Mark Schuster
Posts: 1321
Location: Welwyn Garden City, United Kingdom
Registered: 25 Jan 2006
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Olympus E-500 - Advice please.
Posted: 30 Apr 2007 at 21:18 GMT
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A new Olympus E-500 with 14-40mm lens (equiv 28-80mm) together with 4GB CF card sells on Ebay for around £250.
Compared with the cheapest dSLR Canon and Nikon kits this is cheap yet seems to have very good specs. Have any of you experience of this camera for 360x180 panoramas.
Assuming I bought an E-500, what wide angle lens (or fisheye) could I use with it (and would it cost more than the camera kit itself)?
There are some wide angle and fisheye attachments on Ebay. Are these any use?
Mark
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John Houghton
Posts: 3487
Location: Hitchin, United Kingdom
Registered: 17 Jan 2005
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Re: Olympus E-500 - Advice please.
Posted: 1 May 2007 at 7:45 GMT
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Mark Schuster said: Assuming I bought an E-500, what wide angle lens (or fisheye) could I use with it (and would it cost more than the camera kit itself)?
The Olympus 8mm fisheye is £520. This is a 180 degree diagonal fullframe fisheye, equivalent to the Nikkor 10.5mm on a D70, say.
John
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Mark Schuster
Posts: 1321
Location: Welwyn Garden City, United Kingdom
Registered: 25 Jan 2006
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Re: Olympus E-500 - Advice please.
Posted: 1 May 2007 at 11:32 GMT
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Thanks for the prompt answer, John.
Are there cheaper alternatives to the Olympus fisheye? Sigma, Pelang or whathaveya?
I already know your views about wideangle lens attachments, but they are cheap - less than £70, I think.
Apart from lenses, anyone any experience of the E-500? Is it as good as the E-350 or E-400, for instance?
Mark
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John Houghton
Posts: 3487
Location: Hitchin, United Kingdom
Registered: 17 Jan 2005
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Re: Olympus E-500 - Advice please.
Posted: 1 May 2007 at 12:06 GMT
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Mark, There is a list of lenses at www.4-3system.com/ . Obviously, a Canon or Nikon is going to give you the widest choice of lenses. A 300D + Tokina 10-17mm fisheye would cost less than the Olympus 8mm fisheye, for example.
John
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Henk Keijzer
Posts: 15
Location: Netherlands
Registered: 11 Jul 2004
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Re: Olympus E-500 - Advice please.
Posted: 1 May 2007 at 20:10 GMT
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Hi Mark,
I got my Peleng with 4/3rd adaptor ring from www.eastwave.ca. Although it is a Canadian company, payment is in Euro's to a German bank account and they ship their lenses from the Czech republic. I use the lens on my E-300 and I'm happy with the results (despite the fact that both the E-300 and the Peleng lens have their flaws).
Best regards, Henk
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Mark Schuster
Posts: 1321
Location: Welwyn Garden City, United Kingdom
Registered: 25 Jan 2006
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Re: Olympus E-500 - Advice please.
Posted: 1 May 2007 at 23:45 GMT
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John,
I see your point concerning the high price of an Olympus Zuiko fisheye and its over $800 price tag – say £400 – and this to fit to a £250 camera.
Henk,
You sent me here
www.eastwave.ca/products/lenses/pelol.html
where I find a Peleng fisheye for about $290 – say £145. Nearer my budget.
So an Olympus D-500 with fisheye from Ebay would cost me about £395.
Alternatively a Canon 300D with similar Peleng fisheye would cost in the region of £310 + £145 = £455. In other words £60 more.
I’m dithering and need help. Why should I pay more for the Canon?
Mark
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John Houghton
Posts: 3487
Location: Hitchin, United Kingdom
Registered: 17 Jan 2005
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Re: Olympus E-500 - Advice please.
Posted: 2 May 2007 at 6:43 GMT
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Mark, It's a difficult choice - there are so many pros and cons to consider. You will need to decide just what is important to you. From your posts, you have frequently expressed concern about the crop factor issue. The image circle of the Peleng 8mm fisheye is 24mm, so given the sensor dimensions of the two cameras(22.7x15.1 and 17.3x13.0), you can see how much of the image circle is captured. When remapped to equirectangular, they look something like this:
Measuring the angles with PTGui, the 300D image is approx. 170x115 degrees and the Olympus E-500 is 129x97 degrees. This, of course, has a direct effect on the number of images you would need to take to cover the 360x180 view. With the 300D, you can probably manage with 4 + nadir if you tilt the camera upwards a little to close the zenith. For the E-600, you would need 5 or 6 + zenith and nadir since the overlap with 4 is too small for comfort. The noise performance of the 300D is better than the Olympus at higher ISO settings. Other than that, I would compare reviews carefully at dpreview.com.
John
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Henk Keijzer
Posts: 15
Location: Netherlands
Registered: 11 Jul 2004
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Re: Olympus E-500 - Advice please.
