Ultracheap Ultrawide - DIY 9mm f2 on Olympus OM-D E-M5

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

I love ultrawide lenses but until now, haven't had anything all that wide to use on my M4/3 cameras - the 2x crop factor makes it difficult to find non-native lenses wide enough and native lenses like the Panasonic Leica f1.7 9mm and Olympus f2 12mm are outside my budget.

So I decided to apply a little ingenuity and cobbled together my own ultrawide solution using a repurposed projector lens, some extension tubes and a helicoid from a macro converter. It works rather well, although it has no iris.

Image quality for an f2 lens is exceptional, the usual problems of ultrawides such as barrel distortion and poor corners seem to be largely absent. I think I'm going to have a lot of fun and enjoyment exploring the capabilities of this frankenlens. Best of all, it cost me less than the price of two pints of beer to put together.

#1 - The bokeh is nice and smooth

#2 - Seems to be pretty sharp & contrasty to me

#3 - Interesting beams of light from the sun. The coatings seem to be pretty good at cutting down flare though.

#4 - The sun near the edge of the frame creates some beams but I think they are quite attractive and could be used to good effect

#5 - A brick wall shot to show the distortion and I can't actually discern any distortion, which is very pleasing

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#7 - Purple fringing is very subtle and should be easily removed in software.

#8 - Shiny thing in direct sunlight to check for the dreaded purple fringing - note that it must have been a rather large seagull....

#9 - Against the sun flare is pretty well controlled

#10 - Close up ability is pretty good, this was with the front glass of the lens almost touching the subject.

eggplant · Joined: 27 May 2020 Posts: 516

Very interesting - what was the projection lens used? Do you have any photos of the setup?

Sorry, I reread it- you basically used a projection lens in a helicoid.

Yes, I have some which are pretty amazingly sharp wide open with smooth bokeh. Later digital projection ones that is. I have not seen a 9mm one though...

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

It's from an NEC NP610S Ultra Short Throw projetor:

https://www.projectorcentral.com/NEC-NP610S.htm

I'll take a pic of how it looks later.

eggplant · Joined: 27 May 2020 Posts: 516

Surprising- that's a lens for a 3 chip projector bei g used on 1 chip camera and the level of CA isn't terrible.

I haven't used lenses like that enough though, but I'm impressed nonetheless.

lumens pixel · Expire: 2021-06-25

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

Although the light was pretty bad and it was trying to rain, I took the diy ultrawide out for some more fun. It really is a fun lens to play with and produces lovely results.

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Himself · Expire: 2013-05-30

Not bad at all!!

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

Just a shame it doesn't have an iris, but I could always fit one at some point.

RokkorDoctor · Joined: 27 Nov 2021 Posts: 1267 Location: Kent, UK

Not bad for something that cost less than two pints of beer!!

Like 1

If you do find a way to get an aperture added (at an appropriate position), results will likely be even better.

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

I've given up on trying to fit an aperture to this thing as it would require severe surgery and the chances are, it'll go wrong...

But even as it is, this lens works really well, especially for architectural subjects.

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kds315* · Expire: 2021-03-09

ONLY 28 pictures, how could we even guess how good it is?

Excitement got you carried away, we understand that Twisted Evil

Not shabby indeed...

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

Whoops, I didn't realise it was 28. I just uploaded all the pictures I had taken with it that I liked over the last month or so, without counting how many it was.