Olympus 25mm 1.8 or Panasonic 20mm 1.7?

tehkei wrote:

peppermonkey wrote:

tehkei wrote:

Looking for a multipurpose, street/walking around lens. I currently just have the E-PL6 kit lens, the 9mm fisheye body cap lens and the Olympus 45mm 1.8.

I mainly shoot product photography such as toys, figures etc.. 45mm works fine for isolating the figure from the background. but not great when I go out and do tourist type shooting. the 9mm fisheye is way too soft for me and mainly used to play around with filters. Kit lens is ok but I prefer the faster primes.

I bought the 45mm first instead of a normal prime mainly because I thought I was gonna get a 25mm for 99 dollars since that will most likely not happen, now I'm scrambling to look for a normal prime to take on vacation this march.

Which ever one you prefer, get the lens that's closest to matching it.

For me personally, probably would pick the Panny 20mm. Amazing lens and it's just wide enough for street, for me. Just a more versatile lens I think. Mind you, I say this even while my PL 25mm 1.4 is mostly stuck on my camera semi-permanently. Course, that's mostly because I'm not much of a street photographer and currently I'm taking more indoor portraits, people photos...err...rather 95% new born photos

BTW, the 20mm is slow to focus compared to others but I haven't had much problems with it. But for street AF may be a problem...but then again you can zone focus so you don't have to bother with AF at all. http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/35325465 Mind you, this only works on Panasonic bodies as far as I can tell. Basically, pressing the lens mount button while a lens is mounted brings any lens attached to focus at infinity.

I use the 45mm as a portrait lens and as many people have mentioned the 25mm might be too close to the 45mm. I'm starting to consider the 17mm 1.8 more and more specially after everybody said the Panasonic lens is slow to focus.

The Panny 20mm is considered slow to AF but, it's just a "slower" lens to focus with compared to others, while most are happy enough with the AF speed. I.e., it's not exactly a SLOW lens, just slower. Again, many people like me are quite satisfied and have no real issues with focusing speed.

As for the 17mm 1.8, if you think that focal length would better serve you, then you should get it. Me? Personally, I'll probably pick up the Panasonic Leica 15mm, but I like wide (Not saying the 17mm is a bad choice, not at all. :))