Hobbs's Run

By hobbs

One Tree

Sometimes one doesn't know when one is on a good thing. A few years back I owned an Olympus 9mm "Body Cap Lens" (BCL). In reality it is rather more of a body cap than an actual lens buuuut it is amazing what the thing would do. It produced wonderful fish eye style wide angle images that were not so fish eye as to bother anyone, given appropriate compositions.  I could carry it in a pocket of my camera case and use it at the drop of a hanky. I got to like it so much that I sold it. Makes sense? Nope.

Thing is I got greedy for more and potentially "better" results. I went and bought a "proper" high quality 8mm fish eye didn't I? Trouble was that (while the build and optical quality were wonderful), it was just a bit TOO fisheye to use when I really only wanted a conventional wide angle look and it required me to lug it about in a extra bag when I wasn't using it. The result was that I didn't use the lens nearly as often as I had used the BCL before. Live and learn.

You guessed it. I eventually sold the "proper" lens and have just re-bought a 9mm BCL which I anticipate using quite a lot. No. It doesn't have autofocus and it IS restricted to f8 at all times but you might be surprised at how little those disadvantages seem to matter. Today's two images, from down at Govetts Leap Lookout, have been shot with the BCL. No sharpening at all in post. Honest.

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