Olympus 15mm f/8 - Walking the Dog and Having Fun
October 8, 2012 at 13:11 
Olympus 15mm f/8 is a tiny lens, extending only 9 mm from camera body. It has a closing mechanism and when closed it is like a body cap. Olympus even calls it Body Cap Lens. When opened it can be manually focused with the lever under the lens. End points are at infinity and 30 cm. Close to infinity is a hyperfocal setting which gives sharpness starting from 1m upwards. Aperture is set at f/8. The idea is to use hyperfocal setting for general shooting. When close up near to 30 cm you can actually try focusing with the lever.
The lens has three elements. Opitically it is okayish, I would say almost but not as good as kit zoom at the same focal length. I have not tried them head to head but will check that later.
What is it for?
I have seen several threads in the internet starting with the same message: I don´t understand what´s the point with this lens. Well, it depends what you are after. If you have Zuiko M. 17mm f/2.8 or Lumix 14mm f/2.5, you don´t gain anything with this lens but even better pocketability and instant lens cap. You can use both of those lenses at f/8, with fixed focus and get almost the same field of view plus do a lot more. And they are sharper, too. But then, there is a certain effect with some equipment. An effect which shapes how you shoot with it. This lens is one of those. It forces you to play with its terms or suffer. It is kind of a one trick pony with all it´s restrictions, but an interesting one.
Olympus is marketing it to be "ready for capturing wide-angle shots whenever a photo opportunity comes your way". Actually not really. Aperture f/8 is far too dim to be usable (without flash) casually in a traditional P&S style whenever, if you expect normally sharp images. You really have to set your eye and mind to f/8 and work with the consequensies of it, namely blur. Or then use flash as a signature, which also is interesting, but I have not yet been there with this lens.
Walking the dog
That´s what I do every morning. And it gave me a chance to do my first test for an idea for a particular shooting style with this lens. I attached 15mm lens to my old and trusty E-P2. I set E-P2 to shoot B&W jpeg with Auto-ISO up to ISO 1600. These 34 images are a short story from four morning walks:
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15mm f/8, E-P2, Olympus, Olympus 15mm, PEN, Zuiko 15mm, Zuiko M, mFT in Image Quality, Lenses, Review
Reader Comments (17)
Hi Pekka. Does the lever have a click-stop for the hyperfocal distance?
Agent: Yes.
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Haven't received mine yet...but intend it for the same use on a E-PM2. Maybe it should be known as the "dog walker". best…jf
It's look like you stopped mid-walk to spin giddily in circles, which I found quite amusing :)
Yes, this lens made me want to try all kinds of motion blurs, shoot while walking, shake the camera, focus almost right or make all soft. Shoot into sun and take even a few sharp ones. Many times restrictions can be fun and good... ;-)
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Can you show us a 100% crop of a well focused photograph? I'm waiting that lens for my GF3.
Hi Pekka, 1/100 shots at 15mm should be smear-free irrespective of aperture, unless done with too little care or intentionally blurry. How come you get so much supposedly unintentional smear at 1/100 shutter on some photos? By any chance maybe you've got IBIS working against you? Theoretically f/8 is perfectly bright enough for hand-held shooting in sunlight (and even in dusk), and your own images seem to prove this by being correctly exposed at a quick shutter speed and pretty humble ISO levels...
Outstanding photos! In my opinion you don't even need the camera to do excellent pictures, hand-made pinhole would be enough :)
These remind me of some of the photos I've taken with some of the antique 120 film folding cameras I have. Those triplet lenses and low shutter speeds give a "look" to the photos and often these lenses have fairly small apertures also (although it gives a different depth of field on the large film).
I actually see a "look" with this lens that could be exploited -- several of your shots really benefit from that look I think. I'm still on the fence on this lens but these are the first I've seen tilting me positive on it. I like that old triplet-lens look sometimes. It's different from the "toy lens" look.
Kind of out of context here, but thanks for all the ETTR stuff on the MFT bodies. Both my OM-D and E-P3 are set up that way now and what a difference it makes.
Regards,
John
Salvador: I chose not to, because this lens is roughly at the level of kit zooms. Nothing interesting there. But there has been some heated discussions, so I may shoot a test target and show that...
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Dimsal: Like I wrote above, I chose to work with blurs and unsharpness. Thre are a couple sharp images as contrast but otherwise this was not my goal.
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Stanislav & John: thank you! You might want to take a look at some of Marja Pirilä's work, like these http://www.marjapirila.com/breathe_in_light.html
While I am not an artist like she is, this lens gave me an idea to see it as an "semi-pinhole". These triplets have a look of their own, like John wrote. My series is an experiment, nothing more, but it was just that look I was searching for. An interesting little lens, not because what it is but what it is not...
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I guess this lens is fun whenever I take picture casually. But it's difficult to use this lens efficiently always. So if I buy this lens, I attach it to sub body occasionally and sling them on my shoulder with main camera set in bag .
By the way I envy you live in such comfortable land with a lovely dog.
You say either accept blur or use flash? And millions of photographers use tripods for what? Seems kind of odd to now realize that a wide angle lens with a slow max aperture may need to be shot from off a tripod to get best results. Why have to shoot at ISO 3200 or higher just to get a fast enough shutter speed for handholding when a tripod or small gorillapod will give the best results?
Yasushi: Actually we live just 16 km (by car) or 20 min (by train) from the center of Helsinki, capital of Finland... A small country has its benefits!
Markus: I think this lens is most of all about pocket size or effects. With any tripod the whole situation changes. I would never choose this lens for best IQ. Already mFT kit zooms are far better choices for tripod work.
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I'm waiting for mine, too. I plan to try it (in addition to my PEN) on my NEX-3 with an adapter.
Your samples very much remind me of my 18mm Pentax 110 lens on the NEX, which I have taped down to about f5.6 or f8.
I'll be getting mine in a couple of days, I'll try it on my Lumix GF1 first and then permanently slap it on my soon to arrive Oly E-LP1 and never leave home without it.