Would you bother with the 12mm F2, 17mm f1.8 or 45mm f1.8 if you had the 12-40 f2.8 Pro?

erichK wrote:

Each to his or her own...but there are indeed very good reasons why zoom lenses have become so popular even with "real pros".

Well, I'll reiterate this, the objective doesn't suit my needs. It's not that I can't see where the 12-40 would be beneficial, I'm just completely disinterested by it, I've had it out and on camera bodies a few times now. The sales people at my local camera store perhaps think I'm a little daft for not seeing the benefits yet. It's a sharp lens, it just doesn't meet my needs in terms of weight and also in terms of light gather.

There are no real advantages to me to that lens, in fact there are a significant detractors I've listed above and so the lens doesn't make sense to me. At least, I should say, not with Micro Four Thirds. Maybe as I've said elsewhere if I were knee deep in a Sony E mount system by now as I almost was at one point where I could have bought a NEX-5R or a NEX-7 I'd be a bit more open to it. Maybe if they had a couple of decent zoom objectives, faster than F/4 I'd have bought in, but we can talk all night/day about ifs and buts.

I'll reiterate, the zooms don't suit the format, F/5.6 does nothing for me, F/4 is at the boundaries of not having shallow depth of field, it's also at the boundaries of not having enough light gather either in real world terms, not to mention not enough noise control.

If I was stuck shooting with the 2.8 zoom and the better part of my low light shots were coming out at IS1600 ISO3200 I'd be disappointed by the system. Meanwhile, I set up single handed in the mosh pit of a festival and click away quite happily.

I just don't see why people are jumping up and down and hooting and hollering about what to be frank is a slow and noisy objective. If it were any other camera system you'd be told in no uncertain terms to get a grip of your mental faculties. I can see that the anti-equivalence threads have gone to certain peoples heads though every time I post in this forum. Meanwhile I shoot low light for fun, so I'm out in the cold. Some nights and mornings quite literally.

Not to labor the point of my shooting style but yeah, the 12-40 just doesn't suit me. Not in size, or weight, or speed, or light gather.