What prime lens for my Oly m10?

Nicken · Jul 13, 2015

Hello everyone,

I started with photogrphy a couple months ago.

I bought myself an Olympus e-m10 and got the kit lens and the M. Zuiko 40-150mm f4.0-5.6 R. In these months I've discovered I really like street photography.

Now I am looking for a prime lens but I can't figure out how much mm I need and what f-factor. Need to mention I am a student and so on a budget. The M10 was already a big part of my budget.

Can you help me?

Nick

kaphinga · Jul 13, 2015

Nicken said:
Hello everyone,

I started with photogrphy a couple months ago.

I bought myself an Olympus e-m10 and got the kit lens and the M. Zuiko 40-150mm f4.0-5.6 R. In these months I've discovered I really like street photography.

Now I am looking for a prime lens but I can't figure out how much mm I need and what f-factor. Need to mention I am a student and so on a budget. The M10 was already a big part of my budget.

Actually, your kit lens works remarkably well for street photography. If you are interested in a prime, I would look at either the 17mm or the 25mm. The 17mm is probably the classic focal length for street work, and the manual focus clutch on the Oly 17mm f1.8 comes in handy for zone focusing. The 25mm, though, may be my preference just because I like the longer reach. Try shooting your kit lens at 17mm one day and 25mm another day, and see which one you prefer. Either lens would make a good choice.

You might also want to look at the 45mm f1.8. It's really more of a candid portrait lens than a "street" lens, but it may work very well for you, depending on your style.

Nicken · Jul 13, 2015

kaphinga said:
Nicken said:

Hello everyone,

I started with photogrphy a couple months ago.

I bought myself an Olympus e-m10 and got the kit lens and the M. Zuiko 40-150mm f4.0-5.6 R. In these months I've discovered I really like street photography.

Now I am looking for a prime lens but I can't figure out how much mm I need and what f-factor. Need to mention I am a student and so on a budget. The M10 was already a big part of my budget.

Click to expand...

Actually, your kit lens works remarkably well for street photography. If you are interested in a prime, I would look at either the 17mm or the 25mm. The 17mm is probably the classic focal length for street work, and the manual focus clutch on the Oly 17mm f1.8 comes in handy for zone focusing. The 25mm, though, may be my preference just because I like the longer reach. Try shooting your kit lens at 17mm one day and 25mm another day, and see which one you prefer. Either lens would make a good choice.

You might also want to look at the 45mm f1.8. It's really more of a candid portrait lens than a "street" lens, but it may work very well for you, depending on your style.

Thanks for your quick reply!

People have been telling me the kitlens 14-41mm is not really suitable for street photography because of the low f-factor.. Is this not really true and should I be ok with my kitlens?

Would the sigma 30mm f.28 be a good option since I am on a low budget?

Al Bond · Jul 13, 2015

Nicken said:
Hello everyone,

I started with photogrphy a couple months ago.

I bought myself an Olympus e-m10 and got the kit lens and the M. Zuiko 40-150mm f4.0-5.6 R. In these months I've discovered I really like street photography.

Now I am looking for a prime lens but I can't figure out how much mm I need and what f-factor. Need to mention I am a student and so on a budget. The M10 was already a big part of my budget.

Can you help me?

Nick

If price (rather than size) is important, there are the Sigma 19mm and 30mm lenses. They are optically quite good and very good value for money.

addlightness · Jul 13, 2015

Nicken said:
Hello everyone,

I started with photogrphy a couple months ago.

I bought myself an Olympus e-m10 and got the kit lens and the M. Zuiko 40-150mm f4.0-5.6 R. In these months I've discovered I really like street photography.

Now I am looking for a prime lens but I can't figure out how much mm I need and what f-factor. Need to mention I am a student and so on a budget. The M10 was already a big part of my budget.

Can you help me?

Nick

For me, street photography usually means wide(but not too much) to capture just enough details to tell a story. I use the Panasonic 14mm f2.5 and Olympus 17mm f2.8(not the f1.8) mostly for such cases. If I need a little bit more subject isolation, the 25mm f1.8.

Since you are on a budget and if you don't mind used, the 14mm or the 17mm can be had at ~$150 each. I bought mine used. I also have the 14-42mm kit lens which BTW is a good lens but I come from old school 35mm film and still enjoys shooting with primes especially compact primes.

