Which lens is better suited for me - Olympus E-P3

Kemik · 19 Oct 2012 at 23:11

Hi,

I've been brought up with a hobby photographer father and he recently gave me his Olympus E-P3 to play around with as I'd like to get into photography too. He told me the basics in regards to aperture, shutter speed, etc and told me it was easiest to learn as I shoot.

He's previously had both the Olympus 45mm f/1.8 lens and the 12mm f/2.0 lens and he's taken them with him for his upgraded Olympus (I forget the model). I've tried both but fell in love with the 12mm as it enabled me to get some great depth of field shots. However, I've read the 45mm is best for low light shots. I mainly use the camera for parties (low light) but also during holidays (people and landscape) and general every day shots messing around.

TLDR; With the focus on being a beginner taking low light or depth of field shots which of the 45mm f/1.8 or the 12mm f/2.0 would you recommend? I will still have my 14-42mm f/3.5 kit lens.

Cheers

K.C. Leblanc · 21 Oct 2012 at 16:45

They're both fast lenses, I can't see one better much better then the other in low light. I would get whichever has the focal length you prefer.

GTRacer · 21 Oct 2012 at 16:51

The 12mm will be a wide angle and the 45mm will be a short telephoto on M4/3rds. If you want something with a more normal perspective there's the Panasonic 20/1.7 and the Leica(sonic) 25/1.4.

Kemik · 23 Oct 2012 at 19:03

Cheers guys. I ended up going for the 45mm, although I'm yet to decide if I'm keeping it. One question I do have is that it loves the aperture being as close to 1.8 as possible, in fact in auto it doesn't seem to change from 1.8. In aperture priority mode the shutter needs to stay open a fair bit longer the higher the aperture number I go. This may be because of where I was testing it (my kitchen, with the lights on at 7pm) but I can't get a sharp shot of the whole sink for example, without it being blurred. It wants to really focus on the tap with a lower aperture number for me to get the sharpness of the faster shutter speed.

Does this sound about right? Does anyone have any tips or would I be better with something like the 20mm Panasonic as GTRacer recommended? As most of the shots I take are either of people or one specific thing I am happy to switch to my kit lense for the more wider shots if I require but I just wanted to make sure I'll be able to focus on everyone in a group of 4, rather than being forced to focus on one individual with everyone else blurred when they're almost in a straight line.