Recommendation for small, flare resistant wide angle lens?

I am looking for a recommendation for a small, flare resistant wide-angle lens (anything up to 14mm, either zoom or fixed focal length). I already have the 12-40 in this focal range, and no intention to replace it, so my main consideration is size. I will only use it in good light, so it does not have to be fast, and I would likely use it most at f/5.6 or slower. Corner-to-corner sharpness is less important than good flare resistance.

The most flare resistant lens I've experienced on m4/3 has been the Oly 12/2. It's not ideal for diffraction of lights (star effect), and it can ghost strong light sources to some degree - recalling urban night scene studies (doing panoramic studies can be particularly troublesome with lenses that flare). I can't recall the last time I shot with that, with the sun in the frame, though.

There's a lot to like about the 12, and it should certainly be on any short list of fast, small, AF wides. My downsides are price and lack of weatherproofing, plus it more or less requires a hood, whether the ghoulishly overpriced Oly or some alternative. I use a screw-in hood from another camera.

If MF is an option there's a big set of alternatives, including some very fast ones.

Cheers,

Rick

Thanks for the suggestion.

The Olympus 12 / 2 looks great, but while it is lightweight, it doesn't quite meet my criteria of "small" - perhaps I should have made that clearer. I guess I am really looking for a pancake, something similar to the Panasonic 14 / 2.5 or even one of the zooms like the Panasonic 12-32 / 3.5-5.6 and the Olympus 14-42 / 3.5-5.6.

My dream lens (for this purpose) would be a weather-sealed, lightweight pancake 12mm f/4 with great flare resistance - but since that's not available, I'm looking for a compromise.

spatz said:

Thanks for the suggestion.

The Olympus 12 / 2 looks great, but while it is lightweight, it doesn't quite meet my criteria of "small" - perhaps I should have made that clearer. I guess I am really looking for a pancake, something similar to the Panasonic 14 / 2.5 or even one of the zooms like the Panasonic 12-32 / 3.5-5.6 and the Olympus 14-42 / 3.5-5.6.

My dream lens (for this purpose) would be a weather-sealed, lightweight pancake 12mm f/4 with great flare resistance - but since that's not available, I'm looking for a compromise.

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Fair enough - but the only other option I can think of, as the closest compromise to those requirements, is the black Oly 12/2 (I was thinking of the silver-ish Oly 12/2 earlier). [chuckle]

We've all been waiting for small, weatherproof primes for quite some time. The Oly pancakes have been novelty lenses. The smaller collapsible zooms come with different compromise considerations.

If you are after tripod studies, you might consider stitching with your best narrower FL lens in the meanwhile. Maybe?

What about the little Panny 12-32? It's tiny, collapsed. Don't know about flare and corner sharpness, as I don't own one.

Cheers,

Rick

The 12-32 works very well on the GM5 and GX7...other than that, I have no info.

spatz said:

I am looking for a recommendation for a small, flare resistant wide-angle lens (anything up to 14mm, either zoom or fixed focal length). I already have the 12-40 in this focal range, and no intention to replace it, so my main consideration is size. I will only use it in good light, so it does not have to be fast, and I would likely use it most at f/5.6 or slower. Corner-to-corner sharpness is less important than good flare resistance.

Click to expand...

Well, no lens is completely free of flare, but I would suggest the 12-32 as being about as good as you get and much better than the Pana 12-35 (I haven't tried the Oly 12-40).

The two shots below were taken as a direct comparison of the flare and ghost images produced by those two lenses in a fairly extreme situation with the sun in the corner of the image:


With 12-32mm f/3.5-5.6 lens


With 12-35mm f/2.8 lens

The general diffuse flare is not much different between the two, but the 12-32 is remarkably free of ghost images, which are very intrusive in the 12-35.

Interesting, the 12-32 seems to have UV management issues not unlike the 7-14. Since the OP's hope is a very compact option Id imagine the two 2.8 zooms fall well shy of that goal. Something's probably got to give in the sharp/small/flarefree tug of war.

Cheers,

Rick