Kiwi specialise in producing high quality photographic accessories such as lens and mount adapters, macro accessories and quick release systems. Their product line is constantly expanding to provide useful well engineered components that complement most camera manufacturer’s offerings, including Leica.
Back in the film days, Olympus was top of the tree when it came to macro system components. Along with seven dedicated macro lenses, flash units, bellows and supporting accessories was a unique item – the 65-116 Telescopic Auto Tube, designed to offer a portable method of taking true macro images.
In the closing years of the 1980’s, Olympus took flash technology to a new level with the F280 gun. Being the innovative company they are, they took ground breaking strides to overcome the problem faced by all manufactures when it came to flash exposure.
I owned this lens for many years, and during this time I have come to realise that focal lengths longer than 135mm are something I rarely use.
This was one of my final OM Zuiko lens acquisitions. Having used the 135mm focal length for some candid photography, I was very aware that the distance separating me from my subjects was occasionally not quite enough.
In my opinion, this is one of sleepers of the OM System. Before owning one I used the f3.5 equivalent, which produced great results when stopped down a little, but I wanted something that could be used wide open to take advantage of the additional speed and subject isolation possible at this focal length. So I became interested in its bigger brother, the f2.8 version after I had realised that the 135mm focal length was very useful, despite it being branded as 'unfashionable' in a couple of articles I read.
The second Zuiko lens I purchased for my OM collection, as I had a requirement to replace an aging zoom lens with something much more portable. This was at least 20 years ago when analogue cameras were at their zenith and there was little sign of the digital revolution.