Micro Four-Thirds Lens Choices

Today’s Post by Mark Toal

Whenever I meet somebody who owns a Micro Four-thirds camera they usually ask is “what lens should I buy next?” Usually they’ve purchased a Panasonic Lumix or Olympus body with a kit lens and can’t wait to start buying a few accessories.

I usually suggest people shoot with the kit lens for a while, especially if they don’t know what they like to shoot and see what focal length they end up using the most. If they shoot at the wide end of the lens then a fixed focal length wide angle prime lens might be perfect. It they constantly want to zoom closer, then a zoom telephoto is best.

Frequently they have a lens in mind like the Lumix 20mm f/1.7. The 20mm seems to be the biggest selling Micro Four-thirds lens to date but it’s not for everybody. It was the first lens I bought for my Lumix G1 and I loved its sharpness and speed but sold I it after a few months replacing it with the equally affordable Lumix 14mm f2.5. I’d fallen for the the 20mm lens and forgotten that I’m really a wide angle lens shooter; the 40mm (equivalent) was too long for me. The 14mm (28mm equivalent) has been my favorite lens ever since.

At the other end of the focal length range, a telephoto seems to be the next lens people might want and there are so many choices. If you like to shoot wildlife, birds or sports then you’ll want a longer zoom lens like the Lumix 100-300mm f/4-5.6 (200-600mm equivalent,) the recently announced Panasonic Leica DG 100-400mm lens or Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8 PRO Lens (80-300mm equivalent.) I usually recommend that a photographer start with a lens in the 45-200mm focal length range. It works for portraits since it throws the background out of focus and compresses objects so they don’t look distorted and is a great lens for sports and landscape shooting. It’s also not such a long telephoto that you can’t shoot closer action if you need to. Tip: Before you buy a lens think about what you like to shoot, not what lens you want to buy.