Which Micro 4/3 lens should i buy ?

Hello,

I have been using MFT for a couple of years now, and I am getting the lens fever symptoms and looking for a cure.

I recently sold my OMD EM-5 with the kit lens 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 II R , I also own the 45mm f1.8 and the 25mm f1.8 and a 40-150mm f/4.0-5.6 R Lens.

I purchased the OMD EM-1 and I am looking to add a lens to my collection.

I am in between 2 lenses, the 12-40mm f2.8 pro or the 40-150mm f2.8 pro.

I am aware of the difference in price but i don't think it will play a big role in my decision (very high fever).

I took my best shots with the 40 to 150mm i already own, but imho it was for the lack of a better alternative.

The question is, should i fill the gap that i have in my kit or should i upgrade a lens with the focal length that i am already familiar with.

I do some street photography but lately I am getting interested with more group photoshoots and portraits, with nature and architecture shots.

Its my 1st time writing in any forum, so please do not hesitate to correct me if i am doing something wrong. It was my only resort since i am surrounded by more posers than trigger happy souls.

Thank you

Decisions should always start with, whats holding me back, or what problem am i trying to solve.

My advice is always go though your photos an count the number of photos for a particular focal lengths youve shot.

In your case the number for the short zoom vs the number for your long zoom.

How often do you heavily crop?

How often do you have to push up the exposure?

How many photos are blurry.?

Do you need to step back a lot to squeeze more into the photo?

Once you can answer those, you will figure out which is best for you. Either youre fine with what you have, a particular choice will jump out, or you will see another gap that fits neither.

hishameid wrote:

Hello,

I have been using MFT for a couple of years now, and I am getting the lens fever symptoms and looking for a cure.

I recently sold my OMD EM-5 with the kit lens 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 II R , I also own the 45mm f1.8 and the 25mm f1.8 and a 40-150mm f/4.0-5.6 R Lens.

I purchased the OMD EM-1 and I am looking to add a lens to my collection.

I am in between 2 lenses, the 12-40mm f2.8 pro or the 40-150mm f2.8 pro.

I am aware of the difference in price but i don't think it will play a big role in my decision (very high fever).

I took my best shots with the 40 to 150mm i already own, but imho it was for the lack of a better alternative.

The question is, should i fill the gap that i have in my kit or should i upgrade a lens with the focal length that i am already familiar with.

I do some street photography but lately I am getting interested with more group photoshoots and portraits, with nature and architecture shots.

Its my 1st time writing in any forum, so please do not hesitate to correct me if i am doing something wrong. It was my only resort since i am surrounded by more posers than trigger happy souls.

Thank you

I would seriously consider the 12-40 for its versatility.  I think you can get by with the current 40-150.  Comparatively speaking, the 40-150 f2.8 PRO is a monster.  You will love the 12 mm wide, it is much more flexible than the 14.  Good luck

Skeeterbytes wrote:

Your most glaring gap is anything wider than "normal" i.e., the 25/1.8, and I simply couldn't function without a kit that stopped at 25. On that alone the 12-40 seems the obvious route and that's before considering your stated interests.

The little kit 40-150 is excellent for the price and you can keep using it for the time being. It's true the 40-150 Pro is better in every way and is worth owning, but I wouldn't put that at the top of my needs list before filling the wide gap.

Alternatively, adding a 12 and, say, a 17 would give you a fantastic set of fast primes covering the 12-40's range.

Cheers,

Rick

Thank you Rick, i really appreciate the time you took, I am leaning towards the 12-40mm PRO as of now.

To answer your prime lens statement, i am kind of fed up of changing between primes whenever it is called for. I love prime lenses, but i guess ill get rid of my 25mm 1.8 later on and maybe get the 17mm (for the price) or the 12mm 1.8 for the stunning reviews.

One prime i would definitely keep is the 45mm, as in my short life in photography and humble opinion i think is the best optic (quality/price) out there.

Thanks again

Thank you for the time you took to answer, i guess after all i read the past couple of days, the 12-40mm is the right way to go.

But i agree the 40-150 mm seems amazing, maybe for a later purchase.

