Pros & Cons
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- Inexpensive.
- Wide field of view.
- Crisp center.
- Slim and light.
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- Blurry edges.
- Noticeable color fringing.
Olympus Fisheye Body Cap Lens 9mm Specs
| 35mm Equivalent (Wide) | 18 |
| Dimensions | 0.5 by 2.2 inches |
| Lens Mount | Micro Four Thirds |
| Stabilization | None |
| Type | Lens |
| Weight | 1.1 |
The Olympus Fisheye Body Cap Lens 9mm is the fish-eye lens for photographers who aren't sure if they want one. At $99.99, it's an easy purchase to make, and its slim, light design makes it a fine choice for any Micro Four Thirds camera. Now, its optics aren't perfect—the center is sharp, but edge quality suffers and there's a lot of color fringing in high-contrast areas of the frame—but you do get what you pay for. If you're looking for a fish-eye lens with superb optics, consider instead the Olympus M.Zuiko ED 8mm F1.8 Fisheye PRO ($999.99 at Amazon) or the Panasonic Lumix G Fisheye 8mm F3.5 ($797.99 at Amazon) .
Design
Like the similar Body Cap Lens 15mm ($49.59 at Staples) , the Fisheye Body Cap ($98.72 at Amazon) is really small and light. It measures just 0.5 by 2.2 inches (HD) and weighs about an ounce. Its barrel is all plastic, including the lens mount, with a simple glass lens with a fixed f/8 aperture. That narrow f-stop means that you'll have to push your ISO high or employ a flash when shooting in dim, indoor light—but it's not a problem for daylight use.
The front element is protected by an integrated plastic cover. The focus lever is used to slide it away, as well as to manually set the focus distance—there's no autofocus available. The lever has detent points at infinity and the minimum 7.9-inch (0.2-meter) distance, but focus can be set anywhere between those two extremes. The short throw of the lever doesn't allow for extreme precision, but the short focal length and narrow aperture don't require that for accurate focus—depth of field is wide enough to ensure that the lever is adequate.
As a fish-eye lens, the 9mm covers a wide field of view with pronounced barrel distortion. Its 140-degree diagonal field of view isn't quite as wide as most other fish-eye optics—the Olympus 8mm covers a wider 180-degree swath, and if you want to go really extreme you can opt for a circular lens like the Lensbaby Circular Fisheye ($228.91 at Amazon) .
Image Quality
I checked the sharpness of the Fisheye Body Cap using Imatest. Our test chart isn't designed to evaluate the performance of lenses with this amount of curvature, but I was able to check the sharpness at the center and midparts of the frame. It does quite well there, averaging 2,400 lines per picture height—better than the 1,800 we look for in an image. Measured barrel distortion is 23 percent, but that's to be expected.
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But that image quality doesn't extend to the edges of the frame, where there's noticeable blurring. That's exacerbated by significant color fringing—purple aberrations around high contrast areas of the frame, which is also most noticeable as you move toward the edge.
Conclusions
The Olympus Fisheye Body Cap Lens 9mm isn't an optical marvel. If you want a fish-eye with top-notch image quality, you need to spend more on the Olympus 8mm f1.8 PRO lens or the Panasonic 8mm F3.5. But for photographers who simply want to have access to a lens of this type for an occasional shot, it's a solid choice. It's slim and light, delivers decent center sharpness, and most importantly, costs just $100. That makes for an inexpensive way to see the world from a unique, ultra-wide perspective.
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