What lenses do we need?

Yes, I do not like these kind of primes either. A bird approaches you...and at some point it simply becomes to big. When you have a 100-300 mm or something like that you can go from 300 to 100. GH4 did that resonably well from 100 to 35 mm. Missed 2 shots out of 15 or so because of it..

I'd like a 7 or 8mm f4 rectilinear prime (i.e. not fisheye). It would be great for both architecture or landscapes, and could hopefully be much smaller and less expensive than the 7-14mm PRO. The 8mm bodycap lens is cool, but f8 doesn't cut it, and the quality seems to be low.

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Lenses I'd like to see:

- Cheaper WA zoom. The 12-32 actually comes pretty close, but I wouldn't mind if it were a little wider, a little less long, and maybe a bit faster. Pancake size is great, but if you could fit it in the size of a Panny 14-42 II, that'd be fine too. The Oly 9-18 is quite expensive.

- Mid-price WA prime (with autofocus). That 12mm f/2.0 sounds like a great lens for indoor low light. Too bad I can't justify $800 (new) or $550 (used) for one.

- Mid-grade zoom. I run a 14-54 II, but it's gigantic and the focusing lags behind my other lenses. Nowhere close to unusably slow, but definitely behind any other lens I have.

- I'd like an update to the 14/2.5 and the 20/1.7. For the 14mm, a bit sharper (and no CA on Oly) would be great, a bit brighter while maintaining the size would be phenomenal (not likely, with the 15/1.7 coming on the market though). The 20mm just needs its niggling issues resolved (slow AF, potential for banding). Get both of these out with street prices of $200-300 and m4/3 suddenly has excellent wide and normal budget primes, rather than simply 'very good, but with caveats.'

A 7mm or 8mm rectilinear prime f4 or brighter.

F.

Better choices at 14 and 17.5 would be nice. The P-14/2.5 pancake is useful lens, but a larger lens that could produce better corner sharpness for architecture shots would be nice. I'm still waiting for a 17.5 lens; let it be fast @ 1.4 ; that would be great. Finally, could a modest ultra wide at 10.5mm F4 of reasonable size be produced?

oeoek said:

I can't speak for 'we' but just for me, and as far as I'm concerned M43 already has a pretty complete lens line up. Unless one is into some rather specialised field of photography, the available gear will do well (ok, not for small bats at nightfall, frame filling please...). If you can't pick a good set now, it is not the tools that are the problem.

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There may be a lot of m43 lenses available, but there's also a huge amounts of duplicates. Scores of compact consumer grade zooms, and soon there will be two sets of pro quality zooms covering wide angle, standard, and tele. But no mid-level/prosumer zooms. Just about every other brand has them. Nikon has there 24-120 for FF and the 16-85 for APS-C. Canon has a 24-105 for FF and a 15-85 for APS-C. Most of the serious photographers I know who shoot Canon and Nikon own at least one of those four lenses. They hardly constitute specialized lenses but form the very heart and core of their respective system, particularly for the serious hobbyist or semi-pro. Even smaller brands have them. Sony has a 16-70 f4. Fuji has the 18-55 f2.8-4. Pentax has a 16-45 f4 and a 17-70 f4. Yet m43, despite being graced by two companies, has absolutely nothing! And there's even less excuse for m43, because these mid-range zooms would be smaller than the pro f2.8 stuff and therefore more in line with basic philosophy behind the m43 system. Right now, if you want to shoot m43 with a compact zoom lens, you're going to have to settle for consumer grade optics. Why does this have to be the case? Is it too much to ask for a professional quality compact zoom lens? Doesn't that make at least a little sense?

The Panny 12-35 and Olympus 12-40 are professional grade. Too bad they are expensive. From what I have read they are worth it.

Defnitely some fast tele lenses. Personally I would vote for a system like the Kowa Telephoto Lens Spotting Scope - A frontend (or two) with the big entry lens and 2-3 fixed focal length backends (e.g. 250, 500 and 1000mm) and a zooming backend. All equipped with AF.

Michael M Fliegel said:

The Panny 12-35 and Olympus 12-40 are professional grade. Too bad they are expensive. From what I have read they are worth it.

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Yes, but they are hardly small.

I own the Oly 12-40 and can't be more happy as far as IQ is concerned. However, it's a big lens for MFT. Quite often I use my Pany 12-32 because it's so compact instead.

I wish there was a 12-50 lens with good IQ that was fairly compact. The Oly 12-50 is way too long and not good enough optically.

f 2 is fine, but pancake please. Weather seal that badboy. Frankly the 20mm f 1.7 has an old loud AF that sucks, its not an ideal focal length, and the update didn't improve anything.

Affordable, small (as in: take with you anywhere) but longish macro lens. If price or size are at stake, I'm ready to give up the AF too.

I'd like a proper perspective control lens in the 8-12mm range. Tilt is unimportant, we don't need a diorama gimmick when that, in particular, is handled just as well in post. Shift is more important.

Tilt and shift both work surprisingly well paired with the Metabones Speedbooster, considering that tilt and shift used with the speed booster both end up completely decentering the lens. Maybe this little revelation could be played upon to finally give the world an autofocusing, auto-diaphragm PC lens?

Something like my Nikon 1 30-110/3.8-5.6. Yes, it's slow. But it's sharp. It's also very small and lightweight. And very cheap.

To get the same quality with my m4/3 gear, I need to pay for the horribly expensive PL 35-100/2.8. And then I will still don't quite have the reach I want.

My 45-200 is collecting dust, it doesn't cut it. I sometimes use my old ZD 40-150/4-5.6. That lens falls into the "good but not great" category. The current 40-150 or 40-175 offerings don't seem to be any better. Or is there a hidden gem somewhere?

Yes it makes a lot of sense. Hopefully Olympus will have one for the E-M5 replacement. The do have a patent for a 12-40 f2.8-4.0. I would love to see a 14-60 redone for m43.

I think we need a true teleconverter x1.4 and x2 to better take advantage of the stellar f/2.8 zooms we do have and to enhance the system even further as a tool for pros and enthusiasts alike.

Jorginho said:

Most of this is because I have my GH4 now and it, together with the EM1, can do pretty good AF-continues in burst mode. But I have a wish, but wonder if that is more universal or that others over here wish something else....So here we go:

Which of the following lenses is most needed for the system?

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You forgot to list the lenses you wanted to compare. I'd like to help but I don't know what lenses you are referring to.
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Thanks for askng, but the main reason for this thread is to see what kind of lenses m43 users would like to have that are not already available.

More tele primes , a 200 or 300 mm would be nice. Also a high quality telezoom to complement the 35-100 , a 100-200 f4 would be great, even whith 1.4 tc. The current 100-300 is just average @300mm

And uwa primes, rectilinear ones.because there are not many (none at all?), the samyang is a fisheye