i was  at b&h photo and bought a refurbished  heavy hulking- big  olympus .8 wide angle adapter  for the princely sum of $19.95 it seems to weigh as much as the panny 14-45 m4\3 lens it attached to now. the aux lens was originally made to increase  the wide end of a oly bridge zoom camera from 35 to 28 mm equiv.
the lens has a  49 mm rear thread and   has a 3" front element !, is 1.5 inches deep and weighs  almost 1\2 lb

so its big... what of the iq? well on the panny  14-45  lens on my ep-1 , which has a 52mm thread a cokin 49 to 52 step-up ring allowed mounting.    it is , in a word astounding , unlike other adapters of .66 or .7  wides angles  made for video cams ,it is very sharp to the corners and the distortion seems  typical for an approx 22.5 mm fov  which is what i calculate this combo is giving lat 14mm

left on the lens racked to "45" i extimate its fov to be the same as the unadapted panny would be at about 34 mm
the dimensions of this combo is 3.75 inches by about 3.1 inches

i measured the fov against the fov of a 24 mm lens and it is distinctly wider and anyway 28 times 0.8 equals 22.5mm
im really surprised at the image quality right to the edges, this odd couple will do my bidding until i decide of which 4\3 wide to finally get  , right now i cant splurge on any lenses but eventually  ill choose between the panny 7-14 the oly 4\3 11-22 or 9-18 and  m4\3 adapter
the oly w angle adapter is made to sell for between 100 and 150 dollars , itws not a cheaply  made optic and has performed, thus far, way  beyond my expectations[

yes by a great margin , i had the same problem with the oly zoom it cant take much weight at all ,the panny is unaffected


filter on the oly is 40.5 on the panny 52, also there are lens design differences  that make the oly unsuitable for  much added weight at the front of the optic


 ill post some comparisons soon

Can f-stops become loose on such a camera? I know my aperture became quite slack on my old OM-1, but there's no way that the aperture can become loose in the same way on the E-P1's lenses, I'd have thought.

no loss in light tranmission at all  , its not like behind the lens extenders like a 1.4x or 2x tele extenders that lose alot of light ,    in the front of the lens with an optic this big compared to the front element of the panny kiyt zoom [1.4 " vs 3 "] its almost 4 times the area , i checked frequently and no loss of light or f stop what-so-ever...................

because it is a three element design there are some extra glass- air surfaces that could degrade contrast and possibly resolution on  this combo ,
but honestly, i can see no degredation of contrast and only the slightest loss of sharpness when pixel peeping at 14 x its much much  better than i expected or have gotten with the smaller video lenses that are .7 or . 5 in their conversion factor

 and the same at 45 showing the shortening of the zoom range with the attachment mounted , it seems to be at about "34mm" equiv

at this focal l setting ther edges are softened a bit  , this lens attachment was designed to be used only at the wide end of the bridge camera it was intended for
i dont reccomend using this attachment at 45 , shots are for educational purposes only 


the lens is pretty sharp used from about 14 to about 18 on the kit zoom  at 45 its very so-so at the corners , but usable in a pinch

Hi Cosinaphile,

Just saw this old thread as it's surfaced.
I'm very interested to know the model number (? A-28 as expressed by capainis).
a close-up photo of the wide angle adapter is much appreciated.

Thanks.

Gareth

it quite good you can see full sized images about 7 megs in the gallery there

There's an x100 forums?

Well it's only fair that you give us a link to them!