A new lens for £2.99?

Dan Bolt · Issue 81, Nov/Dec 2014 · pp. 80

Products mentioned: Olympus 9-18mm lens, Olympus 12-50mm lens, +2 dioptre, Olympus E-PL5, YS-D1 strobe

Parting Shot Do you have a shot which has a story within a story? If so e mail it with up to 500 words of text and yours could be the next Parting Shot. peter@uwpmag.com A new lens for £2.99? The Olympus 9-18mm rectilinear wide-angle lens is a superb choice for topside landscapes covering the 35mm equivalent of 18-36mm, but in the less than crystal clear waters of the UK I have struggled to find subject with this it truly does shine. With the exception of Basking Sharks (which it is pretty useful for to be honest) the characteristics of the lens make it hard to hit a ‘sweet spot’ in terms of subject size, focusing distance and edge crispness. Even shooting behind a dome port it is easy to get soft edges, with the not-very-close closest shooting distance forcing you to use close your aperture to avoid the issue. In low-light conditions this means you have to ramp up the iso to a higher th…