Good Day

Sam

hishameid wrote:

I recently sold my OMD EM-5 with the kit lens 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 II R , I also own the 45mm f1.8 and the 25mm f1.8 and a 40-150mm f/4.0-5.6 R Lens.

You still have your 25mm, 45mm and 40-150mm.  Yes?

I purchased the OMD EM-1 and I am looking to add a lens to my collection.

I am in between 2 lenses, the 12-40mm f2.8 pro or the 40-150mm f2.8 pro.

If your new purchase was a E-M5ii or E-M10ii, I'd have suggest wide prime's but with a E-M1, a 12-40mmf2.8 is ergonomically better plus you need that (since you sold your 14-42mm) more than the 40-150mm PRO.

I have an E-M10(and GM1), so the trinity PRO lenses don't talk to me as much as my prime's.

Guy Parsons wrote:

My initial answer is to get the 12-40mm lens, it is just so darn good.

But the sensible answer (not often seen here) is to first analyse what you already do and see where most of your lens use happens.

In my case I use (Windows) Exposureplot from http://www.vandel.nl/exposureplot.html to analyse say a month or a year of images to see what I'm doing.

Here's what 6 weeks of holiday in Ireland and UK did to me.....

Heavily used 12-40mm, hence the bumps at the ends of its zoom.

The 0 mm bump is the Samyang 7.5mm fisheye, used more than I thought I would, a great fun lens and highly recommended.

The 9mm bump is the 9-18mm lens at work, I didn't really need to carry that for the little use it got.

Then the tiny usage above 40mm up to 150mm is the Panasonic 45-150mm, small and light to carry so it is always in the bag for those relatively rare times that I use it.

If I were to be tempted to buy a prime lens (the 12-40mm has killed that lust) then my natural would be the 17mm as revealed by the hump in that vicinity.

Regards..... Guy

Thank you Guy for the time you took.

Love the small software (im a numbers guy-Engineering background-its amazing to see the graphs) that alone was as good as buying the lens.

Looking at the my OMD EM-5 pictures my highest range is between 14 mm and 50 mm.

Which already says a lot and makes me wanna get the 12-40 mm.

I have been eyeing the samyang fish eye for a couple of years, but have been so hesitant since i never used a fish eye other than the occasional Gopro scuba videos and snapshots. Which i often find so distorted and end up cropping or fixing the perspective on them.

My question is, is it worth it getting the samyang, or just wait and save and get the 7-14 mm pro lens to complete my kit ?

Have a good day

Sam

addlightness wrote:

hishameid wrote:

I recently sold my OMD EM-5 with the kit lens 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 II R , I also own the 45mm f1.8 and the 25mm f1.8 and a 40-150mm f/4.0-5.6 R Lens.

You still have your 25mm, 45mm and 40-150mm. Yes?

I purchased the OMD EM-1 and I am looking to add a lens to my collection.

I am in between 2 lenses, the 12-40mm f2.8 pro or the 40-150mm f2.8 pro.

If your new purchase was a E-M5ii or E-M10ii, I'd have suggest wide prime's but with a E-M1, a 12-40mmf2.8 is ergonomically better plus you need that (since you sold your 14-42mm) more than the 40-150mm PRO.

I have an E-M10(and GM1), so the trinity PRO lenses don't talk to me as much as my prime's.

Thank you for you reply, after reading the replys i came to the conclusion that the 12-40 mm is the right choice to make

Thank you for your reply.

Will think about it

Thanks again

Ordering it very soon

hishameid wrote:

Guy Parsons wrote:

My initial answer is to get the 12-40mm lens, it is just so darn good.

But the sensible answer (not often seen here) is to first analyse what you already do and see where most of your lens use happens.

In my case I use (Windows) Exposureplot from http://www.vandel.nl/exposureplot.html to analyse say a month or a year of images to see what I'm doing.

Here's what 6 weeks of holiday in Ireland and UK did to me.....

Heavily used 12-40mm, hence the bumps at the ends of its zoom.

The 0 mm bump is the Samyang 7.5mm fisheye, used more than I thought I would, a great fun lens and highly recommended.

The 9mm bump is the 9-18mm lens at work, I didn't really need to carry that for the little use it got.

