Thread: So tell me about lenses...

The fisheye is a cool novelty lens if you have your more critical lenses covered. I have one, use it very rarely, but love it when I find the right context for it. For a wide angle prime, it's tough to beat the cost effectiveness of the Panasonic 14mm, which is optically decent, reasonably fast at f2.5, and has incredible AF speed. The Olympic 12mm is that much better in each respect, but at a huge premium. The 20 is a nice lens and great value if the focal length works for you and you don't care about fast AF. But it's really a pleasing lens optically with a nice fast aperture. The 25 is a good bit better, but also a good bit more expensive. The 14 and 20 might be a good way to go on a budget. The 12, the 25, and the soon to be released 17 f1.8 a great combination if you have some money to burn.

At the portrait lengths, the Olympic 45 is the value of the decade and the 75 is an amazing lens at about double the price.

-Ray

If I could only have two lenses, they would be the Panasonic 14/2.5 (sells for ~$170 on Ebay) and the Olympus 45mm f/1.8 (Cameta sells like-new factory demos for $330). Both are small, fast focusing, and tiny.

I don't have the 14, but the 12 on my E P3 has produced some spectacular images.

Originally Posted by Amin Sabet

If I could only have two lenses, they would be the Panasonic 14/2.5 (sells for ~$170 on Ebay) and the Olympus 45mm f/1.8 (Cameta sells like-new factory demos for $330). Both are small, fast focusing, and tiny.

love my 14mm and long to try the 45....I

Thanks for the great advice, everyone - just the kind of thing I was after.

Poking through our collection just now I came across a 1950s hot-shoe Acoll viewfinder for Leica-style cameras. It's for an f=35mm lens. It even has parallax adjustment. With the 4:3 crop factor it should be fine with the 17mm lens. I also have a collapsible 50mm Leica M39 lens. Since an adapter should place the lens mount at the same distance from the sensor as it would have been from the film in a 35mm camera, I should theoretically be able to collapse it into the body of the E-P3... shouldn't I? Dunno how desirable that would be, although it would be nifty if it worked.

Originally Posted by Amin Sabet

If I could only have two lenses, they would be the Panasonic 14/2.5 (sells for ~$170 on Ebay) and the Olympus 45mm f/1.8 (Cameta sells like-new factory demos for $330). Both are small, fast focusing, and tiny.

I agree with this. That 14mm is really underrated. The 45 is excellent.

Originally Posted by Fuddlestack

I also have a collapsible 50mm Leica M39 lens. Since an adapter should place the lens mount at the same distance from the sensor as it would have been from the film in a 35mm camera, I should theoretically be able to collapse it into the body of the E-P3... shouldn't I? Dunno how desirable that would be, although it would be nifty if it worked.

Distance to the sensor should theoretically be the same, but the room around the sensor is much smaller than the room around the 35mm frame. I seriously doubt it would collapse into the body.

When I had my m4/3 system, I had the following lenses: Oly 9-18, Lumix 14 2.5, 20 1.7, 25 1.4 and 45 2.8. FWIW, I was extremely happy with this set. The 25 ended up replacing the 20 (except for when I wanted an extremely compact set up) because even though the 20 is a terrific lens, there is something really special about the 25. Having said that, there was not a bad lens in that group.

I think you really cannot go wrong with any of the current m4/3 offerings. Even the 14-42 Oly kit lens is quite competent.

Cheers,

Antonio

Originally Posted by ajramirez

Distance to the sensor should theoretically be the same, but the room around the sensor is much smaller than the room around the 35mm frame. I seriously doubt it would collapse into the body.

Thought of that, but I have a hammer.

Originally Posted by Fuddlestack

I also have a collapsible 50mm Leica M39 lens. Since an adapter should place the lens mount at the same distance from the sensor as it would have been from the film in a 35mm camera, I should theoretically be able to collapse it into the body of the E-P3... shouldn't I?

I seem to recall in the early days of m4/3 that this came up in discussion, possibly on the mu-43 forum, and the conclusion was that collapsing this lens into an m4/3 body was most unadvisable.

Barrie