The Sweet Spot

thunder storm wrote:

dan the man p wrote:

As others have expressed, if you're going to go lightweight with the M, primes are the way to go. I recently got the Sigma 30 mm f/1.4 and found it perfect for 90% of what I do, which is taking pictures of family, friends, pets, etc. It's a natural focal length that is perfect for pictures of people, unlike the 22 mm, which is too wide for portraits.

Same here. 22mm (or 35mm on full frame) is too just a tad too wide for me. For others 22mm is still fine though. The ef-s 24mm f/2.8 stm is a better (38.4 on full frame). I have a 40mm on full frame, this works for portraits, and having f/1.4 on full frame helps. There's a ef-m 28mm macro, but that's only f/3.5. The beauty of that 30mm (48mm full frame )is it's the widest workable focal length for portraits, while it gives you the f/1.4 aperture, giving great flexibility as an all round lens.

Sometimes it might seam odd there are so many lenses for ef-m hitting the range from 22 to 32mm. But there might be a reason: all these lenses are in that all round range trying to combine purposes giving best flexibility and as such compactness.

It's still small enough that I can take it pretty much everywhere, either around my neck or clipped to my belt. It now stays on my camera almost all the time. And at f/1.4, the low light capability and shallow DOF are far beyond anything you'll find in a compact camera. For me, this is well worth the lack of zoom. Of course, I'll still switch lenses when the situation calls for it, like if I need wide angle or telephoto.

Although I agree 35mm is too wide for portraits, if given the choice between 50 and 35, the 35 "wins" for versatility. In fact, some folks prefer 28mm and hence why Ricoh GR is 28mm and Fuji X100 is 35mm.

With the 22 and 32 lenses, you can choose, which. Too bad they never did a 28mm prime. That might be interesting.

At any rate, you can choose which compact you build. I'm choosing 35 as I prefer 35 over 50mm. It's also more compact, too and more versatile for environmental shots which I frequent.

I loved my 32/1.4, but, I have no interest returning to it; that's where I view my R comes in. I just need a compact option as the R is stinking huuuuuge and you just don't want to take it everywhere. Well you do, but you don't.