OM Adapter ring

[naeno]

I've just learned about the OM adapter ring for Olympus camera. I'm VERY tempted to buy one and a good lens on e-bay for next to nothing. However, I'm curious what other's experiences have been with them. I mainly shoot children, so speed is very important, but manual focus doesn't take a ton of time, right?

Thanks.

[inkista]

I'd recommend trying out your current lens in Manual Focus, and see how it goes before opting for an adapter ring. Things were easier back in the day because focus screens were designed for manually focusing. Today, most focus screens are designed for autofocus and don't often give you the feedback you need to nail manual focus quickly and accurately. In addition, because we're using crop bodies, viewfinders are smaller and darker than they were. Some of this can be mitigated by replacing the focus screen, but that has its own series of tradeoffs.

An adapter ring will also cause a number of other restrictions: there's no communication between the camera and the lens, so your EXIF will have empty spots for focal length and aperture settings, and your camera can only use the lens in full Manual or Av modes. Also, since the camera can't control the aperture of the lens, chances are good you're stuck with stop-down metering (I.e., the lens won't meter and focus wide open and then stop down for the shot as it does with automatic lenses, but metering must be done with the lens already stopped down--which makes for a dimmer viewfinder).

I think it's worth it. I regularly use an OM Zuiko 50mm f/1.2 lens (~$300) on my Canon XT. Great glass for low prices. But I'm shooting mainly static subject matter, not moving. Autofocus with action photography tends to yield a much higher rate of keepers. Half a second more to manually focus can mean missing a shot with fast-moving action.