Mil-0838 is cheap no name fisheye lens for Micro 4/3 adapted from CCTV. It costs around $75 on Ebay as of May 2016. It’s literally no name as all the titles on its packaging are ‘Mirrorless’ and ‘Photo Lens’.
Mil-0838 lens on Olympus E-M1 body.
Design
Weight 107 g, diameter 63 mm, length 39 mm (117/67/41 with front cap).
Diagonal field of view in specs: 180°
The lens in manual, no electronics involved. The body is entirely metal. It’s so small that it feels sturdy in the hand despite its pretty light weight. My variation of the lens includes integrated hood, knobs on focus and aperture rings and native MFT mount. There are other variations around, which may include no hood, smaller hood, no ring knobs and C Mount with MFT adapter.
Authentic Chinese Latin typography on the front side clearly witnesses the origin of the lens. The font on the ring marks looks better though. The focusing scale is unusably false (at least on my copy), see below for details. There is no ƒ11 stop on the aperture ring and at the first glance ƒ16 seems more like ƒ11. However I can’t tell it for sure, so I will be calling it ƒ16 by now.
Focus and aperture ring rotation is smooth and easy. Aperture is stepless. I would call the rings convenient if they were a bit more wider. Due to their small width the knobs come in handy, with them you can rotate the rings with one finger.
Small physical length of the lens combined with very wide angle of view makes you watch for your hands so they don't get into the frame. On bodies with a grip it may become a problem because in fact you cannot hold the camera in the usual way.
ƒ5.6, 1/15 s, ISO 400. This and below samples are taken with Olympus E-M1, standard camera profile applied, no post-processing except exposure correction.
Image Quality
On the one hand, the image sharpness and resolution, especially in the corners, are not high by today's digital photography standards. On the other hand, for real world use I consider them decent. Under most circumstances this lens won’t get in your way of making a good shot.
All apertures from wide open to completely stopped down are useable. Center sharpness is almost constant throughout the aperture range, maxing out at ƒ5.6. Corners are very soft at ƒ3.8 and almost sharp at ƒ16.
As far as I can see, the diffraction affects the image starting from ƒ8. However it’s barely noticeable, so if you need the depth of field from 0.5 m to infinity or just want more corner sharpness, the lens may be used at ƒ16.
Contrast and color rendition are absolutely fine. Chromatic aberrations are strong but easily removed in post-processing. The lens is pretty flare-prone when shooting into direct sun.
ƒ16, 1/25 s, ISO 200.
Usage
The markup on the focusing ring is completely invalid. You can download the scale that I’ve made for my copy of the lens, print it on a sticker and stick it to your lens. But it may not work for your copy. Perhaps you’ll have to do some testing with a tape-measure in order to the learn way your copy is focusing.
Most of the times you won’t be focusing with this lens though, as it will be set to infinity, which begins right after 1 meter (a bit farther than 5 m mark on the original faulty scale). When you focus to infinity and shoot at ƒ16 everything starting from 50 cm gets in focus. Because of the huge depth of field ther’s not much use of hyperfocal distances with this lens.
ƒ5.6, 1/320, ISO 200.
Conclusion
Let’s look at major fisheye options for Micro 4/3 (prices from B&H & Ebay):
- No Name 8mm ƒ3.8 — $70
- Olympus Body Cap 9mm ƒ8 — $85
- Rokinon 9mm ƒ8 — $130
- Samyang 7.5mm ƒ3.5 (cine version available) — $270
- Panasonic 8mm ƒ3.5 — $640
- Olympus 8mm ƒ1.8 — $900
Is this the cheapest lens available with native Micro 4/3 mount? For $75 it cannot be beaten. If you pixel peep, you’re unlikely to be happy with it. However, the lens is small, light, pretty fun to use, costs less than toy lenses and Olympus body cap fisheye, and allows you to make great images as soon as you learn focusing.
If you seek maximum image quality or real photo lens ergonomics, Samyang 7.5mm f3.5 may be a better option. It has outstanding value for money as well because it costs around $270 and it’s sharp all over the frame. But if you’re on tight budget or plan to use a fisheye occasionally, or just want ultra cheap ultra wide angle for Micro 4/3, this little no name lens may appear what you need.