Welcome Inspire Pilots!
Join our free DJI Inspire community today!
Sign up

Olympus or DJI for wide angle?

Joined
Jul 30, 2016
Messages
27
Reaction score
5
Age
53
I have the factory 15 mill lens with the X5S and also have the Olympus 25 and 45 mm lenses. I love the 25 mm but would like to find out if purchasing and Olympus 12 mm would be a better lens than the stock 15 mill DJI.

What are your thoughts? I am looking for sharpness because I find The stock 15 mm does well but sometimes I find the images a little soft and wonder if getting an Olympus 12 mm would be sharper/better.
 
Last edited:
I have the olympus 12 and the 17. Don’t feel the need for the 15.

My DJI 15mm is soft on left side. 12mm is my default lens. It is reliable performer and consistently sharp. I always shoot DNG and process in LR. Files taken with this lens take sharpening very well and produce nice and sharp photos. I have preset created for this lens to speed up the processing.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Phillip DeVore
If you’re looking for a good wide angle lens then you might be interested in the Laowa 7.5mm lens. I’ve got one and it works great. It is a manual focus lens but you just set it to infinity before takeoff.
And I too have the Olympus 25&45 lenses and I prefer them over the DJI lenses hands down! I kept my x4s camera as a backup to my x5s and it’s equivalent to a 12mm lens is what I was told.
 
Last edited:
My DJI 15mm is soft on left side. 12mm is my default lens. It is reliable performer and consistently sharp. I always shoot DNG and process in LR. Files taken with this lens take sharpening very well and produce nice and sharp photos. I have preset created for this lens to speed up the processing.
My experience is the same, except that my 15mm is a poor performer all over. I never use my 15mm. Other threads here suggest that there's a wide variation in build quality, and that some lucky people have good instances of it, but they seem to be in the minority.

The majority of my shooting is done with the Olympus 12mm and 25mm, and they are nice and sharp at f4 through f8 or so. I also use the Laowa 7.5mm fairly often and like it a lot. I have the Olympus 45mm, and it is ok but I use it less than expected.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Phillip DeVore
My experience is the same, except that my 15mm is a poor performer all over. I never use my 15mm. Other threads here suggest that there's a wide variation in build quality, and that some lucky people have good instances of it, but they seem to be in the minority.

The majority of my shooting is done with the Olympus 12mm and 25mm, and they are nice and sharp at f4 through f8 or so. I also use the Laowa 7.5mm fairly often and like it a lot. I have the Olympus 45mm, and it is ok but I use it less than expected.
How is your 25mm? I run a thread recently on this lens and many including myself concured that the 25mm lense was blurry near the left edge wide open and it only got better past f5.6
 
  • Wow
Reactions: Phillip DeVore
How is your 25mm? I run a thread recently on this lens and many including myself concured that the 25mm lense was blurry near the left edge wide open and it only got better past f5.6
Yes, I was being intentionally vague when I typed my response above and said both the 12mm and 25mm were sharp "at f4 through f8 OR SO" because the specific settings I use in any given situation vary. In most aerial situations I try to shoot stills with my 25mm at f5.6 or 7.1, ISO 100, and a shutter speed of 1/400 or faster, to get the least IQ degradation from lens softness/diffraction, high ISO noise, and motion blur, respectively. But I often have to make tradeoffs due to low light or even a desire to introduce some intentional shallow depth of field for low altitude close-to-subject shots. Video involves different tradeoffs. So I was trying to indicate the "sweet spot range" rather than a specific setting.
 
Yes, I was being intentionally vague when I typed my response above and said both the 12mm and 25mm were sharp "at f4 through f8 OR SO" because the specific settings I use in any given situation vary. In most aerial situations I try to shoot stills with my 25mm at f5.6 or 7.1, ISO 100, and a shutter speed of 1/400 or faster, to get the least IQ degradation from lens softness/diffraction, high ISO noise, and motion blur, respectively. But I often have to make tradeoffs due to low light or even a desire to introduce some intentional shallow depth of field for low altitude close-to-subject shots. Video involves different tradeoffs. So I was trying to indicate the "sweet spot range" rather than a specific setting.
So, is that a 'YES' to my question?
 
So, is that a 'YES' to my question?
No. I would not say that my 25mm is, quoting your post, "blurry near the left edge wide open and it only got better past f5.6". The lens sharpness seems to follow a pretty symmetrical sharpness curve, from sharpest in the center, to less sharp as you move toward the edges on each side, at apertures wider than f5.6. This assessment is not "DXO Mark" certified, just my impression from working with the lens.
 
