Shop for Fuji gear at B&H

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Fuji X-Pro 1 and Olympus OM Zuiko lenses

After my review on the Kipon Canon EOS to Fuji XF adapter, I am going to write about how the Kipon Olympus OM-XF adapter performs on the Fuji X-Pro 1.

Fuji offers their own intelligent adapter for Leica M lenses. And if I were fortunate enough to own Leica M glass, I would buy the Fuji adapter in a heartbeat.

But I still own some Olympus OM Zuiko lenses from my old analog OM-4 Ti. Therefore another Kipon adapter was ordered and I had it connected to the X-Pro 1 quite often in the past month.

Unfortunately, my OM lens collection on the wide side overlaps with my current Fujinon XF lenses in terms of effective focal length. This leaves me with the Olympus OM Zuiko 50mm f/1.8 Auto-S and OM Zuiko 100mm f/2.8 Auto-T as useful additions to my current X-Pro 1 lens lineup. Great thing about those two lenses is that they are rather compact (compaed to the Olympus 50mm f/1.4 and 100mm f/2). And with the additional lengt of the Kipon OM-XF adapter, you'll want as short of a lens as you can get - unless you want to end up with an odd looking drainpipe sticking out from your slim X-Pro 1 body ;)

The biggest advantage of the OM lenses vs. the Canon EOS EF lenses is that you can select the aperture right on the lens itself. No aperture "hack" required :)

And how do they perform? The image quality is great! I mainly use the 100mm as this effective field of view equals 150mm on a full frame body. Somehow I did not find much use for the 50mm (75mm equivalent FOV), yet.

Both performe really well wide open. But in order to use them wide open your focus has to be spot on. And that is quite difficult to manage with the current stage of the EVF refresh and magnification rate offered by the X-Pro 1. Did I mention before that I wish for a second MF magnification level of 5X in addition to the 10X we already got? And focus peaking would make focusing long MF lenses so much easier...

But the way it is right now (X-Pro 1 with FW 1.10) I usually stop down on moving subjects to f/5.6 in order to get enough depth of field to compensate for focus inaccuracy. It works but it takes a bit potential away from this great combo.

So if you want to use your OM (or any other manual focus) lens wide open on the X-Pro 1 make sure you aim at static objects - possibly even with the camera set on a tripod.

Here are some sample images - as always click on the image to see a larger version:

Last one standing - Fuji X-Pro 1
"Last one standing" - X-Pro 1 with Olympus OM 100mm f/2.8 Zuiko at f/8


Happy Bokeh Friday 08.06.2012 - Fuji X-Pro 1
As they were posing for their own photo I was able to nail focus with the OM 100mm wide open at f/2.8 - nice bokeh, too


First contact - Fuji X-Pro 1
Architecture works also well with the OM 100mm at f/5.6 as there is virtually no distortion!


Analogman @ work in Paris! Fuji X-Pro 1
Another lucky shot with the 100mm at f/2.8 - I wished focusing this long lens would be more reliable with the EVF in scenes with moving subjects


Hiding - Shrouded in a scarf - Fuji X-Pro 1
This was shot in a crowded place but I was able to single out this undercover lady with the 100mm lens at f/5.6


Olympus OM 50mm f/1.8 auf Fuji X-Pro 1
This is an example of how well the OM 50mm f/1.8 looks on the X-Pro 1


Getting close - Fuji X-Pro 1 with OM 100mm
And just in case if you are interested in how the OM 100mm handles color images... Looks very natural to me :)


DSCF5813
The OM 100mm f/2.8 isn't a dedicated macro lens - but look at the details on the focus point on the "C" from Cycle in the full size image at f/2.8!!! (click the image)


Fuji X-Pro 1 with Kipon OM-XF adapter and Olympus OM 100mm f/2.8 Zuiko lens
And now you probably want to see how the adapter and lens combo looks like when attached to the X-Pro 1. Notice that the Kipon OM-XF adapter itself is about half as long as the 100mm lens.


To sum it up:
The Olympus OM lenses were good lenses back in the analog days. And the once I tested perform really well on the X-Pro 1, too. So if you still have some OM lenses in the drawer, think about getting an OM-XF adapter for your X-Pro 1. And if you don't have any old lenses, check for used OM lenses on the web or at you used camera store.

Against my usual believe to go for the "faster, bigger and more expensive lenses" I would suggest to go for the smaller, lighter, cheaper ones when it comes to OM 50mm f/1.4 vs. f/1.8 and OM 100mm f/2 vs. f/2.8. The "slower" lenses perform really good and due to the challenging EVF focusing on the X-Pro 1 you might end up stopping the lenses down anyway.

If you have any further questions leave a comment below or Twitter me @HamburgCam

And if you liked my post I am always happy if you spread the word and retweet, like or google +1 it :-)

22 comments:

  1. just came across your blog, nice..... was wondering, your black and white images are they out of camera or edited in post processing?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don't use B&W straight out of the cam!. I usually take the photo in the standard Provia (color) mode with the X-Pro 1. Then I import the photos into LightRoom 4 and try out one of the B&W presets in th LightRoom preview. The one that comes closest to the contrast that I like to see in my B&W images is my startingpoint. Then I usually tweak a bit more to get the result that I like.

