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17mm (35mm equivalent) lack of such lenses
  • ElenionElenion
    I think that m43 companies did a big mistake to not building any good (almost any lens at all, except for the bad olympus 17 2.8) 35mm equivalent lens.
    The M43 cameras suit perfectly the needs of street shooters and photojournalists, because of their size and iq and 35mm is their favourite focal lenght.
    An ep-3 with a 17,5 f1.4 would be the first choice for many professionists all over the world. I know that we have the olympus 17 2,8 but on the m43 platform this lens is really too slow.
    What do you think?
  • 16 Replies sorted by
  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev
    Any problems with 20mm F1.7 ?

    I do not see any big trouble shooting with 20mm instead of 17mm.
  • ElenionElenion
    I think that the feeling of the two focal lenghts is quite different. I love the 35mm 'cause it is has an 'almost wide-agle' look and field of view but with an inclination to portait people in their situations.
    The pancake lack the "almost wide-angle" look in my opinion, it is more like a normal lens, very similar to a 50
  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev
    I do not understand anything about "wide-angle look".
    If you get general ideal lense it doesn't have "long" or "wide" look. "Look" changes only with camera position.
    Lens only crops this look.
  • ElenionElenion
    Well, every focal lenght has different internal relationships between the size, the distance of the objects and the perspective. And all this gives different looks. I'd use the 20 for other kind of shot (not many.. in fact).
  • jokieonejokieone
    How good / bad is the 17 mm ? My girlfriend is ordering an EP-3, is it better to buy the kit-lens?
  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev
    @Elenion
    No, perspective depends only from your camera position and orientation.
    Lens just define a crop and project it on your sensor.
    You can check this with easy, get zoom lens, install camera on tripod, shot on wide end, crop cental part.
    Zoom in, shot on tele end. Resize both pictures to be same. Compare.
  • ElenionElenion
    @vitaliy
    if so the 'vertigo effect' wouldn't be possible
  • fatpigfatpig
    @elenion: the vertigo effect is achieved by zooming and changing _distance_ - this of course changes everything.
  • ElenionElenion
    @fatpig
    Why? i mean if i want to make a closeup i can choose to do it with a wideangle being very close or with a tele staying further. The results are different. Different focal lenght have different characteristics. That is what i'm saying! Just this! Maybe i have problem with the language, but for me is different to use a 40 or a 35!
  • hishimaruhishimaru
    I think this is an issue not only with m43 but also most APSC systems.
    There does seem to be a distinct lack of 35mm equivalent lenses there too.
    I'd buy a 17 f2 or f1.8 in a heartbeat if it were similarly made like the new Oly 12mm
  • fatpigfatpig
    like vitaliy said: No, perspective depends only from your camera position and orientation.

    this is what you say also. so you have no problems ;)
    Vitaliy said that its no different to zoom in with your cam, or to stay where you are, zoom out, and crop the picture. except for resolution, of course. ;)
  • ElenionElenion
    ? I really don't understand what are you talking about..
    Maybe i'm not taking your point, or maybe you're not taking my point but from what i'm understanding it sounds like you're saying that we could use just an ultrawide lens on a 60mpx camera and make all the kind of photos we want.
    If i take a photo with a 24 and a 70 from the same distance from the subject i have two different field of view, if i go back to match the same frame and the same size of the subject within the frame, the object in the background of the 70 will be bigger appearing closer, and all the objects look closer.
    Ok? Do we agree about this?
    Of course if i crop i get the same field of view (ignoring factors like distortions, vignetting, flare, quality of the bokeh etc)
    Well, now, as i said, 17 is different from 20, and i like it more, because of his peculiar characteristic and of the way it renders the spatial relationships.

    @jokieone
    That lens is mediocre but of course faster and better than the kit lens
  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev
    >because of his peculiar characteristic and of the way it renders the spatial relationships.

    You get in conflict with yourself.
    Lens do not render "spacial relationships" and do not have some specific "characteristic" (if you are talking about general 17mm lens, and you are, it only has specific focal length).

  • ElenionElenion
    We're going into a grammatical debate.
    I hope you know what i want to say: just i prefere how the world looks through a lens that has a focal lenght of 35 (on a 35mm sensor), and i'm not the only one.
  • ka00ka00
    Focal length and subject distance work in tandem to create a specific look. In English, words like "look" and "perspective" are not quite interchangeable. The term "look" can encapsulate both the sense of perspective (background/foreground compression and relative size) and also the effects of field of view .

    In rendering an overall image, both focal length and distance to your subject make a big difference with regards to the look and feeling of the image. These can have different impacts on the audience.

    Sometimes you want to make the background seem distant to your subject, so you'd use a wide lens. Let's say you want someone running up towards the camera to grab something in the foreground. It can potentially be more dynamic to use a wide angle lens so that the person appears to start small and get large by the end of the shot. Using a wide lens exaggerates the change of size they appear to undergo from the start to the end of the shot.

    Or let's say you want an actor to stand in front of a large crowd of people and get a sense of how intimidated he might be by the large number of people facing him. You can have the actor be roughly the same size with either a wide lens or a long lens depending on your distance to him. But a wide lens would allow for capturing more people in the crowd, which might for example make it feel more intimidating. Or on the contrary, you may decide you want to see fewer people in the crowd, but see their scrutinizing faces more closely, in which case a longer lens could be a better choice.

    While you can make a film with just one lens, it's good to have options. Changing the distance to your subject is not the only choice you should have.
  • bubbabubba
    Portraits taken with wide angle lenses up to and including the panny 20 from any normal distance make your nose look wider. Crop that!

    Seriously, even slightly wider than a "normal" lens will emphasize the forground which draws the eye to the center subject and which is especially important to selling newspapers!
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