Followng on from my zooms post, things get equally hedonistic in primes land.

I could (should?) probably work with primes only, missing only the Panasonic 200 f2.8 to fill the main hole in my game, but lets not get too carried away. My best working method seems to be zoom tele lenses and prime shorter ones.

9mm Leica. A recent purchase to reduce weight in my bag, this little lens is a gem. It handles everything I throw at it, never looks overly wide in use, is useable wide open, has gorgeous Bokeh and is nearly flare free (great for shooting into ceiling lights at sports games). It often feels like I am using my 15 or 17mm’s until I realise it is covering so much more. My preferred day kit is the 9mm with a standrd zoom or a pair of primes and my 40-150, so the 8-18 has been bought home for landscapes and school work. It is so light, it will also be added to my travel kit. Nothing to complain about here.

15mm Leica. This was bought partly because I always wanted one and partly to replace the 17mm for work. I felt the slightly wider lens would be better and wanted the 17mm for my home kit. The 17mm has gone back to work, not because there is anything wrong with this lens optically, but mechanically it is annoying. On a G9 (my wide angle work camera) the aperture ring is too light and easily turned and the hood comes of very easily, but equally frustrating, the MF switch is very tight. On an Olympus camera the aperture ring is ignored and the Pen F, a camera I use in gentler situations, is far less likely to be handled quickly or lenses changed often, so the hood thing is fixed. As for AF/MF, I use the Pen F in Manual Focus usually, so the tight switch is actually handy. Only issues are mechanical and not insurmountable.

17mm f1.8. The lens I literally had to buy, being the only practical option in the early days of M43, but it is now a cemented favourite. I use it for work again, loving the generous and forgiving rendering and solid behaviour. The reality is this lens is much misunderstood. I is accused of crummy Bokeh, but in reality it is designed to render long transition blurring, i.e. forgiving transitions and the other complaint is flat colour, but again, it seems to be designed to control hard light, both desirable street shooting features. There is a little flare, but little else to worry about.

25 f1.8 Olympus is my “nifty fifty” that actually isn’t. It really renders about the same as a full frame 45mm, but that is fine, because I actually prefer slightly wider than 50. This thing is the prime equavalent to the 12-40 f2.8, by which I mean it is razor sharp, but it is smooth, not brittle-sharp. There is a lushness and depth to its rendering and unlike the 17mm, my specialist street lens, it is a true portrait lens with smooth and modern Bokeh. Not a lens I warmed to easily, it has become one of my clutch lenses.

30mm f1.4 Sigma Art. A lens that offers something different, the super sharp Sigma is quirky, fun and powerful, but not super dependable. AF performance varies, flare can be problematic as can CA and colour is a mixed bag on some sensors. I get excited about it, especially for black and white, but also a little nervous, so I have stopped using it for work. A mixed bag specialist.

45mm f1.8 a lens I have two of and once even had three. These were sometimes free in kits in the early days of M43 as was the excellent 14mm Panasonic in theirs, all to promote the benefits of the burgeoning system. Apparently sharing the same optics as the 25mm, I do not equate them as being the same. The 45 has a grittier and more neutral feel to me. It also lacks the same close focus power, but regardless, it is as reliable a performer as the 17 or 25mm lenses. This is always a part of my day, travel and sport kits. Only close focus disappoints and not by much. The Panasonic 42.5 is better there, but no great matter.

75mm f1.8. There is no doubt that this is one of my top two or three lenses. Great Bokeh, wide open sharpness and AF and all in a small, but solidly made package. I could drop a thousand images in now and all would be perfect in their own way, proving that this lens is adept at sports, portraiture, technical limit stretching and flying the flag for the design benefits of M43. To me it’s main distinction is it’s ability to be both razor sharp and lush-smooth, which bucks the trend with Oly lenses that tend to be either high in mico contrast and sharpness at the cost of some nervousness in their Bokeh or smoother but less micro detailed. Not this one. Is it perfect? Nearly, it has some detectable, easily removed CA wide open and even with it’s sublime build quality, it lacks weather sealing, a bit like the Pen F and not very Olympus-like. The effect of that is it has a habit of fogging up in winter, and it can sometimes render physically flattened looking files.

300 f4. This lens was purchased on a whim. I had the money and my wish list lens was the new Olympus 100-400, but I decided to try the prime at the same time and even just tooling around in the shop and testing a firmware 1.0 copy, I could see daylight between them. I keep trying to explain to the other togs at the paper how nice it is to walk around a field of play and grab genuinely sublime 600mm equivalent images with blindingly fast AF and ridiculous sharpness, all without breaking my back, but they will just have to lug their monster 400’s around and take my word for it. It does have one weakness, occasionally nervous Bokeh with small “ringlet” highlights similar to, but milder than, the ones a mirror lens would produce. They are not image destroying but noticeable, so I try to avoid busy backgrounds with lots of little specular highlights.

From my lenses I generally split my lens kits into the following.

Day kit; 9 and 17, 45 or 12-40, 40-150 f4 or 75.

Indoor Sport; 9, 12-40 or 25 and 45, 40-150 f2.8 or 75.

Outdoor Sport; 8-18, 40-150 (any), 300 or 75-300.

Travel; 9, 15, 45, 12-60 kit, 40-150 kit.

School/Home; 30, 12-60 Leica, 75-300.

Video; 12-40, 25 old, 25 new, 45, 75.

Fine Art mono; 15, 30, 75.

That’s lenses covered, now to cameras.