{"id":1480,"date":"2012-12-11T20:51:05","date_gmt":"2012-12-12T01:51:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/?p=1480"},"modified":"2012-12-11T20:57:32","modified_gmt":"2012-12-12T01:57:32","slug":"quick-impressions-olympus-15mm-f8-body-cap-lens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/quick-impressions-olympus-15mm-f8-body-cap-lens\/","title":{"rendered":"Quick Impressions: Olympus 15mm f\/8 Body Cap Lens"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_1481\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1481\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/oly15.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1481\" title=\"olympus 15mm\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/oly15-300x225.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/oly15-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/oly15.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1481\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Olympus 15mm f\/8 Body Cap Lens on the Panasonic GX1<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Earlier this year, Olympus announced one of the odder lenses for Micro 4\/3. \u00a0A $49 &#8216;lens&#8217; that doubles as a body cap: The 15mm f\/8 Body Cap Lens \u00a0This is what you could call an &#8216;ultra-pancake&#8217;. \u00a0And, like it&#8217;s name implies, it&#8217;s roughly the same size as a standard Micro 4\/3 body cap. \u00a0The lens is completely manual, if you want to call it that. \u00a0It has a slow fixed f\/8 aperture and the focusing is limited to a little lever on the bottom with a detent at the hyperfocal distance. \u00a0When focused here, roughly everything from 5 feet to infinity will essentially be in focus. \u00a0You can focus closer or slightly more towards infinity if you like, and it can focus as close as 0.3m. \u00a0Using the magnified view of your camera, you can accurately place the focus for close ups. \u00a0For medium and long distance stuff, just set it on the dot and shoot.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1482\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1482\" style=\"width: 150px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/oly15_side.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-1482\" title=\"oly15side\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/oly15_side-150x150.jpg\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1482\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Olympus 15mm f\/8 Body Cap Lens &#8211; Slim from the Side<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>As you might expect for a super-tiny and ultra-cheap lens, the 15mm f\/8 doesn&#8217;t exactly ooze optical quality. \u00a0However, it is surprisingly sharp in the center for such a lens, though only over about half the frame. \u00a0It then fades in to more general softness at the edges and corners. \u00a0Still, it&#8217;s sort of a unique look and lends itself to black and white street shooting or kind of a Lomo look. \u00a0At web size, images are sharp enough for sure, and I think you could probably print to 8&#215;10 or 11&#215;14 before the edge softness would be really noticeable. \u00a0Large prints are pretty much off limits unless you use that softness as part of your composition.<\/p>\n<p>The lens suits itself well to the smaller Micro 4\/3 bodies like the E-PM2 or the Panasonic GX1. \u00a0However, due to the slow aperture, the E-M5&#8217;s 5-axis IS can come in handy. \u00a0I haven&#8217;t shot a lot with it yet, but here&#8217;s an image I took today on the OM-D.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 1040px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.jordansteele.com\/2012\/mound_school.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Mound School\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.jordansteele.com\/2012\/mound_school.jpg\" width=\"1040\" height=\"800\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Mound School &#8211; Olympus OM-D E-M5 with Olympus 15mm f\/8 (Click to Enlarge)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Earlier this year, Olympus announced one of the odder lenses for Micro 4\/3. \u00a0A $49 &#8216;lens&#8217; that doubles as a body cap: The 15mm f\/8 Body Cap Lens \u00a0This is what you could call an &#8216;ultra-pancake&#8217;. \u00a0And, like it&#8217;s name implies, it&#8217;s roughly the same size as a standard Micro 4\/3 body cap. \u00a0The lens [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1481,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[212,26,11,10,211,29,86],"class_list":["post-1480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-shop","tag-body-cap","tag-lens","tag-m43","tag-micro-43","tag-micro-four-thirds","tag-olympus","tag-preview"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/oly15.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p28RGq-nS","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1480"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1480\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1485,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1480\/revisions\/1485"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}