Best Bright Prime Lenses for E-PL6

alexisgreat wrote:

Olympus

45mm f/1.8

A nice one for some shallow DoF action. Can be used for astrophotography if you put the camera on a tracking mount, which is what I did for this shot .

75mm f/1.8

That would be amazing for astro, provided you have a tracking mount.

Panasonic

15mm f/1.7

This should be nice for astro landscapes. It will probably show some purple fringing with Olympus body. But even if so, that should not be a deal breaker.

25mm f/1.7

Not that sharp, some copies apparently have issues with autofocus. I like mine, because I like the bokeh. As for its use for astrophotography, I made a thread about it some time ago.

Rokinon

24mm f/1.4

35mm f/1.4

85mm f/1.4

Those are all FF DSLR lenses, don't bother.

But they also make some lenses designed for mirrorless systems, for example the 10/2.8, 12/2. Their 12/2 is a very good choice for astro landscapes, provided you get a good copy.

As for their FF DSLR lenses and astrophotography, their 135mm f/2 is excellent and should do really well for this type of thing. Of course, with a tracking mount. And it's probably a good idea mounting it via a solid adapter that has a tripod socket. Can't imagine this on an E-PL6 otherwise.

I'm also looking for a great 300mm telephoto prime.

Do you have $2500 to spare? Or at least $1800?

Is Rokinon's 300mm f/6.3 better than Olympus's 75-300mm or Panasonic's 100-300mm lens?

Completely different beasts. And no.

What about Tokina's 300mm f/6.3 prime?

I got one recently. Here's my first impressions , here's some birds , and here's my gallery with a lot more photos taken with this lens. On a E-PL6, don't even bother.

Both of those primes are reasonably priced (are they the same lens?)

That's because they are manual focus mirror lenses.

so I'm not sure how good they are.

They are tricky at best. Let's leave it at that.

The Panasonic 100-300mm is the fastest.

Not in terms of autofocus or aperture action. And the general consensus seems to be that it's not as good optically as Oly 75-300. But who knows how much of that is because of shutter-shock negatively impacting earlier users before e-shutter came along.

How much do these weigh (do any of the above weigh too much for my camera?)

Check the specs, it's there.