Old kit lens, new kit lens or a pro zoom?

You'll be happy with it...

jalywol wrote:

C Sean wrote:

Hello Elmokki

The 2.8 pro zooms give the 'photographer' the option to shoot in limited light and that's about it. In my opinion, their main benefit is their weather sealing and normally I shoot around F4.

I believe it's better to have a weather sealing body and lens so when it does rain on the trips, the camera is safe and more importantly you can use it. For example on a trip it was pouring with rain and I was the only one using my camera because it was weather sealed.

I would strongly disagree with this. I've used both the 12-40 and 12-35mm, and both had significantly better output in terms of contrast, microcontrast, and fine detail sharpness. I had been using the 12-32mm on my GM5, and had been very pleased with it overall, but when I got the 12-35mm, the difference was actually striking. Images had a more realistic feel and much more "pop" to them.

In the US, the 12-35mm is on sale for quite a bit less than it originally went for, so if there was any way to find one of those, or even find a used one, that's the one I'd recommend over the other lenses mentioned.

Failing that, the 12-32mm is a very good kit lens.

-J

I'll second that.  I did a comparison on my EM1 of the Panasonic 12-32 and 20mm vs the Olympus Zuiko 12-60SWD, 14-54 and M.Zuiko 12-40, all at 20mm and stopped down a little.  The 12-40 stands up well to the 20mm.  The 12-32 was noticeably weaker.  I threw in an FE 55mm at the same DoF on an A7R for interest.  Didn't really beat the MFT lenses without looking closely.

Get the 12-40, it's worth the money and the small MFD is useful.

I'm very happy with the 12-32mm as a tiny lens but serious walkabout would be one of the Olympus zooms, trading off reach against weight.

Andrew