OMD: Can I take the same pictures with the 12mm f2.0 and the 17mm f1.8 ?

dustpuppy wrote:

I like taking a lot of portraits and shots of people, and lots of candid shots. Would those two lenses basically be equivalent for me, with the 12mm being a wider angle ? So I could crop my shots and end up with the same thing ? Or is the 17mm more adequate for taking shots of people / portraits ?

"I like taking a lot of portraits and shots of people, and lots of candid shots."

From what you wrote it sounds like "People" are your primary subject. It also sounds like you aren't specifically focused in a specific part of a person but just generally like taking pictures of people. That being said, either lens will do fine for such a random assortment of images, the 12mm being obviously better the more "people" are involved since the wider angle will take in more but with wider angles comes distortion the closer you are to your subject. The 17mm isn't so much more narrow that the difference will be drastic but would help slightly if your focus was much more centered but that doesn't sound like your style. Either lens couldn't be considered a portrait lens by traditional means but that doesn't mean you couldn't use it for those purposes. For me any lens can be used for anything but I generally would keep 25mm-75mm (50-150 FOV) as the primary lenses used for portraits where a single or maybe a few people are involved in the picture but not large groups and very rarely would I use anything longer than a 25mm for lots of people or even candids.