Re-Visiting the equally ancient Olympus Pen FT 60mm f1.5 Lens. This time on a G9. A good excuse for walking around on a hot and steamy day.

 

The 60mm f1.5 Olympus Pen Ft lens was designed to be used on the Olympus half frame film cameras that were introduced back in the 1960's and discontinued in the 1970s. Many of the lenses for that small, compact and efficient system were of very high performance when introduced. And a handful of the standard-to-longer focal length lenses were also made with very fast apertures. My three favorites of the time are the 60mm f1.5, the 40mm f1.4 and the 70mm f2.0. All of these lenses covered the APS-C image circle and amply cover the micro four thirds image circle. 

I originally started buying micro four thirds cameras not because they were small or light or small and light but because the lens flange to sensor distance was small enough to allow the use of adapters to mount my old Pen FT lenses on modern, digital cameras and still keeping the ability to focus to infinity. I've circled back to m4:3 for a variety of reasons but a big part of my decision making it the ability to use my collection of zany old half frame lenses on a current body. This kind of lens adaptation just wasn't possible with DSLR cameras. Not at all. 

A weird trio of mechanical lenses, two on new cameras and the 60mm

sitting right up front. Battery included to both show size and because

I was too lazy to move it out of the frame. There is black tape 

on the barrel of the 60mm because the lens cap that came with it has the 

felt smooshed down and the tape adds some friction to keep the cap on.

While wide angle lenses from the "good old days" show their age with obvious corner unsharpness, lower contrast and a profound propensity for flaring with even the tiniest hint of light or specular highlights in the frame it appears that the telephoto and near telephoto lenses of the day were easier to design and make without having too many obvious faults. The teles tend to age well. 

The Pen FT lenses are all fully mechanical in every sense. There is absolutely no communication between the lens and any camera you use it on. There is no automatic stop down mechanism either. You can focus with the lens wide open and then manually stop it down to the taking aperture you want or you can take your chances and focus with the lens stopped down to that aperture. There are compromises in either direction. I choose to stop the lens down and then focus. That covers, to a certain extent, focus shift. But the greater depth of field lowers your ability to exactly gauge the real point of sharp focus unless you take full advantage of focus magnification via the camera. 

I have, on occasion, used the 60mm f1.5 as a portrait lens on micro four thirds bodies as well as on a few Sony cropped frame cameras --- most notably the New-7. While it's not quite sharp enough when used wide open (at least for my tastes) it does a good job at f2.0 and it's really, really good from f2.8 onward. 

I think the lenses of the time were designed to be of lower contrast, perhaps because many photographers were doing their own darkroom work and could use the lower contrast of the initial image to maintain more apparent dynamic range while being able to fine tune their contrast when they printed their black and white prints. Either with graded papers or with multi-contrast papers. The upshot is that if you want images make with the 60mm to match up with current lenses you'll likely want to add a bit of contrast and make use of the clarity sliders in post production to get a similar effect. But to my way of thinking this lower contrast is a feature and not a "deal-breaker." 

Since I decided to walk yesterday on the spur of  the moment I didn't have time to engage a supermodel with which to test the highest and best use of this lens. That would be using the lens to photograph people. So I had to make due with my usual building shots and downtown errata and ephemerata. I suggest you click on the images to make them pop up bigger. 

I am constantly impressed with how seamlessly older lenses work on Panasonic m4:3 cameras with adapters. The cameras (G9, GH5ii and GH6) prompt the user to enter the correct focal length of a legacy lens when the camera is turned on. This informs the camera of a parameter that is important to the optimal functioning of image stabilization. The cameras also seem to be good at nailing both color and exposure when used in aperture priority mode. 

The 60mm f1.5 is a much sought after lens. Currently minty copies go for a bit over $750. Mine is hardly minty and probably doesn't even qualify as "good." But it's not quite into "bargain" territory yet and I hope to keep it that way. 

The walk was uneventful and gave me lots to time to try and understand my attraction to the GH and G series cameras when I already own various full frame Leica SL(x) cameras and full frame Panasonic cameras. I'll try to cover that in an upcoming post. It's interesting to me that m4:3 format did not die when the online savants predicted it would and in fact is experiencing a renaissance of appreciation these days. 

I'm sure my peers in Japan would not like me to divulge this but according to some sources the m4:3 cameras are the top selling cameras in that country. More advanced and knowledgable camera buyers? Probably. But there's more to the appeal than just momentum...

Click through and see how well lens designers succeeded nearly six decades ago. And ask yourself why lens design isn't even better these days...

I had a reason to photograph this fence/barrier.

It's shiny metal and I wanted to see how the lens handled the specular highlights.

The frame blow is a very tight close up crop of the photo.

Note the flaring of the horizontal strands. I'm going to call that:

Micro flare.

Not a BBQ pit but an auxiliary machine driving fans at a power plant.

