Hi everyone this is my first post on here, I bought the E-p1 a few months ago and have not got it down yet, meaning taking good pictures some pics I take a awesome some are not. I noticed if there is not enough light there's issues. Currently I am using the standard lens that came with it, I want to shoot macro shots of my saltwater aquarium I don't have the money to get a expensive lens is there something else I can do a cheaper lens that would achieve the same results. It seems when I try to take certain macro shoots it can't focus in that great and the shoots are blurry, even when the macro setting is on. Let me know what my options are thanks!!

slayer , for some reason your question about macro options with that nice ep1[ive got one too]
for aquarium shootingdoes not have an answer option , perhaps adash or one of the other mods can fix this....


for what you want to do , on a budget, i would suggest the following

buy a legacy lens for under 20 bucks ...a 50 mm f 2 or 1.8 from one of the makers of slrs from the 70s 80s and 90s or spend a little more 40-100 us dollars on e bay  for a 50mm 1.4... konicas can be inexpensive and are very... good ...minolta, canons,, olympus nikons etc   make sure its a manual focus model with a ring for changing f stops...next you need a set of extension tubes a set of three of different sized that can be used singly or stacked is about 15 dollars

shooting with bright lights andmanually focusing moving fish is an exercise in fustration
its not an easy task for the most experenced shooter , but if you use good lights, a high f stop
like f 16 for greater dof sufficent shutter speed to stiop action and a lot of luck, youll get some shots,, shoot lots and the review to see whats sharp and useable

good luck and welcome to the forum.............other forum members , please add you thoughts tooi probably left something important out!

 

 
it should be matched to the lens.....lastly get an adapter to use that legacy 50mm lens on your ep 1 , its a hollow tube [ so are the extension tubes!]that positions the slr lens the correct distance from the ep1 sensor for correct infinity focus,its gonna cost less than 20 bucks too for most common types

a good place to get it is
"rainbow imaging" , the owner is a friend who delivers in person sometimes , hes like a hong kong dealer but shipping from queens ny but he ships worldwide im sure

tell him paul from ep1. net sent you and you hope for the best price,lol...if he not sure who YOUR TALKING ABOUT ,tell him the guy who buys the adapters at whole foods on 14 st manhattan

a 50 mm slr lens... look at the pic to make sure it has an ring with f stop numbers on the barrel  2,2.8, 4 5.6,8....etc

a micro four thirds adapter for the brand you get m 4\3 to minolta for instance

canon will be fd... nikon f mount  pentax will be pk or p screw
..minolta is md etc  olympus is om mount

a set of extension tubes for the legacy lens ,same mount

the whole shebang should cost you 50 or 60 dollars if you buy well

 for the shooting part theres some really good macro shooters here, but im not one of them,lol
im sure they will offer advice when its needed

cheers

edit:
heres an example of an excellent 50 mm lens that could be useful to you

http://e-p1.net/lens-sample-photo-archive/konica-hexanon-ar-50mm-f1-4-(ar-mount)-lens-samples/msg57508/?topicseen#new

Aquarium shooting has it's own problems for lighting.... and reflections...

Light from above... That is: take off the lid and mount a few cheap manual flashes on a piece of wood that spans both left/right edges of the tank length.

Get a wireless trigger like this:  That has multiple units for shoe mount flashes

http://cgi.ebay.com/Wireless-Flash-Trigger-PT-04-TM-4-Channel-2-Receivers-/120753013262?pt=Digital_Camera_Accessories&hash=item1c1d70c20e

So you can trigger the flash with your shutter button.

To avoid reflections, you will need to have the nose of the lens with a lens hood attached, touching the glass of the tank. make sure your lens can focus in a range from a 4 to 12 inches from the nose of the lens.. a manual focus macro lens with a 1:1 adapter OR a close up filter (+1, +2, +3 etc..) to allow really close focusing...

Now, you can use f/16 or f/22 and have a decent DOF area for the fish to swim into. The flash should be on manual at 1st, if it is too bright, try and "Auto" setting.. Don't worry about the distance scale.. ignore it.

Welcome to the forums, slayerhellfire. You might have wondered why responses to your question were delayed--apparently you had (accidentally?) locked your thread. When I couldn't reply, I had voyager unlock it for you.

All the advice here are good. But I'll add a couple more tips:

• You didn't mention which standard lens you got, but I'll assume it's the kit zoom. This lens is not very fast, so I recommend bumping up the ISO to maybe 1600 to get the fastest shutter speed. It's much easier to clean up noise than to fix motion blur in your photo... There's lots of free noise removers out there, but my favourite is Noiseware Community Edition.
  
• Set the camera to focus using the AEL/AFL button instead of the shutter button (check your user manual). This will allow you to prefocus on a spot, then wait for a fish to pass through that spot again. This will allow your camera to snap the photo more quickly, as it won't have to look for focus again.

ok thanks for all the tips everyone, I will mess around with it tomorrow and try to post some pics!!!!