Posted: 2 May 2007 at 6:54 GMT
updated: 2 May 2007 at 6:57 GMT
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Hi Mark,
Check out the reviews of the two camera's:
www.dpreview.com/reviews/olympuse500/
www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos300d/
Note that the 300D is from 2003 and the E-500 from 2005. The 300D has a larger size sensor (crop factor 1.6, Olympus has 2.0). The larger size sensor has the advantage of less noise, but the resulting image on the sensor is smaller: fewer pictures to take for full 360°, but lower resolution of the final image (see John's answer above). The maximum equirectangular image size I get with my E-300 (same sensor size as the E-500) and the Peleng is around 10000x5000 pixels. Add the lower resolution of the 300D (6 Megapixels) to that, and you end up with a much smaller equirectangular image (I estimate 6500x3250).
Hopes it helps.
Best regards,
Henk
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Mark Schuster
Posts: 1321
Location: Welwyn Garden City, United Kingdom
Registered: 25 Jan 2006
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Re: Olympus E-500 - Advice please - AND NOW CANON 300D
Posted: 3 May 2007 at 21:49 GMT
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I really got excited about the Olympus E series cameras. They seemed to offer very good value for money, and if I wanted a camera for any other purpose than panorama it would still be my 1st choice, but John and Henk have convinced me that for many reasons, but most of all that the larger CMOS sensor and consequently reduced number of shots for a 360x180 panorama, my second choice, a Canon 300D is the way to go (I’m now actively looking at Ebay for one at a reasonable price and hopefully black, though I may have to settle an unattractive silver body - yahch).
Now for a lens: A Canon fisheye is out of the question – much too expensive. Peneng 8mm is far cheaper but will it do the job? I know many of you use it for 360x180s, and I know many of you use this combination so I would like to hear about it – or any other (cheaper) options.
And of course, if anyone has a similar combination to sell, please let me know.
Mark
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Mark Schuster
Posts: 1321
Location: Welwyn Garden City, United Kingdom
Registered: 25 Jan 2006
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Re: Olympus E-500 - Advice please - AND NOW CANON 300D
Posted: 4 May 2007 at 22:59 GMT
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Thank you John and Henk.
I'm convinced. Today I ordered, through Ebay, a 300D (a black one, hurrah) with kit lens EF-S 18 - 56mm and with lots of extras.
I'll have to hold fire on a fisheye until I've replenished my coffers.
Mark
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Oender
Posts: 174
Location: Mexico City, Mexico
Registered: 16 Apr 2007
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Re: Olympus E-500 - Advice please - AND NOW CANON 300D
Posted: 5 May 2007 at 2:58 GMT
updated: 5 May 2007 at 2:58 GMT
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Mark,
Congratulations for the new cam!
Oender
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Henk Keijzer
Posts: 15
Location: Netherlands
Registered: 11 Jul 2004
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Re: Olympus E-500 - Advice please - AND NOW CANON 300D
Posted: 5 May 2007 at 8:21 GMT
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Congratulations! Hope to see some of your work soon.
Henk
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John Houghton
Posts: 3487
Location: Hitchin, United Kingdom
Registered: 17 Jan 2005
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Re: Olympus E-500 - Advice please - AND NOW CANON 300D
Posted: 5 May 2007 at 16:41 GMT
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Mark Schuster said: I'll have to hold fire on a fisheye until I've replenished my coffers.
Mark, It's frustrating to have the camera and not the lens. I could loan you a Minolta Rokkor 7.5mm fisheye modified for an EOS mount if you're interested. It's not wonderful, but with care you can get decent results with it. At least it would be something to play with.
John
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Mark Schuster
Posts: 1321
Location: Welwyn Garden City, United Kingdom
Registered: 25 Jan 2006
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Re: Olympus E-500 - Advice please - AND NOW CANON 300D
Posted: 10 May 2007 at 20:38 GMT
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Thank you everyone for your kind comments. Yes, at last a proper camera  but no time to use it since its purchase. It had to take second place to erecting a garden shed – a two day job which has taken a week - so far – well had to redesign it – the door and windows were in the wrong walls. The weather has not been favourable either.
And whereas I normally, religiously infact, look in on Panoguide daily, I’ve not done so since the shed building started, and therefore missed John’s very generous offer of the loan of a lens. (Henk brought it to my attention in an e-mail – dank u zeer)Yes John, I would like to borrow it. Can we meet up soon? I’ll send you my telephone number by e-mail.
Mark
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DorinDXN
Posts: 2853
Location: Timisoara, Romania
Registered: 14 Nov 2006
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Re: Olympus E-500 - Advice please - AND NOW CANON 300D
Posted: 11 May 2007 at 10:14 GMT
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Huh! Mark, I was convinced that you're too busy using 18-55mm lens to make high resolution multirow pano. Anyway I guess that I wasn't too far to the truth becouse you don't start to re-decorate/bulild some new garden shed with no reason
Hope to see your new panos with both lenses, very kind indeed from John's part.
Dorin
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