  • Like
Reactions: seattlenativemike
Thanks for the replies. I was on a shoot last week shooting stills of a big factory and I had been keeping the 25 mm on The camera as my go to lense but had to fly a good ways out to capture the whole property of the factory. The jobs that I have used a 15 mm on came out OK but that 25 mm is the bomb.

Does anyone have a link to that Olympus 12 mm? I’m seeing different ones at different prices and not sure I’m looking at the correct one.
 
No. I would not say that my 25mm is, quoting your post, "blurry near the left edge wide open and it only got better past f5.6". The lens sharpness seems to follow a pretty symmetrical sharpness curve, from sharpest in the center, to less sharp as you move toward the edges on each side, at apertures wider than f5.6. This assessment is not "DXO Mark" certified, just my impression from working with the lens.
Thank you. Count yourself among the minority of the fortunate ones, as the majority owners experience the same issue as me. I tried 4 coppies of the 25mm and they were all more or less equally bad near the left edge. The one I've kept is at least acceptable at f5.6 to f 7.1. Do not get me wrong the central sharpness all the way to the right edge was exemptional on all 4 copies even wide open. It is just this annoying sudden fall of sharpness (decentering issue) near the left edge spoiling the performance of this otherwise great lens.
 
  • Like
Reactions: seattlenativemike
Does anyone have a link to that Olympus 12 mm? I’m seeing different ones at different prices and not sure I’m looking at the correct one.

Mine is called "Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 12mm F2.0 Lens, for Micro Four Thirds Cameras (Black)", currently $699 on Amazon (drat I paid more when I got it back in early 2016!).
 
Now I'll have to go back and look more carefully to see if maybe I just missed it!
On mine it is pretty obvious on infinity subjects. Easy to replicate too. If you want to try, just set it to wide open aperture in A Mode a tap focus on a high contrast distant subject in the centre of the frame. Then examine at 100% magnification. On mine the sharpness starts to degrade sharply at around 3/4 of the frame width and gets very blurry and with heaps of CA near the left edge. The right side is sharp all the way to the right edge. This improves with stopping down and gets ok at f5.6. It seems to be quite common issue with this lens and it has been reported on various photography forums for years..
 
The 15mm DJI lens is not bad, it just is not on the same level as the 12mm Olympus. The 12mm Olympus is my most used on the Inspire 2. I also have the Laowa 7.5mm I bought from Chris Crumley on this board which is a phenomenal lens in it’s own right. It does double duty on my Olympus cameras and my drones. It is super rectilinear if kept level. I’m not interested in getting into a pixel peeping discussion on the 25mm Olympus which I have and use when appropriate but also on the longer lenses consider the 25mm 1.7 Lumix which is tack sharp. The 45mm Olympus is there when I need the extra reach. Btw, I have an extra 12mm black Olympus for some unknown reason.
 
The 15mm DJI lens is not bad, it just is not on the same level as the 12mm Olympus. The 12mm Olympus is my most used on the Inspire 2. I also have the Laowa 7.5mm I bought from Chris Crumley on this board which is a phenomenal lens in it’s own right. It does double duty on my Olympus cameras and my drones. It is super rectilinear if kept level. I’m not interested in getting into a pixel peeping discussion on the 25mm Olympus which I have and use when appropriate but also on the longer lenses consider the 25mm 1.7 Lumix which is tack sharp. The 45mm Olympus is there when I need the extra reach. Btw, I have an extra 12mm black Olympus for some unknown reason.
How is the Lumix 25mm balancing on the x5s? If my memory serves me well someone once posted that it is front heavy and x5s needs some bespoke weigth at the back of the camera. The Oly 25mm balances perfectly with lenshood or 10g balancing ring which I really like.
 
Guess I’ll echo the same. 12mm is the cat’s meow. It is balanced better and is a much more useful focus length. Just remember to push the focus ring forward to enable autofocus.
 
  • Like
Reactions: seattlenativemike
How is the Lumix 25mm balancing on the x5s? If my memory serves me well someone once posted that it is front heavy and x5s needs some bespoke weigth at the back of the camera. The Oly 25mm balances perfectly with lenshood or 10g balancing ring which I really like.

Yes, it is a bit front heavy but the X5S gimbal handles it well with no buzzing or complaints as long as you don’t put a filter or hood on it.
 

Members online

No members online now.

Forum statistics

Threads
22,277
Messages
210,655
Members
34,334
Latest member
unitedconveyormktg