The Sigma 30mm would be too narrow IMO but the Sigma 19mm would do just fine. For the price of a non-discounted 17mm f1.8 or 25mm f1.8, you can get BOTH Sigma 19mm and 30mm - something to keep in mind.

morepix · Jul 13, 2015

If you could afford it, buy yourself a used Ricoh GR. It's tiny, unobtrusive, sharp, and set up for zone focusing. You can use it at 28mm or 35mm with an optional crop. I suppose used ones are pretty rare, but I just saw one on keh.com for $450.

SkiHound · Jul 13, 2015

I think the advice you got from kapinga was good advice. I don't necessarily think of large apertures necessarily being a need for street photography. No doubt there are exceptions and if you're working in low light, evenings, etc., it might be more of an advantage. I typically think of apertures of f/5.6 to f/8 as being typical. You more often want some depth of field. As for focal length it's very individualistic. I saw a video in which Jay Maisel was asked why he didn't use a 35mm prime. His response was he just doesn't see in that focal length. FF equivalent focal lengths of 35 to 50 are often used for street photography. Some folks wider, some longer. I agree with the earlier advice that you should go out, set your lens on about 17 and try it for a day, or even a few days. Then try 25, and maybe 30 if you're interested in the Sigma, and maybe even shorter and longer. I think that will give you a better feel for what focal length you might want to start with. I do think you'll find a fast, normalish focal length prime will be a very useful addition to your kit. And for that reason I'd probably suggest something with a faster aperture than the f/2.8 Sigma.

JCB123 · Jul 13, 2015

Nicken said:
Hello everyone,

I started with photogrphy a couple months ago.

I bought myself an Olympus e-m10 and got the kit lens and the M. Zuiko 40-150mm f4.0-5.6 R. In these months I've discovered I really like street photography.

Now I am looking for a prime lens but I can't figure out how much mm I need and what f-factor. Need to mention I am a student and so on a budget. The M10 was already a big part of my budget.

Can you help me?

Nick

There are a couple of things that a prime can do for you.

It can shoot with wider aperture. Perhaps a couple of stops wider. This is useful in low light when you need to keep your shutter speed up. These days this is less important than it used to be because you can alos raise your ISO to keep the shutter speed higher and image stabilisation systems have also improved to allow you to shoot at lower shutter speeds without shake affecting your pictures. The latter does not help with subject motion blur though. A wider aperture will also reduce depth of field. This can be an advantage if you have an obvious subject and having the background go out of focus helps to make it stand out. It is not always an advantage though because if your subject is the entire scene you may need to stop down to get the DOF that you need. To summarise : fast aperture for low light or shallow DOF.
Your kit lens is very good in the centre at all aperture settings. It is pretty good corner to corner when stopped down. For scenes where you want to have the whole image sharp form corner to corner a prime will sometimes help you to achieve this if you can get sufficient depth of field with an aperture between say f2.8 and 4, whereas your kit lens might need stopping down to f5.6 to be sharp enough in the corners. This is most likely to be achievable at the shorter focal lengths since DOF is harder to achieve at the long end. If you never display images on a large high resolution screen or print them really large then the corner sharpness of your kit lens is most probably perfectly fine. To summarise : Sharper corners at wider apertures.

As to which focal length, that depends on what subjects you want to shoot in the street. Static or moving ? Wide view or narrow ? Daylight or night-time ?. The wider focal lengths say 12 to 17 will give you more DOF for any given aperture and so make focusing less critical. Its a personal thing though. Use your zoom to figure out what focal length you like to shoot with most.

A zoom does have an advantage in that it allows you to choose perspective. When zooming with your feet you have to alter your distance from your subject in order to get the framing you want, and altering distance alters perspective. With a zoom you can often choose both framing and perspective (by selecting the distance that yields desirable perspective).

Regards

John

kaphinga · Jul 13, 2015

Nicken said:
Nicken said:

People have been telling me the kitlens 14-41mm is not really suitable for street photography because of the low f-factor.. Is this not really true and should I be ok with my kitlens?

Click to expand...

The wider aperture of a prime will give you a little more latitude in low light. You don't really need a shallow depth of field for street photography. In fact, a little extra depth of field -- such as you have with your kit lens -- can be an advantage with street photograph because it puts more of your subject (and background) in focus. Of course, it all depends on your style.

Nicken said:
Would the sigma 30mm f.28 be a good option since I am on a low budget?

I don't have any experience with the Sigma, but I have heard good things about it.

bs1946 · Jul 13, 2015

Nicken said:
kaphinga said:

Nicken said:

Hello everyone,

I started with photogrphy a couple months ago.

