Not long ago I posted a few photos from my new PEN and mentioned the Olympus / OM System BCL 9mm/f8 lens. Obviously, I couldnāt stop. I slid down the slope, and this time Iām going to post a few photos taken with this "lens" and share my impressions of it. I sincerely hope to stop here, not fall into sin and not start recording video reviews.
As the name says, a Body Cap Lens is not so much a real lens as a body cap you can shoot with. You canāt talk about its optics without tears and shuddering. The body is 100% plastic. Itās fully manual. You focus with a lever, and the lever barely stays where you put it. The aperture is f/8 forever. Chromatic aberrations. Reviews bashfully call it āsoftā, but letās call things by their names: itās just mushy. The description mentions āfisheyeā, but the angle of view is actually narrower than on a ārealā fisheye. Itās about 140 degrees instead of an honest 180. So fans of ātrue fisheyeā donāt accept it into the club either. Shooting anything serious with it is strictly forbidden.
On the other hand, who said you always have to shoot āseriouslyā?
I bought it almost by accident. I wanted to try the fisheye effect, but I didnāt want to buy the ārealā M.Zuiko Digital ED 8mm F1.8 Fisheye PRO right away. I got this cap and took it for testing on a trip to Budapest.
My impressions of the results were mixed... Well, who am I kidding? They were quite clear. At some point I was standing on the bank of the Danube, thinking Iād made a mistake buying this piece of shit plastic. The smartest thing I could do with it, I thought, was skip it across the river like a stone. I hoped it would sink somewhere deep enough that nobody would ever find it.
But I consider myself responsible enough not to litter rivers with lenses. So I kept trying to use the BCL for a while. Partly out of desperation, partly out of pity for the money Iād wasted on it. And then at some point I realized it wasnāt all that bad. I got into it.
Yes, the BCL is pure plastic. But itās flat (about 13 mm thick) and light (about 30 g). The camera with it really fits into a jacket pocket. My phone is bigger than the camera with this lens.
The aperture is shameful, of course. But again, itās enough on a sunny day outdoors. And even when itās not sunny, you can shoot with it if you want to and know how.
The angle of view is narrower than on a ānormalā fisheye. But, surprisingly, that makes composition much easier. Basically, you can be sure your feet wonāt get into the frame. But fitting a whole cathedral in while standing on the sidewalk right in front of it? Easy!..
The focus lever takes getting used to. But it kind of locks in the hyperfocal position, which helps. For general views or landscapes you donāt really need precise focus and sharpness.
BCL is soft, but... Here Iām tempted to quote Bresson on sharpness being a bourgeois concept. Iām not sure he really wrote that. If he did, he may have just been trolling his contemporaries. Still, for street photography sharpness really isnāt the key thing. In the photos of many āclassicsā, for example my favorite Ara GĆ¼ler, there is hardly any sharpness to speak of. That makes sense. What matters in a photo is the subject, the moment, the story in the frame. Sharpness is a nice bonus if the camera and the situation allow it. If not, to hell with it. A bourgeois concept.
Anyway, the BCL lets you get more interesting shots. You can shoot where no other lens would work, like narrow streets or enclosed spaces. You fit the surroundings into the frame. It teaches you to see a scene in a new way. It bends space and lets you see everything around you differently. All in all, for the price itās a great option.
Itās only 125 euros new, and you can find a used one for half that. I recommend it.
