Panasonic 14mm, Olympus 17mm, Sigma 19mm, Olympus 9-18mm, Which would you recommend?

sigala1 wrote:

oeoek wrote:

I would say the 17 and 19mm are too close to the 25 to make a real difference, something wider would give you more options. From the ones you mentioned, I would say the 9-18mm is the best bet, although I picked the 12mm myself.

The 17 mm, while close to the 25mm, has a lot of merits; the 17 mm is great if you want to go out with just one prime, and together with the small and light 45mm it makes a great 2 lens kit. But I myself have put it on hold for the time being, it is more or less the superfluous addition, the last one I will add.

There's a big difference in field of view and perspective between 17mm and 25mm, and you can definitely tell the difference when viewing photos because the 17mm will have wide-angle distortion (not as in-your-face as a 14mm or wider lens, but definitely noticeable) while the 25mm will not have that. So these two focal lengths are definitely not substitutes for each other, not at all.

The OP has stated that he doesn't like longer focal lengths, a perfectly legitimate opinion that he is not alone in having, so a two lens kit of 17mm + 25mm makes more sense for him than a two lens kit of 17mm + 45mm.

I think this response demonstrates how this board judges photos by how sharp they are when viewed at 200% on your monitor or how blurry the bokeh is, instead of the actual visual merits of the photos one might take.

Personally for me, 17 and 25 are too similar. I had the 12, 17 and 25 and the 17 was by far my least used, so much so that I simply stopped bringing it with me and eventually sold it. So I would recommend the 12, or the 14 on a budget rather than the 17 for someone who already has the 25.

The difference between the 17 and 25 was often simply the difference between taking a step forward or back with either lens, while something like the 12 is significantly wider than 25. When it comes to primes, I like to work in factors of two, so my ideal kit is 7(7-14, but I use is as essentially a 7mm prime), 12, 25 and 45/42.5 (used to have the 45, replaced with Nocticron).

Its also important to note that the 17 doesn't inherently have "wide angle distortion", what you're seeing is the 17 has a wider FOV, so to get the same framing you move closer with that lens. Its moving the camera and lens close to the subject which exaggerates the perspective, not the focal length of the lens. Once you understand this, its easy to control perspective distortion with nearly any lens by chosing the correct distance to subject. This means you shouldn't really take headshots with a wide angle lens, but a half body or group shot with the 17 or even 14 can be shot without unnatural perspective. You can even take a headshot or head and shoulders with the 17 similarly to the 25, just stay at the same position as you would with the 25, but crop in post, and the perspective will be exactly the same (though you will lose some resolution obviously).