I bought myself an Olympus e-m10 and got the kit lens and the M. Zuiko 40-150mm f4.0-5.6 R. In these months I've discovered I really like street photography.

Now I am looking for a prime lens but I can't figure out how much mm I need and what f-factor. Need to mention I am a student and so on a budget. The M10 was already a big part of my budget.

Click to expand...

Actually, your kit lens works remarkably well for street photography. If you are interested in a prime, I would look at either the 17mm or the 25mm. The 17mm is probably the classic focal length for street work, and the manual focus clutch on the Oly 17mm f1.8 comes in handy for zone focusing. The 25mm, though, may be my preference just because I like the longer reach. Try shooting your kit lens at 17mm one day and 25mm another day, and see which one you prefer. Either lens would make a good choice.

You might also want to look at the 45mm f1.8. It's really more of a candid portrait lens than a "street" lens, but it may work very well for you, depending on your style.

Click to expand...

Thanks for your quick reply!

People have been telling me the kitlens 14-41mm is not really suitable for street photography because of the low f-factor.. Is this not really true and should I be ok with my kitlens?

A basic idea of street shooting is to get the entire scene in sharp focus as opposed to portraits where you want a shallow depth of field with the background blurred. Originally, Henri Cartier-Bresson, sort of the father of street shooting and a number of well known photojournalists from the same era used rangefinder cameras with a 50mm lens, which equates to a 25mm lens in M43. But later on, the 35mm lens became the preferred street lens because of it's wider field of view. Plus, if you stop a 35mm, 17mm in our case, down to f5.6 or even better, f6.3 and prefocus between 1.5 and 3 meters, you get really good DOF and everything will be in sharp focus. The advantage of zone focusing is that it is faster than even Olympus's blazing fast autofocus The Olympus 12mm f/2.0 and Olympus 17mm f/2.0 have the snapshot feature that allows you to pull back the focus ring to put the E-M10 into MF and reveal a distance scale on the lens. This allows you to use zone focusing for street shooting The Panasonic-Leica 15mm f/1.7 is another good focal length for street shooting. But all three of these lenses are on the expensive side.

Nicken said:
Would the sigma 30mm f.28 be a good option since I am on a low budget?

The 30mm f/2.8 DN is a wonderful lens, I had it and the 60mm f/2.8 until I gave them to my son. But while the 30mm is fine for casual portraits and as a super short telephoto, you might find it too narrow for street shooting. A better choice would be the Sigma 19mm f/2.8 DN, brand new at $199. Another reasonably inexpensive lens to consider is the Panasonic 14mm f/2.5 and if you want to go with the Olympus 25mm f/1.8, it's on sale in the U.S. for $350 until the end of the summer.

All of these primes have the advantage of faster f-stops and better image quality than you kit lens but since you aren't going to want to shoot wide open for street shooting, there's no reason not to use your kit lens. It will give you pretty decent images. Plus, with the exception of 12mm, you can try the different prime focal lengths and see which you prefer before you buy.

Ulfric M Douglas · Jul 13, 2015

Nicken said:
I bought myself an Olympus e-m10 and got the kit lens and the M. Zuiko 40-150mm f4.0-5.6 R. In these months I've discovered I really like street photography.

Now I am looking for a prime lens but I can't figure out how much mm I need and what f-factor.

Can you help me?

Very easy answer : M.Zuiko 45mm

Michael Meissner · Jul 13, 2015

Everybody is different. I usually recommend that people take out their camera and set the lens to whatever focal length you think you want (obviously if you are trying to choose, try each choice), and see if you can take the pictures you want with that lens. You have to use that focal length for enough that you can start knowing where you should be to capture the shot you want, and you can't cheat by using the zoom function.

If you find yourself really missing the zoom functionality, particularly if you can only shoot from fixed locations, it is better to find out ahead of time, before spending the money.

If you are considering a manual zoom lens, be sure to set the camera to manual focus mode, to see if manual focusing becomes easy for you.

For a lot of people the 17-25mm lenses are useful as their first fixed focal length lenses, since these are 34-50mm equivalent to 35mm film cameras, and the human eye is said to be roughly 45mm in its equivalent field of view.

In addition to Olympus lenses, Panasonic has some nice lenses that works on Olympus cameras. I happen to have the first generation Panasonic 20mm (that lens has been replaced with a new version). The Panasonic 20mm isn't the fastest focusing lens on Olympus, but I use it a lot for low light shots.

