because using such a lens once in while the optical quality is sufficient and the lens is really compact, so i think i’ll keep this body cap lens.

What do you think , maybe you own the little fun lens? Just leave me your questions and your comments.

ciao tuxoche