Using the Olympus 30mm f/3.5 Macro Lens for Underwater Photography
Hi folks, I’ve written a lot of blogs for owners of Olympus/OM System TG’s and neglected the users of other cameras, so to help rectify that I thought I’d start off a new series looking at the range of Micro Four-Third (M4/3) lenses I use for taking underwater pictures.
I’m going to kick things off with the M. Zuiko Digital ED 30mm f/3.5 Macro lens to give its full name. This lens is incredibly close focusing with a minimum working distance of just 14mm. That makes it an ideal first lens for someone who is upgrading from a TG camera to an M4/3 mirrorless who’s likely to be used to getting the camera very close to take advantage of its macro close focusing abilities.
The 30mm focuses extremely close for dealing with tiny subjects such as this unicorn goby. But that can cause problems with lighting. For this image I used an Inon S2000 strobe fitted with a narrow snoot. This wasn’t to make the surroundings black but just to fit the light source in the gap between the lens and the fish to prevent it being in shadow.
The 30mm is a low cost option compared to the other macro lenses available to M4/3 users and for underwater it’s ability to give 1.25x magnification without macro wet lenses also helps keep your cost down compared to the other options. At time of writing a new lens from Wex in the UK will set you back £269 and you can pick up a used one in excellent condition from them or MPB for as little £164.
The 30mm’s angle of view on an M4/3 camera equates to a 60mm lens on a full frame camera. In air that’s 40º across the diagonal.
Unlike other macro lenses it doesn’t have any controls to limit the focusing range. That does mean that you can’t set it to avoid focusing on things in your background but I never limit the focus range on the other macro lenses I use that do include that feature for fear of encountering something exciting that won’t let me get close to it.
For such a budget friendly lens the results it gives are very good and having a wider angle of view offers opportunities to create compositions that might not be available when shooting macro with my other lenses. In this case a wider angle allowed me to fit in more of this shoal of catfish.
While it does have a manual focus Nauticam doesn't offer a focus gear to use with it according to their port chart. The auto focus is designed to be very quiet for use when shooting video and is quite fast because of the simple structure of the lens.
When it comes to a housing port to use the lens with, it fits in the same port as for the Panasonic 45mm macro lens and the old manual zoom Olympus 14-42mm. So if you have an old Olympus housing for one of their mirrorless cameras predating the 14-42mm EZ lens such as the EPL-3 you should be able to use it with the original port. For Nauticam users it will fit the N85 Macro 45 Port which we sell for £361
Like any lens you’ll find your results with the 30mm will improve as you use it more and get a feel for the focusing distance and the angle of view. Being able to get so close and still focus means that you’ll seldom have the issue that sometimes occurs where the photographer gets too close to the subject to still be able to focus.
As Micro-Four Thirds macro lenses go the 30mm is by no means the best on the market or my favourite from the ones I own. It does produce more chromatic aberration (coloured fringing in areas of high contrast) than the pricier options and it doesn’t have the weather proofing of the Olympus/OM 60mm. But I’m a firm believer in value for money and it has that in spades. You’ll have to spend considerably more to buy a better performing lens.
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