The 45mm lens is more useful if you want to do classical portraits (and the larger 75mm even more so). In classical portraits you want to isolate the foreground from the background, and for that you need a longer focal length and larger aperture (smaller number). The downside is the photographer has to be further back from the subject (so, the 45mm is probably more useful than the 75mm). I just picked up the 45mm this weekend, but I haven't shot with it yet. While I tend not to do classical portraits, I figure the 45mm will work better for low light stage work, and like the 20mm, it is small enough to carry with me to use when my zoom lenses are too slow.

The 12mm lenses are more geared towards wide angle shots.

I've seen some posts that complain that some versions of the Olympus 17mm and 25mm have problems where one side front focuses and the other back focuses (evidently there are some close tolerances and curved optics which are problematical). You might want to buy from a place that you can return the lens if you are going to select those lenses.

aliasfox · Jul 13, 2015

Nicken said:
kaphinga said:

Nicken said:

Hello everyone,

I started with photogrphy a couple months ago.

I bought myself an Olympus e-m10 and got the kit lens and the M. Zuiko 40-150mm f4.0-5.6 R. In these months I've discovered I really like street photography.

Now I am looking for a prime lens but I can't figure out how much mm I need and what f-factor. Need to mention I am a student and so on a budget. The M10 was already a big part of my budget.

Click to expand...

Actually, your kit lens works remarkably well for street photography. If you are interested in a prime, I would look at either the 17mm or the 25mm. The 17mm is probably the classic focal length for street work, and the manual focus clutch on the Oly 17mm f1.8 comes in handy for zone focusing. The 25mm, though, may be my preference just because I like the longer reach. Try shooting your kit lens at 17mm one day and 25mm another day, and see which one you prefer. Either lens would make a good choice.

You might also want to look at the 45mm f1.8. It's really more of a candid portrait lens than a "street" lens, but it may work very well for you, depending on your style.

Click to expand...

Thanks for your quick reply!

People have been telling me the kitlens 14-41mm is not really suitable for street photography because of the low f-factor.. Is this not really true and should I be ok with my kitlens?

Would the sigma 30mm f.28 be a good option since I am on a low budget?

Use your 14-42 II R first. Go out shooting, and tell us what feels most natural to you.

Do you like to get up close and intimate with your subjects? Are you in close quarters? Then maybe something on the wider end (14-20mm) might be more suitable.

Do you shoot from a few steps back? Are you a bit too shy about walking right up to people? Then maybe a 25-30mm lens will frame the image you want.

Or maybe you like capturing people and scenes from across the street, or down the block. The 45mm is a great option here. Alternatively, the Sigma 60mm would work, too.

For example, I'd love to be able to capture everything up close, but in NYC not everybody reacts kindly to a camera being shoved in their faces, so I usually use my PL25. I'll occasionally throw on the 45mm, but that definitely needs more breathing room, and I don't always have that in some of the more crowded places in Manhattan.

In fact, one of my favorite street shooting lenses is my 14-54 II. It opens up wide enough that I can isolate subjects at the long end, and it's both sharp and contrasty, with a hugely versatile range. They go for pretty cheap these days, too (~$300 used, with adapter). Too bad it's so heavy.

Paulmorgan · Jul 13, 2015

Nicken said:
kaphinga said:

Nicken said:

Hello everyone,

I started with photogrphy a couple months ago.

I bought myself an Olympus e-m10 and got the kit lens and the M. Zuiko 40-150mm f4.0-5.6 R. In these months I've discovered I really like street photography.

Now I am looking for a prime lens but I can't figure out how much mm I need and what f-factor. Need to mention I am a student and so on a budget. The M10 was already a big part of my budget.

Click to expand...

Actually, your kit lens works remarkably well for street photography. If you are interested in a prime, I would look at either the 17mm or the 25mm. The 17mm is probably the classic focal length for street work, and the manual focus clutch on the Oly 17mm f1.8 comes in handy for zone focusing. The 25mm, though, may be my preference just because I like the longer reach. Try shooting your kit lens at 17mm one day and 25mm another day, and see which one you prefer. Either lens would make a good choice.

You might also want to look at the 45mm f1.8. It's really more of a candid portrait lens than a "street" lens, but it may work very well for you, depending on your style.

Click to expand...

Thanks for your quick reply!

