Hi,

I am looking for an ultra-wide prime lens (somewhere beween 7mm and 10mm) for the Zenmuse X5R camera. What are my options? I can use fisheye but I would prefer rectilinear.

Is there any way to get this camera to work with one of the manual-only lenses? Typically, m43 cameras have a "shoot without lens" option that lets one use a lens with no electrical connections. I haven't found this option on the X5R.

X5R will accept fully manual lenses, no issue here. All must be properly balanced, since X5 generation gimbal is sensitive. Laowa is offering probably the widest lenses in this category, i.e.
https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&r ... kQWMUVx6IfwSi5h6-7kVenus Optics Laowa 9mm f/2.8 Zero-D Lens for Micro Four ...[url]www.bhphotovideo.com › Photography › Lenses › Mirrorless Lenses[/url]

Matthew Dobrski Posted at 4-14 14:58
X5R will accept fully manual lenses, no issue here. All must be properly balanced, since X5 generation gimbal is sensitive. Laowa is offering probably the widest lenses in this category, i.e.
https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&r ... kQWMUVx6IfwSi5h6-7kVenus Optics Laowa 9mm f/2.8 Zero-D Lens for Micro Four ...www.bhphotovideo.com › Photography › Lenses › Mirrorless Lenses[/url]

Thank you!.

Officially, it is recommended to select one of the lenses in the supported list, but the recommended lenses are not as ultra-wide as you expect. Glad to know Matthew gave you suggestions, please keep us updated if you have any further related concern.

DJI Mindy Posted at 4-14 23:22
Officially, it is recommended to select one of the lenses in the supported list, but the recommended lenses are not as ultra-wide as you expect. Glad to know Matthew gave you suggestions, please keep us updated if you have any further related concern.

I now have the Laowa 7.5mm lens. I can get the camera to work, kind of.

I can insert an SD card and take jpg photos and shoot movies to the SD card. It also lets me shoot raw photos but for some reason Lightroom doesn't load the DNG files properly  and only displays a low resolution thumbnail.
Adobe Photoshop throws this error:"Could not open “DJI_0801.DNG” because the file-format module cannot parse the file."

I also cannot shoot raw movies at all, the SSD does not move past "Initializing..."

The system works fine with an electronic lens installed; I can shoot raw photos and record raw movies to the SSD just fine.

Any tips?

thadwald Posted at 4-23 20:53
I now have the Laowa 7.5mm lens. I can get the camera to work, kind of.

I can insert an SD card and take jpg photos and shoot movies to the SD card. It also lets me shoot raw photos but for some reason Lightroom doesn't load the DNG files properly  and only displays a low resolution thumbnail.

Also, can anyone explain why the R version of this camera has the lens turned 90 degrees? It doesn't matter much but it disallows use of petal-shaped lens hoods, such as the one that comes with the Laowa lenses.

There's not much I can do about it but I'd be interested in knowing why.

thadwald Posted at 4-23 20:53
I now have the Laowa 7.5mm lens. I can get the camera to work, kind of.

I can insert an SD card and take jpg photos and shoot movies to the SD card. It also lets me shoot raw photos but for some reason Lightroom doesn't load the DNG files properly  and only displays a low resolution thumbnail.

For whatever reason DJI made some not officially supported lenses not cooperating with DNG opcode properly. The workaround is to process RAW files in external application like free Rawterapee, which ignores embedded lens profile. Or the lack of it, in case of fully manual lenses ...
I assume you're aware that to record video on SSD card, SD card must be also present?

Matthew Dobrski Posted at 4-24 14:25
For whatever reason DJI made some not officially supported lenses not cooperating with DNG opcode properly. The workaround is to process RAW files in external application like free Rawterapee, which ignores embedded lens profile. Or the lack of it, in case of fully manual lenses ...

Thank you for the response.

Your statement implies that I should not be having an issue with the SSD failing to initialize. Can you please confirm that I should be able to record raw video footage with a non-electronic lens?

Thanks

fans097faeb9 Posted at 4-24 14:30
Thank you for the response.

Your statement implies that I should not be having an issue with the SSD failing to initialize. Can you please confirm that I should be able to record raw video footage with a non-electronic lens?

Will have to pull my X5R and confirm that with my Meike 35mm glass ... Meantime check if SD card is present as well. Without it SSD card will not record ...

Further investigation reveals that I cannot record video **at all** with a non-supported lens. Not even to SD card.

I am hopeful that I’m missing something.

fans097faeb9 Posted at 4-24 15:08
Further investigation reveals that I cannot record video **at all** with a non-supported lens. Not even to SD card.

I am hopeful that I’m missing something.

Ugh, what do you know ... The same confirmed here, on Inspire 1 and Osmo Pro! Apologies for misleading you ... My experience with manual lenses is limited to X5 and X5S camera, I've never mount any non-supported lens on X5R and didn't expect such limitations. I have no idea why DJI deliberately excluded manual lenses on X5R, but it's a fact ...

I purchased this lens mainly for taking jpg photos, so not much harm done.

I have found that I can trick the system to work by powering it up with a supported lens, then swapping. Of course, the exif information will be wrong but this is better than corrupted exif data. This would also mean that I need to swap lenses twice at every battery change if I want to use it this way.

fans097faeb9 Posted at 4-25 19:30
I purchased this lens mainly for taking jpg photos, so not much harm done.

I have found that I can trick the system to work by powering it up with a supported lens, then swapping. Of course, the exif information will be wrong but this is better than corrupted exif data. This would also mean that I need to swap lenses twice at every battery change if I want to use it this way.

There's yet another way to get really wide, high resolution stills with standard 15mm lens: 4x4 or even 6x6 stitch. More elaborate, but with stunning results, if you're after quality...

Matthew Dobrski Posted at 4-27 10:43
There's yet another way to get really wide, high resolution stills with standard 15mm lens: 4x4 or even 6x6 stitch. More elaborate, but with stunning results, if you're after quality...

I'm actually using this for mapping purposes. The process involves taking hundreds of photos while flying in a pattern over the area to be mapped, then stitching the resulting images in specialized mapping software.