Lens suggestions for museums old houses and galleries

vanfred wrote:

I visit a lot of old country houses, museums etc and never feel I have the right lens. If has to be fast, no flash allowed.

I tend to use the Lumix 20mm 1.7, just wondering what others use.

My cameras are Olympus e-p5 mostly with a viewfinder and Olympus M10 mark 1.

Well it depends on what you mean by not having 'the right lens'.

With a fixed focal length lens (i.e. a prime lens), you have to compose the photo to suit the focal length you are using. Generally in museums, you don't have much room to back up, so you want a wider angle lens.

Though in the larger museums you can back up, you just have to wait for a lull in the crowd so you get an unobstructed view of your subject.

I bought the Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 lens a few years ago, and I tended to find it was too long for a lot of the indoor shots I wanted to take (mostly people shots). So I looked around. There are some main contenders for relatively cheap wider fast lenses:

• Olympus 17mm f/1.7: First of all if you are buying used, make sure you get the version with the f/1.7 aperture, and not the older f/2.8 aperture version. This lens tends to be inconsistent in terms of reviews, with some reviews claiming it to be a good lens, and some claiming it is a little soft. Note, it has a manual focus clutch ring, that when you move it into the manual focus position, it will not auto focus. So you have to get into the habit of making sure it is in the correct position. If you do want to manually focus, the focus clutch rings can be helpful. If you live in the USA, this lens often appears in the Olympus outlet page as a refurbished lens.
• Panasonic-Leica 15mm f/1.7: This lens is a bit wider than the Olympus lens, which can help. It tends to get better reviews than the Olympus lens. This lens has a ring to set the aperture, but on Olympus cameras, that ring is ignored. It tends to be a little more expensive than the Olympus lens, but I found a used copy cheaper than the Olympus refurbished price for the 17mm and picked it up. I really like this lens.
• DJI 15mm f/1.7: The drone maker DJI has some drones (Zenmuse) that use micro 4/3rds lenses, and it makes a version of the 15mm lens. Now, the conventional wisdom is it is made in the same factory as the Panasonic-Leica 15mm, but some claim that the lens coating is a bit different. If you buy it new, it tends to be more expensive than the PL-15mm, but if you search around the used sites, it is often cheaper than the PL-15mm lens.
• Sigma 16mm f/1.4: Sigma makes 3 lenses in their ART lenses for micro 4/3rds (16mm, 30mm, and 56mm). The Sigma is slightly faster (but not enough to really change the exposure characteristics). Note however, this is a big lens. It was originally built for cameras with larger sensors. So if you like the pocket sized lenses like the 20mm, this lens isn't for you. I just bought one for my E-m5 since this is one of the few lenses in the under $500 category that is splash proof, but other than taking a quick picture of my dog, I haven't used it yet. Since you don't own splash proof cameras, that aspect may not be an issue for you.
• Samyang/Rokinon manual focus 12mm f/2.0: If you are willing to manually focus, you might want to look at these lenses.
• Olympus 12mm f/2.0: The Olympus 12mm is somewhat more expensive than the 15-17mm auto focus lenses, but it is considerably wider.
• Olympus pro, Panasonic-Leica fast lenses: If you are willing to spend $1,000 or more there are other options such as the Olympus 17mm f/1.2 lens, and the Panasonic 12mm f/1.4 lens.
• Wide angle zoom lenses: The recent Panasonic 10-25mm f/1.7 lens is one solution to carrying a bag of prime lenses, but note it is a large, heavy, expensive lens.  The Panasonic 8-18mm and Olympus 7-14mm lenses can help if you need much wider photos.  Note the Panasonic 7-14mm lens tends to have purple flare issues with some Olympus cameras.  Also very wide angle lenses have certain characteristics that you have to factor into your shot.
• Fisheye lenses: These are specialized lenses.  You need to investigate whether the fisheye lens will provide the images you want.
• Olympus 45mm f/1.8 or Panasonic 42.5mm f/1.7: Sometimes the issue isn't a wider lens but a longer lens.  For shooting performers from the audience, I often times find that the 45mm is better due to the distance between me and the performer.  If you are shooting JPG, Olympus cameras tend to have an option that you can bind a button to be a 2x digital zoom toggle.  I find the Olympus implementation of the 2x digital zoom to be very good, and I often use the toggle to get a quick doubling to capture far away shots.
• Macro lenses: Sometimes the issue is you want to get close to capture details, and a specialized macro lens like the Olympus 60mm f/2.8 lens can help.

Beyond that consider taking panoramas (multiple images merged together) to make a wider image. I don't shoot panoramas, but I know some of the Olympus cameras have panorama modes that can help automate the process, and you can do it manually. There are various post processing software out there that will help you build the panorama at different price points (including free).