I picked up a toy to add to the fun I’ve been having with the Olympus C-5050: the Vivitar HD4 MC AF High Definition 0.43x Wide Angle Converter W/Macro. I’m pretty sure it was designed for security cameras, but add it a 41–>52mm filter adapter designed to screw onto the front of the Oly, and *poof!* you have a wide angle lens (not yet played with) whose front element unscrews to reveal a reversible macro lens.
Fun times.
Here we have examples taken with each of the “Macro” settings I now have available:
As you can see, the plain old Macro focus isn’t particularly Macro. At 20cm closest focus, on the 1/1.8″ sensor (7.18mm x 5.32mm, a bit less than 1/3 the size of the sensor on the D7000, and just slightly smaller the 10mp sensor on the LX7), the field of view is way to large to call ‘macro’ in any sense of the word.
But the Super Macro is a bit closer, something like 1:4. The macro filter doesn’t add much, sadly, and does introduce a bit of softness that might be fun to exploit in some contexts, but would be mostly distracting in others.
Again: Fun Times.
These were all shot handheld, using the Olympus C-5050’s impressive manual focus mode. I continue to be impressed with this little camera.
Olympus C-5050 and Olympus C-5050 with the Vivitar HD4 MC AF High Definition 0.43x Wide Angle Converter W/Macro, with only the Macro, processed in Lightroom 5.
Here are the RAW files, if you’re interested:
