Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 8 mm f/1.8 ED PRO Fisheye review - Coma, astigmatism and bokeh

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Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 8 mm f/1.8 ED PRO Fisheye

2 December 2015

Arkadiusz Olech

7. Coma, astigmatism and bokeh

Unique parameters, namely the huge angle of view and truly record-breaking aperture fastness, in this class of equipment are real obstacles when it comes to the correction of such an aberration as the coma. Still the Olympus performs very well here and the level of that aberration is negligible even at the maximum relative aperture. A round of applause!

E-PL1, f/1.8, center	E-PL1, f/1.8, corner

E-PL1, f/2.5, center	E-PL1, f/2.5, corner

We took the Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 8 mm f/1.8 ED PRO Fisheye to one of our Photomissions to Norvegian Lofoten islands where we used it very intensively not only for journalistic landscape shots but mainly for photographing the aurora borealis. We have to say it performed surprisingly well. Below you can find crops taken from frame corners by f/1.8 and f/2.2 we got during the aurora nights. It is clear that, despite a significant size of the relative aperture, there are almost no coma-related problems. In fact the Olympus seems to be simply created for such shots.

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E-M10, f/1.8, corner 1:1

Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 8 mm f/1.8 ED PRO Fisheye - Coma, astigmatism and bokeh

E-M10, f/2.2, corner 1:1

There are a bit more problems in the case of astigmatism. The average difference between horizontal and vertical MTF50 function values amounted to 11.8% and we consider it to be medium.

The photo below usually is supposed to show an example of out-of-focus areas provided by the tested lens. When it comes to a fisheye, however, it is more of a tidbit than anything else, providing an example of perspective deformations and the reproduction used by the lens. Still the comparison between the shape of the circle provided by the Olympus and the one we observed in the case of e.g. the Samyang 7.5 mm f/3.5 UMC Fish-eye MFT is especially instructive.