Well, my cheapo ebay adapter came today to let me use my dad’s old Olympus OM kit on my Canon 450D. Here are some of the results

Nice! Wish my results were as good using my Zuiko lenses on my Olympus DSLR.

how do you go about setting the f stop as there is no metering and it always comes out at F0.0 on my 450d

I love my Zuiko lenses. I should look at getting them to work on my Nikon DSLR.

I’m using a Zuiko 50mm prime and a Tamron 80-210 tele/macro. I was disappointed to find out the same problem, and initial plays inside and in the garden were less than inspiring. However, after teaching myself some rough and basic rules, I seem to have cracked it:

1) You can’t tell the camera what F-stop you’re on, that is just done on the lens in stop-down mode. I find it easier in fully manual than trying to adjust in Av mode

2) Metering is flakey at best, and I’ve not seen any improvement between each of the 4 metering settings, so have left all mine on evaluative

3) At fully open aperture, the metering seems to be mostly OK, but I find it over exposes by 1/2-1 stop cumulatively for each f-stop down from there. E.g. f1.4 meters fine, f2 is overexposed by 1/2 stop, f3 by 1 1/2 stops, etc. Basically, the only way to sort it is to guess how much you need to tell the camera to underexpose, take the shot, then have another go. I got the hang fairly quickly in my brief stroll this evening that netted those pics.

5) The Canon software (assuming you’re shooting in RAW) is pretty good at adjusting the exposure, provided you’ve got it somewhere close when taking the pic.

Basically, it’s a bit of a faff, and takes a little longer than with the Canon EF-S lens, BUT, as a result, I seem to take more care, both taking and processing, so resulting in much better pictures overall. I’m quite happy that i’ll easily get my £5’s worth out of the adapter, even if I do just stick to the Canon lens most of the time…

thanks for that, fully manual was how i thought things would have to go, i need to find time to have a play

This might be of limited interest but a couple of links on the performance of OM/Zuiko 35mm lenses used with digital bodies, and a few suggestions for best performance here and here.

I had been toying with getting an OM adaptor on the 5D mk II, and some old manual Zukio lenses to use with the video mode – think they stop the lens down (or some do) as you turn the aperture ring…. would be grand that!

Not really played with the video functions on that beast yet mind… not had much call for it so far!

fully manual is where its at, hey with fuji film there’s even a light meter on the cardboard box! 😀

Just been for a potter and got a few more shots, I’ll stick some of the better ones up shortly