User Tools
photo:mftwideangle
Table of Contents
wide angle to standard lenses for Micro Four Thirds
see also:
introduction
- this page is dedicated to lenses with field of view from 28mm-50mm in 35mm full frame terms which equates to 14 to 25mm in actual focal length
- Micro Four Thirds system is fortunate indeed in having a wide selection of lenses in this range
- there are also many nice prime lenses, each with their own advantanges and disadvantages
- there is also an enormous range of manual focus lenses which can be used, including some in Micro Four Thirds mount
- if almost zero distortion is important to you, then the best option is the superb, but heavy and expensive Olympus ZD 7-14mm f/4 lens although this is not CDAF compatible and thus AF will be very slow unless you have a phase detect camera
- if wide angle tilt shift is needed, consider the Canon TS-E 17mm f/4L tilt shift lens with Metabones adapter
fast, near silent AF lenses
- if fast AF is your main priority, then take a look at the newer lenses such as:
- the cheaper Sigma 19mm f/2.8 EX DN asph lens for Micro Four Thirds is well worth considering but it is only f/2.8 and not f/1.8, and it does not have the Olympus manual focus control ring for zone focusing
reasonably fast AF lenses
- there are the many zoom lenses such as:
- the Panasonic Leica DG Summilux 25mm f/1.4 ASPH lens is optically, one of the best lens in this line up which should be high on anyone's buying list, however:
- it can get a bit noisy in use on an Olympus camera as Olympus is yet to address the diaphragm control feedback loop activity issues
- it is larger and slower in operation than the Olympus 17mm or Sigma 19mm
- it is much smaller, lighter, cheaper and gives much faster AF on a MFT camera than the superb Four Thirds version - Panasonic Leica-D Summilux 25mm f/1.4 lens for Four Thirds
- at 25mm is not wide angle but a “standard” 50mm field of view lens and thus a nice compliment to the Olympus 17mm lens or Panasonic 15mm lens
compact pancake lenses
- these are all relatively old lenses with slow and noisy AF, but they are very handy for reducing the size of your camera to allow it to fit in a jacket pocket
- the most sought after of these is the very sharp, wide aperture, Panasonic Lumix 20mm f/1.7 pancake lens although bokeh can be a bit distracting, it does have a bit of purple fringing, and at ISO 1600 and higher it may cause sensor banding noise
- the Olympus m.ZD 17mm f/2.8 pancake lens has mixed reviews and its f/2.8 aperture makes it less versatile than the Panasonic 20mm, and thus may not give much advantage over a compact 3x zoom lens which are f/3.5 at that aperture.
- if you need wider field of view, the Panasonic 14mm f/2.5 pancake lens for Micro Four Thirds may be useful as it has a wider aperture and better optics at that focal length than most of the kit zooms.
- lastly there is the “lens cap” lens - the Olympus mZD BCL 15mm f/8 body cap with its fixed f/8 aperture and 3 focus settings (no AF, no EXIF data)
- optically it is crap1) but at that price and size it could be a fun lens for some
CDAF-compatible Four Thirds lenses
AF lenses without CDAF optimisation
- these lenses require a camera with phase detect AF capability (such as the Olympus E-M1) to have fast AF
- on other cameras, the Four Thirds lenses will AF but slowly
- the Metabones AF solution is yet to come to fruition, thus should be regarded as manual focus at this stage
Four Thirds lenses via FT-MFT adapter
Canon EOS lenses via Metabones adapter
- this adapter has a 1 stop focal length reducer which gives wider field of view and brighter f stop
- see my blog post
- eg. Canon EF 24mm f/1.4L II gives effective 34mm f/2.0 lens in full frame terms on a MFT camera
- see also Canon EF wide angle lenses
Nikon lenses via Metabones adapter
- this adapter has a 1 stop focal length reducer which gives wider field of view and brighter f stop
- eg. Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 gives effective 34mm f/2.0 lens in full frame terms on a MFT camera
- see also: Nikon F camera system lenses
manual focus lenses
Micro Four Thirds mount
other mounts via an adapter
- an enormous range
photo/mftwideangle.txt · Last modified: 2018/09/28 02:17 by gary1
Page Tools