      Delete
  2. I took these images as color jpg files and converted them in LightRoom into B&W. Nothing too fancy, though :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ah ok, I thought there were done in camera using the bw red filter. thanks, and keep it up.

      Delete
  3. Hi, do you have to manually focus ? :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, those lenses are maual focus to begin with. Teey are old and from the pre auto focus era :)

      Delete
  4. Hi, Inspired by your blog I have just ordered the OM adaptor ! I have several OM lenses and some zooms too!
    Regards
    Russ

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I hope you enjoy the adapter for the OM lenses as much as I do :)

      Delete
  5. Thanks for the info. I have some zuiko lenses for my OM2n and now looking for digital camera to marry up with those zuikos.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. How do they work for you? I really wish for focus peaking in the X-Pro 1. It would improve MF so much...

      Delete
  6. Granted! #focuspeaking

    Using Canon FD lenses with X-Pro1. Have 3 Zuiko lenses as well. Guess they'll find a new Kipon friendo any time soon, specially the 75-150. The rest don't add much to my XF ones.
    Kipon adapters are great and reliable.
    Nice blog and good post
    #focuspeaking

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, can't wait for FW 3.0 :)
      But I still hope that we'll get minimum shutter time control in auto ISO and exposure compensation in full manual...
      #stillhoping

      Delete
  7. So, a old olympus lens 28 mm stays 28 mm on the fuji x pro ?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Olympus 28mm lens will behave almost like a Fuji 27mm lens in terms of angle of view. You will still have to account for the crop facttor of 1.5 due to the smaller APS-C sensor compared to full frame sensors.

      So the Olympus 28mm will show an angle of view comparable to a 42mm lens on a full frame sensor (ans around 40mm for the Fuji 27mm lens).

      If you want a full frame lens on the Fuji X camera to behave like it does on a FF sensor, you will have to look at something like the Metabone Speed Booster. This adapter will make use of the full image circle magnified onto the smaller sensor. You will get the FF field of view and similar DOF to a FF sensor camera.

      Delete
  8. Hi Hamburger Cam,
    Interesting article. I am a Nikon shooter. I have the Kipon adapter for Mamiya to Nikon, and got some interesting pics.
    I also have the 30+ years old MF OM Zuiko lenses, 24mm 2.8 / 50mm 1.4/ 135 2.8. I was thinking about a leitax mount conversion to use it on my Nikon, but have been put off through the hassle.
    I am intending on getting a x100s, but I am also interested now in trying to get a x-pro1 or x-e1.
    So with the converter:
    - is it possible to also use both the OVF and EVF for focussing?
    - will it work on the x-e1 as well?
    - has there been some focus peaking supported update on either of the two Fuji's lately?
    Regards,

    ReplyDelete
  9. In order to focus the old manual OM lens you either have to go by the distance- and DOF scale on the lens (although this is calculated for 35mm full frame sensor/film on the lens) or use the quickview switch between OVF and EVF to focus in the EVF and then switch back OVF for framing.

    It will work on the X-E1 as well but only in EVF as the X-E1 doesn't have an OVF.

    Yes, the X-Pro 1 and X-E1 got focus peaking support in the latest FW.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I have 30-year-old OM Zuikos 50 F1.4, 100 F2 (an optical masterpiece I'd put up against any German lens of comparable build) 135 F2.8, 200 F4, and 300 4.5. They work ok on a 4/3rds cams, lots of color fringing tho. My first shots with the 100 F2 on X-E1 have looked promising, except it's so heavy with no-in cam IS like my Olympus EP-2. An Olympus shooter did extensive comparative tests with *all* the OM lenses (except 250 F2 and 350 F2.8) on 4/3rds cams and concluded that faster did not always equate better, IQ-wise. Like to see him do the same with an X-Trans cam and X-OM adapter.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I also use two OM lenses on my X-E1:
    1. The 50mm f/3.5 macro OM: superb results and close to flat field.
    2. 50mm f/1.4 multi-coated model. Nice but not as good resolution as the 50 f/3.5.
    3. 35 mm f/2.8 shift-OM: great for architecture.
    All in all, very satisfactory use of trusty old lenses.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Hi,
    Do you have any experience of the 80mm macro on the X pro 1
    Thanks
    Mark

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Mark, I am sorry but I don't have the 80mm macro and thus have not used one on the X-Pro 1. I only have a EF 100mm macro from Canon.

      Delete
  13. Are Novoflex the best?
    (OM > FX in my case)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am using a fairly cheap Kipon adapter. But I have heard that Novoflex are supposed to be very high quality.
      However, as these adapters have no optical element all that counts for me is that they fir correctly :)

      Delete