om lenses

[alison_thomas]

i have an e500 and have bought an om adapter and a 50mm prime lens to play with

because of its high speed- i take photos for the judo club and been finding it

hard to get reduced blur under indoor lighting and fast speeds with my kit

lenses. The 50mm is great i now need to get closer, i read to keep away from

zoom lenses and to buy fixed focus in the uk i can get a 135mm lens is this

worth buying or should i get a x2 extension tube for my 50mm i find it hard to

find telephoto lenses with f2.8 and most are at least 4,are they available as

my kit lens four thirds is 40-150mm f4.or there abouts thankyou..

[victor_kunkel2]

I'm pretty happy with my 2x extender on the 50mm to reach out further. But, in you application, blur will be worse unless you use faster film because you will lose a stop's worth of light. 135mm is a good focal length and I use one on a mint Nikomat FTN I inhereted. I have been lusting after a 100mm OM lens that I believe was a macro unit, so I can also stop using close ups. I'm fussy so I haven't found one that I am happy with just yet. Zooms are wonderful because there is so much variability but are inherently slower unless you spend a lot for one that is better in low light. For years I used a 35 - 135/f4 on my OM1 and loved it, but needed to use a flash indoors most of the time.

[victoria_harris1]

Getting an extension tube is going to make it harder for you to shoot in low light conditions because like Victor said you will lose at least one stop of light. Since the E500 is digital if you went with the extension tube you would need to increase your ISO. What ISO are you currently shooting at? Do you have room to go to a faster ISO?

[bruzy]

I have the 50mm 1.8 and consider it a great lens. I also bought a 135 f2.8 and love it on the

e500 and e-3. I tried the 2x extender a little and found it created color fringing and

decreased the sharpness and contrast a lot, so I don't use it anymore. The 135 is fast, with

good contrast and on the 4/3's system it is a 270mm equivalent. It is hard to get that fast

action indoors but keep the ISO range higher and if it were me I'd definitely use the 135mm

over the 2X extender on the 50mm.

[john_robison3]

If you want a 135mm lens you have many selections available. This is a focal length any competent optical firm could do a good job with. If you cannot find a Zuiko look for a Vivitar, Soligor CD, or a Tokina. All should be able to give acceptable results, even wide open at f2.8.

[patrick j dempsey]

The 100mm f/2.8 is an excellent lens... it is certainly a great deal smaller than the 135. In general older zoom lenses are inferior to primes. There are a few great ones though. I shoot the 35-70mm f/3.5-4.5.... and that is quite simply the best, most compact zoom lens I have ever seen produced by anyone for any camera. Beware the f/3.5-4.8... its supposed to be crap. But the 35-70 f/3.5-4.5 is a very tiny, very light-weight, and very very sharp lens which outclasses similar focal length lenses at f/2.8. I shoot the Zuiko 24mm f/2.8, 40mm f/2, 50mm f/1.8, 35-70mm f/3.5-4.5, and 100mm f/2.8 lenses regularly and find them all to be superb lenses.

[harold_gough]

There is some danger here of confusion of terminology.

 

Canon (and possibly others) use the term "extender" for what is better know as a teleconverter (the OM term). They mostly come in two types (powers), a x2 which doubles the focal length of the lens and the x1.4 which multiplies it by 1.4. The former increases the effective f number of any aperture set on the lens by two stops, the latter by one stop. This is because 1.4 is the square root of 2 and aperture is all about area, a 'square' measure. Teleconverters do this without altering the minimum focusing distance of the lens or losing the ability to focus at infinity.

 

Extension tubes, for an equivalent image (field covered), have the same effect on f number as does a teleconverter but reduce minimum focusing distance. However, they all lose infinity focus and, as more are added for a given lens, rapidly lose maximum focus distance.

 

As a film user, my first move would be to push the film by one or two stops (better than using faster film). If that did not prevent image blur I would use flash.

 

Image blur has two components: movement of the subject and movment of the camera. The former can be minimised by tracking the movement of the subject, as in panning. The latter includes that from other than the gentlest operation of the shutter button and the state of relaxtion/tension of the operator.

[tim_kohlman]

+1 vote for 100mm f/2.8 (the 100mm f/2 is better but four times as expensive and it's larger and heavier)

 

i also have the 135mm f/3.5 which is reasonable but not as good as the 100mm/f2.8

[matthew_newton]

a Vivitar 2x teleconverter would make you 50mm f/1.8 into a 100mm f/3.6 or if you can get a 50mm f/1.4 you would then have a 100mm f/2.8. Or heck just get a 100mm f/2.8

 

Another option would be look for a Tamron 90mm f/2.5 lens, they seem to run around $100 (KEH has a couple for that price). All you would need is the adaptall adaptor for OM and then the OM-4/3 adapator (talk about a stack of adaptors). You would then have an equivelent 180mm f/2.5 lens which is pretty darned good.

 

Other then that I would go the route of the 100mm f/2.8 (as several have mentioned) or if you think your pocket can afford it a zuiko 85mm f/2 or 100mm f/2. If you want to look around for awhile you might be able to find a 1.5 or 1.4x teleconverter on Ebay for OM, combine that with a 50mm f/1.4 and you now have a 70 or 75mm f/2 lens (effectively).

[ted_rees]

Patrick's very high praise for the Zuiko 35-70 f3.5-4.5 zoom lens was interesting. Has he, or any other member,used the Zuiko 35-70, f3.6 zoom? My results with this lens have been extremely pleasing.It has been suggested that this was the second best zoom that Olympus ever produced, second only to the legendary (and very expensive!) Zuiko 35-80, f2.8 zoom.

 

Let us hope that this will help to knock on the head the sweaping claim made by some that Olympus zooms were not quite up to standard! Long live the Zuikos!