Micro Four Thirds Lenses

When you buy lenses the first things you have to ask yourself is “Do I know exactly what I will be shooting?” If your answer is “No”, then you should just stick with the kit lens until you are sure what you want to do with your camera.

If you do know exactly what you want to shoot then you look around for similar photos and see what lenses those photographers used, or just read up and see what people recommend.

Take me as an example. I really don’t like to zoom. My feet are generally my zoom. I prefer to just lift my camera and shoot, in a manner of speaking. Most of the time I have a 30mm lens on my crop sensor DLSR and that gives me a view very similar to the human eye. To me that captures more of what I personally see and feel. A huge advantage with prime lenses, lenses that can’t change focal length, is that they are often very fast, meaning you can shoot high speed objects or in very low light.

I also have a lens that goes from very wide, to capture a large area, to very long, for when I can’t get close enough. I only use this when I travel because I can’t be bothered carrying around 4 lenses to capture landscape and then quickly changing to zoom in to that thing happening across the street.

With Mirrorless Cameras you also have a nice option called a Pancake lens. They are very thin prime lenses and make it easy for you to pop the camera in to a bag.

When you look at a new lens you will generally look at two things, the focal length and the aperture. Lower apertures tend to push the price up very fast whereas focal length does not seem to have much of an effect on price.

Focal length is how wide the camera sees, or if you wish, how far it can zoom. Pros with full frame cameras often go for lenses like a 22mm – 70mm and if they have a very good reason to zoom more then they will have a separate longer length lens. The low number of the lens tells you how wide an area you can view at one time and the high number tells you how much you can zoon, the narrow view. Low numbers are generally good for landscapes and high numbers are good for when you can’t get close enough. For Micro Four Third cameras you have to half that number to get the equivalent, so you will have an 11mm – 35mm lens instead. Your standard kit lens will compare well with this range.

Many photographers also have the much talked about 50mm prime lens. A prime lens is a lens that can’t change focal length, and 50mm is supposed to be about what the human eye sees. For our smaller camera sensors the 25mm will be the same but they are rather expensive. (Don’t be fooled and think that a 50mm on your small camera gives the same view as the 50mm on that pro’s camera. )The 20mm pancake lenses will have a very similar view.

Portrait lenses are usually about 80mm prime lenses, because longer focal lengths give a nicer look to a photo. You don’t want it to look like someone has a clown nose in the photo, do you? For us that would be a 40mm.

The second big thing you will look at is the aperture. Confusingly the smaller this number is the larger the opening of the lens can go, meaning there will be more light coming in to the camera thought the lens. This is also an important number if you are looking to take photos where the subject is in focus and the background is blurry. A lower number has potentially more blur. If you can get a prime lens with a number like f1.4 at a good price, go for it, but generally f1.8 is much cheaper and will give you decent results. Zoom lenses rarely go under f2.8, and only when they are at the wide angle settings.

So, what should you get? If you travel, get something with a wide range so that you can shoot in the largest number of situations. If you want to be more artistic, get a prime lens. Street photography should work well with a 25mm on a small camera. Get a low aperture on these because you never know if you will need to shoot people moving around during the evening. Lastly, if you need to keep something good but small in your bag, then go for the 20mm pancake lens. You are limited, but with a bit of effort you can shot pretty much anything you want in any way you want.