Shooting a Gazebo with Oly’s 9mm f/8 Fisheye Lens

Today’s Post by Joe Farace

Whenever I get a new camera or lens I like to test it by photographing a favorite location. You can read about why and how I do that here on our sister blog “Saving the World, One Pixel at a Time.”

If you’re a regular reader of this blog you know we’re big fans of the new Olympus 9mm Fisheye Body Cap lens. Mark was able to get his before me and posted (here) about his experiences. After receiving my own lens, I drove into Parker, CO and walked around O’Brien Park photographing the gazebo there.

I made this image while working out the three focus settings—no AF—plus built in lens cap mode that the Olympus 9mm offers. It only takes just a few minutes to get used to it. This image was made with the lens at the infinity setting. Exposure with an Olympus EM-10 was 1/3200 sec at f/8 (the only aperture you get) at ISO 800 because I forgot to reset the ISO after shooting available light window light portraits the day before. (See, we’re not perfect, we make the same mistakes as you do.)

Like Mark, I’m love with the lens and look forward to shooting interiors with it ans well as shooting outside without it being so chilly.

Along with photographer Barry Staver, Joe is co-author of Better Available Light Digital Photography that’s now out-of-print but new copies are available at collector (high) prices or used copies for giveaway prices—less than two bucks—from Amazon.