Not cropped. Just a tight 120mm equivalent angle of view.

A different optical "feel" to the files than a modern lens delivers.

Bag of fresh coffee for the boy. 

the 60mm f1.5 is more than sharp enough for most work I would use it for with m4:3.

In all the shots with clothing I could easily see the weave of fabric when punching in.

In my book that means "resolution." 

If it's a hot Sunday then it must be "Vintage Lens Day." Let's go for a walk and see how the ancient Olympus Pen FT 20mm f3.5 lens makes photos.

The Pen FT 20mm f3.5 lens, circa: the late 1960s. 

Photographed by a 17mm f1.4 TTArtisan lens on a GH6

A classic "grab shot".

 Many years ago, back in the early 1980's, I started buying Olympus Pen FT half frame cameras and lenses. They were cheap to buy in those days because people had not yet seriously embarked on niche camera collecting. Bodies in good shape were generally available for around $100 and most of  the lenses were well under that price. One of the lenses I bought back then was laughingly cheap. I think I paid $23 for a well used copy of the G. Zuiko Auto-W 1:3.5 20mm Olympus lens. It had a slow aperture which made accurate focusing with the old cameras a bit of a mess. I tried to tame it but with the tech of the day it was, for me, a lost cause. I stuck it in a drawer and forgot about it for several decades until those two Zany companies, Olympus and Panasonic, engineered the micro four thirds system. It came complete with a short enough flange to sensor distance to accommodate an adapter and still allow my ancient Olympus Pen lenses to focus on infinity. 

I started pulling old lenses out of the drawer but soon found that the early m4:3 cameras didn't do "punch in magnification" and that limited the usefulness especially of the shorter, slower lenses since their apparent depth of field made for sharp looking viewfinder images but woefully out of focus actual files. 

The faster lenses such as the 40mm f1.4 and the 60mm f1.5 stayed out of the drawer and were used on m4:3 cameras as well as Sony cameras like the New-7 and the A7RII. 

I recently re-upped with the m4:3 team and I checked out the focus magnification of the newer cameras and found it to be easy to use and well engineered to breath life back into the lenses that hadn't worked as well on earlier cameras. But I never got around to re-checking the 20mm f3.5 lens until this afternoon. Who knows why? I'd posit laziness but usually I'm pretty disciplined at getting to projects like this. 

At any rate I put the lens on a well proven adapter ring, dressed for the 98° high temperatures, put on a bucket hat and took the G9 and the 20mm f3.5 Olympus Pen lens out for a walk. We are also accompanied by the Oly 60mm f1.5 but its performance today will be covered in a future blog post. Maybe. 

The 20mm lens acts like a 40mm lens in a full frame, 35mm system. But one with an extra dose of depth of field. I noticed that light sources in the shots produced moderate flare and some aperture artifacting but I think that's to be expected since these lenses depended on their photographers using films with anti-halation backings and were not coated with the right coatings to reduce flaring with digital sensors. 

I used focus peaking in addition to image magnification to really hone in on correct focus and I think that was the missing link in my earlier tests; no way to really fine tune at the taking apertures the accuracy of the focusing. Today though I was able to absolutely nail focus even while stopping down to f5.6 or f8.0 and focusing there. Sean Reid imagines that the greatest accuracy when focusing manual lenses such as these is to do your focusing with the lens wide open and then stop down to make the exposure. I, of course, disagree and think that with high magnification and nuanced focus peaking you can reduce focusing error caused by focus shift from stopping down when  focusing at the taking aperture instead. 

Since I can clearly see the texture of the paint on the machine that is the subject of 

this photo I have to say that the lens is very capable of good sharpness performance

when used at f5.6 or f8.0. This image was taken at f8.0

Can a lens add to apparent (not actual) dynamic range?

Well, yes. Of course. Highlights bleed into shadows and vice versa.

The image just above is a good example of this. 

When I blow up the images and look at them on a high res monitor I can see that modern lenses are capable of a bit more sharpness but a LOT more contrast. I found that I can more closely emulate the look of modern lenses by adding contrast to the image and also making generous use of the "clarity" slider in Lightroom. 

While I wouldn't recommend that you go out and search for one of these when there are so many other better lenses in the same focal range I was pleasantly surprised that a lens designed in the 1960s for a film camera can still do a good enough job to pass for "good" in modern times. 

The lens is small, relatively lightweight and looks pretty cool on the front of a modern GH or G series camera. I would caution against using it wide open or stopping it down much past f8.0. But in the sweet spot, with the light coming from over your shoulder, it can still make nice photographs. 

A fun way to get in a 3.5 mile walk, exercise one's distance vision, get acclimated to the coming heat waves, and to see if one's technique can help compensate for an ancient lens. A nice way to spend some time with a camera. 

next up: Is the Pen FT 60mm f1.5 still relevant in 2022? Is it still a sexy portrait lens? Is it worth the current used prices? We'll see.