People have been telling me the kitlens 14-41mm is not really suitable for street photography because of the low f-factor.. Is this not really true and should I be ok with my kitlens?

Would the sigma 30mm f.28 be a good option since I am on a low budget?

No the Sigma 30mm would not be a good option, its a 60mm equ, its a little long as a walk about lens and a little short for telephoto use, its a bit of an odd focal length.

The classic focal length is generally anywhere between 35 to 40mm, you ideally want to be looking at m4/3 lenses between 17 and 20mm.

A good budget option would be the Sigma 19mm, at its price there is nothing to equal it.

For street photography your generally looking for as much dof as possible, f2.8 is just fine for this purpose.

Nicken · Jul 13, 2015

Wow guys! I really appreciate all the reply's and all the effort you guys took to give elobarate answers. I've read all the reply's and have come to a decision for this week: try to shoot as much different pictures from the differents lengths (17, 19, 20, 25mm). When I have a good idea of what suits me best, I'll come back with a summary of my findings.

In the mean while, all comments are welcome!

PS: Sorry for my English, not a native English speaker.

pixelTwister · Jul 13, 2015

Your kit lens is actually very good for shooting street during daylight - combined with your EM10 it's very light and unobtrusive combo and focal length is perfect.

If you want shoot also at night though, you want lens which can do at least f/2.8, ideally f/1.8.

If you get a prime, you will gain:

Ability to shoot street at night (not that your kit lens couldn't do it, but you would have to push ISO quite high and your photos would become noisy)
Better picture quality
Faster autofocus (depending on which prime you get)

If I were you, I would set the kit lens to 15mm and try to shoot at that focal length for a few days. Then I would try also 25 and 42mm to see which one I prefer. You might find out that you actually hate primes where you are stuck with one FL and prefer zoom!

The most popular choice is around 15-17mm which allows you to come closer and get quite a lot of context to your photo and "tell the story". Another popular length is 25mm which allows to blur background better and emphasise what is happening in the foreground. (My favourite ones is actually a 14mm & 40mm combo, since I find everything between 17 to 25mm boring)

Shorter FL is more socially acceptable and practical in a crowded city centre, whereas the longer one (which allows you to stay in longer distance) feels more appropriate at places with less people and at night.

My lens suggestions would be:

Olympus 17mm f/1.8 - small, fast aperture, fast autofocus, IMO best focal length for most people
Olympus 25mm f/1.8 - the same advantages as the 17mm, better image quality and no brainer if you prefer something on the longer side

kaphinga · Jul 13, 2015

You will get a lot of different answers about the best focal length for street photography. Really, it's a very personal decision, and there is no right answer.

Assuming that you want to stay a respectful (~2-4 meters) distance from your subject, here is a quick summary:

* 12mm - 15mm is mostly about the environment, not so much the people -- unless it's a big group of people. You will get a lot of distortion if you get close enough to really fill the frame with one person.

* 17mm -- good balance between the person and the environment, with an emphasis on the environment. Also good for small groups of people.

* 20mm-25mm -- also a good balance between the person and the environment, with an emphasis on the person.

* 45mm and up -- it's all about the person (or the person's head) and not much about the environment. At 45mm, you are really talking more about a street portrait. (The Oly 45mm f1.8 is truly a gorgeous lens that won't break the bank ... but it may not be what you want.)

So, think about how close you are willing to get to people, strangers in particular, and how much of the frame you want to fill with people.

Bhima78 · Jul 13, 2015

1) Keep happily shooting away with your 2 kit lenses for a few months

2) Put your favorite photos that you've shot into a separate folder on your hard drive

3) download the free program called ExposurePlot

4) Run that program, and find out what focal lengths you like to shoot the most. Decide from there which prime lens you should get

This was very eye opening to me when I did it. I thought I was a standard wide 12-25ish shooter. I found out that actually, the photos I've shot that I kept the most were 40mm+. That has changed my decision making when it comes to purchasing new lenses.

captura · Jul 13, 2015

morepix said:
If you could afford it, buy yourself a used Ricoh GR. It's tiny, unobtrusive, sharp, and set up for zone focusing. You can use it at 28mm or 35mm with an optional crop. I suppose used ones are pretty rare, but I just saw one on keh.com for $450.

captura · Jul 13, 2015

The Panasonic 20mm f1.7 pancake is a high quality lens, and one of my favorites. You could get a used example inexpensively. A great focal length for street shooting, lightweight and unobtrusive.

What prime lens for my Oly m10?

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