Then the tiny usage above 40mm up to 150mm is the Panasonic 45-150mm, small and light to carry so it is always in the bag for those relatively rare times that I use it.

If I were to be tempted to buy a prime lens (the 12-40mm has killed that lust) then my natural would be the 17mm as revealed by the hump in that vicinity.

Regards..... Guy

Thank you Guy for the time you took.

Love the small software (im a numbers guy-Engineering background-its amazing to see the graphs) that alone was as good as buying the lens.

Looking at the my OMD EM-5 pictures my highest range is between 14 mm and 50 mm.

Which already says a lot and makes me wanna get the 12-40 mm.

I have been eyeing the samyang fish eye for a couple of years, but have been so hesitant since i never used a fish eye other than the occasional Gopro scuba videos and snapshots. Which i often find so distorted and end up cropping or fixing the perspective on them.

My question is, is it worth it getting the samyang, or just wait and save and get the 7-14 mm pro lens to complete my kit ?

Have a good day

Sam

In Guy's case, he clearly shot more photos with the 12-40, but the percentage of his keepers may or may not be in that range. For me, My exposureplot looks somewhat similar to his when I map it over ALL my photos, but if I map exposureplot just over my KEEPER photos, I found that most of my keeper shots were from 40mm+. So although I took more photos in the standard 12-35ish range (and still do), I kept a whole lot less of them than my 40mm+. Because of this knowledge, my next lens will be the Panasonic 35-100mm f2.8.

Bhima78 wrote:

hishameid wrote:

Guy Parsons wrote:

My initial answer is to get the 12-40mm lens, it is just so darn good.

But the sensible answer (not often seen here) is to first analyse what you already do and see where most of your lens use happens.

In my case I use (Windows) Exposureplot from http://www.vandel.nl/exposureplot.html to analyse say a month or a year of images to see what I'm doing.

Here's what 6 weeks of holiday in Ireland and UK did to me.....

Heavily used 12-40mm, hence the bumps at the ends of its zoom.

The 0 mm bump is the Samyang 7.5mm fisheye, used more than I thought I would, a great fun lens and highly recommended.

The 9mm bump is the 9-18mm lens at work, I didn't really need to carry that for the little use it got.

Then the tiny usage above 40mm up to 150mm is the Panasonic 45-150mm, small and light to carry so it is always in the bag for those relatively rare times that I use it.

If I were to be tempted to buy a prime lens (the 12-40mm has killed that lust) then my natural would be the 17mm as revealed by the hump in that vicinity.

Regards..... Guy

Thank you Guy for the time you took.

Love the small software (im a numbers guy-Engineering background-its amazing to see the graphs) that alone was as good as buying the lens.

Looking at the my OMD EM-5 pictures my highest range is between 14 mm and 50 mm.

Which already says a lot and makes me wanna get the 12-40 mm.

I have been eyeing the samyang fish eye for a couple of years, but have been so hesitant since i never used a fish eye other than the occasional Gopro scuba videos and snapshots. Which i often find so distorted and end up cropping or fixing the perspective on them.

My question is, is it worth it getting the samyang, or just wait and save and get the 7-14 mm pro lens to complete my kit ?

Have a good day

Sam

In Guy's case, he clearly shot more photos with the 12-40, but the percentage of his keepers may or may not be in that range. For me, My exposureplot looks somewhat similar to his when I map it over ALL my photos, but if I map exposureplot just over my KEEPER photos, I found that most of my keeper shots were from 40mm+. So although I took more photos in the standard 12-35ish range (and still do), I kept a whole lot less of them than my 40mm+. Because of this knowledge, my next lens will be the Panasonic 35-100mm f2.8.

Really interesting, didn't think about that. Will give it a shot and keep you posted

i actually feel that Oly body with Oly lens is a better all around system, but definitely a wide angle zoom lens

Thank you

I agree, D.

My walk-around lens has been my FTs 14-54 MkII for the last 6+ years. It still is on my E-M1. There are small humps at each end of its range, but I take around 40-50% of shots at intermediate FLs. What occurs to me is why have a zoom if one doesn't use the zoom to achieve precise framing? I only rarely crop images in PP ...