What lens on E520

[Shutterstude]

Okay I am not sure if there are similar posts - Mods please do merge if there are similar ones.

with an Olympus equipment - are we stuck on 4/3rd lens? Can we mount any other brand lens? Sigma/Tamron? Or would we need any kind of adapters?

suggestions welcome

[Shutterstude]

I thought this was an active forum and would help newbies like me learn a few things from the pros.

Mods: please help merge this post with any existing threads that throws some light on my queries.

[inkista]

Originally Posted by Shutterstude

with an Olympus equipment - are we stuck on 4/3rd lens?

If you don't want to use an adapter, or you want to maintain autofocus, yeah, you're stuck with 4/3rds, however you can use the Panasonic 4/3rds lenses on your Oly, and vice versa. You don't have to stick with just the Zuikos from Oly.

Can we mount any other brand lens? Sigma/Tamron?

Yes/No. Sigma makes lenses in four-third mount, but Tamron and Tokina do not. If you want a Tamron or Tokina lens, you'll have to adapt it, and you may not have a way to control the aperture.

Or would we need any kind of adapters?

With adapter rings, you can (theoretically) adapt any SLR lens from any mount onto four-thirds, but the only mounts I know of that you can easily find rings for would be the following six manual-focus mounts: Olympus OM, M42 (aka Pentax screwmount), Pentax K, Nikon F, Contax/Yashica, and Leica-R. The Olympus OM lenses are probably the ones you'd want the most, because they'll be smaller than the other mount lenses. If you can find adapting rings for Canon FD/FL or Minolta MD/MC, you may want to go for those, since those two mounts cannot be adapted onto other DSLR brands with simple rings.

Stay away from rangefinder glass. You'd need a micro four-thirds camera to adapt those.

You will have to manually focus the lens, finding one that's wide enough to be wide on four-thirds will cost a bomb, your EXIF might not have all the information, and you'll have to use stop-down metering and manually adjust the aperture on the lens ring (i.e., you can't control the aperture from the camera body). However, you should be able to use the lens, and you should retain stabilization. I think. (I do this stuff on a Canon, so I'm not 100% sure of the quirks of using manual lenses on Olympus E-mount).

[Shutterstude]

Thank you so much for the reply.

No, I do not want to use adapter. Nor am I keen on autofocus (though I sometimes tire out my eye to check on different focus with the fine focus ring)

Panasonic 4/3rds - are they as expensive/cheap as the Zuikos ones? Any advantages of Panasonics 4/3rds over Zuikos?

I shall check out 4/3rds at a local camera store here. I do not want to be constrained with any kind of loss of feature like not being able to manually focus or autofocus etc.

And I am a newbie so EXIF info would definitely be required for my learning. May be once I am pretty good with the normal set up... then could think of trying adapters etc.

[Shutterstude]

Now for some queries on Macro lenses/settings.

The Macro setting in Oly E520 - that is kinda AF mode. Once set into Macro mode, you press the shutter down half way, it would adjust the focus, lock, a beep and then allows to click. Here is an example I have attached. this was taken in fading light though.

I popped the flash too.

ISO: 400
Exposure: 1/180 sec
Aperture: 8.0
Focal Length: 128mm
Flash Used: Yes

Any other suggestions?

[windrider86]

I have used Nikon lenses and Cannon lenses on my E-3 and 520. You have to use an adapter and use manual settings