Best Bright Prime Lenses for E-PL6

baxters wrote:

For the lenses on your list, being a lens hog I own these:

Olympus
17mm f/1.8
45mm f/1.8
75mm f/1.8

Panasonic
20mm f/1.7
25mm f/1.7

Rokinon
85mm f/1.4
300mm mirror

Choose the prime for the usefulness of the focal length. Most people don't really need that much variety in coverage. I would suggest the 17mm first to find out if primes are fun for you. Then the 45mm. Here are my opinions.

-The Panasonic 20mm embodies all of the reasons why we use fast primes on M43. It's fast, small, sharp and almost an ideal focal length. Its tradeoffs are well known, but rarely limiting. It focuses slow, and hunts in poor light on Oly cameras. If you use touch focus, it won't hunt.

-The Olympus 17mm is a more ideal focal length, also fast and small. I got spoiled by the 20mm IQ. The 17mm is is a little less sharp.

-Panasonic released a dud in the 24 mm f1.7. Don't buy it . Something is wrong in its focus algorithm. I'm hoping there will be an software update.

-You can't go wrong with the Olympus 45mm. Fast. Small. Not expensive. However, it is a limiting focal length being a short telephoto. Go here after you have a prime covering the normal range.

-The 75mm blows me away. I can crop and get sharper images than what everyone's friend, the plastic Olympus 40-150 zoom, can do. plus it's two stops faster. Go here when ready to spend big bucks for a true specialty lenses. Great for portraits, bars, stage events.

-The Rokinons are something you buy when they go on sale and you have the money to waste,

The Rokinon 85 is huge and heavy. You can get an M43 version, but most of us buy a DSLR mount and use an adapter, with the idea that it's easier to sell, except we never sell it. It's reasonably sharp after you learn how to focus. Better if stopped down. If you shoot stage events, you might like it.

The Rokinon 300mm is a mirror lens. You have to be a goof to like it and it takes some work to get a keeper. I like mine. Not a mainstream lens, and it won't work well on an EPL6 anyway.

I've put the Olympus 17, 45 and 75 on my list as well as the Panasonic 15. I'll stay away from Rokinon and the mirror lenses though. Can only the Olympus lenses be autofocused?

About the tele primes, I need something to bridge my camera lenses to my telescopes. Looks like the Oly 75-300 is my best option. Out of curiosity, the lenses you mentioned weren't good for the E-PL6, did you say it because of weight considerations or other reasons?

I already have mirror lenses I want to use with my camera, they are telescope OTAs, the Nexstar 8 2000mm and ETX 90 1250mm telescopes. I assume I wont have any issues using these with the camera? The former is f/10 (f/6.3 with reducer) and the latter is f/13.8