Olympus PEN Firmware Update-Part 2

1- Telephoto zooms.

There are a few telephoto zooms available for the PEN cameras but they tend to be on the expensive side. Not overly expensive of course, but more than we wanted to spend when we had so many comparable lenses available already. In our office we had quite a few lenses available that would work with adapters.

One of the BIG advantages of the PEN MILC cameras is the shallow lens mount to sensor distance. That means that adapters can be produced that will allow virtually every interchangeable lens ever made to work on a PEN. We have adapters available  from several companies that allow us to use lenses from Minolta (MC/MD and AF), Pentax screw and K-mount, Olympus 4/3 mount and several others. Most are manual focus and manual aperture but some allow for auto focus.

For the first trip to Quantico, VA we chose to take an Olympus Zuiko Digital 40-150mm f/4-5.6 lens with a Panasonic DMW-MA1 adapter. We also were using the Olympus VF-2 Electronic Viewfinder. This combination would give us auto exposure and autofocus as well as digital SLR functionality with a lens that was on hand. Great, or so we thought.

The problems turned out to be very traumatic!  The lens and camera combination didn’t allow for manual focus (if you know how to get it to work then please let me know!!) and the poor lighting in the auditorium led to long, long autofocus searches. I ended up with very few poorly focused pictures and a lot of frustration! Getting a blurred pic of MAJ Woody getting his degree is not what I wanted! This is a problem that must be resolved.

The next stage was the cruise and we took corrective action. Instead of the Panasonic adapter and the Olympus lens which prevented manual focus, we chose to go with a Fotoiox Pentax K-m4/3 adapter and a Sigma Zoom 50-200mm f/4-5.6 DC OS HSM lens in Pentax K-mount. We now had manual focus and manual aperture control, just what we were looking for. The lens and adapter worked perfectly and we loved the picture quality. The lens on the PEN bodies actually focused past infinity so we did have to exercise a bit of caution using the combination in order to get correct focus.

The major problem we encountered was switching the Olympus VF-2 ViewFinder between camera bodies when we needed them. Whenever we were outside in bright sunlight it was impossible to use the LCD so the VF-2 was a real necessity. It was a pain but we’ll deal with this problem later on.

Once we got back home we discovered two more possible long telephoto zoom solutions. Solution one turned out to be the perfect choice for Quantico but we just plain missed it. We had on hand a Minolta MC/MD adapter and a superb Vivitar Series 1 70-210mm f/3.5 lens in Minolta mount. The lens was made in 1975 and we’ve had it since then. It is, was and always will be, one of the best lenses we have ever used. To test it out we used the lens to shoot a ballet performance by our 4 year old next door neighbor and it was perfect! If only I had that combo in Quantico!! A 420mm (equivalent) f/3.5 lens would have been perfect!

The latest solution will not be tested for a few weeks. We received an offer from Amazon.com that was awesome and will test the lens once we have it. The lens is a Panasonic 45-200mm f/4.0-5.6 zoom in micro4/3 mount that is very compact. We’ll be running a full test on the lens in the future and will let our readers know how it turns out.