Olympus 17mm f1.8

The cheapo 14mm f2.5G lens I picked up earlier this year has become my current mainstay lens since purchase. It’s a delightful pancake kit, relatively sharp in the center and very quick to focus too. The one downer of this lens though is that it’s not really intended as an all-rounder. As with wide-angle lenses, the extreme sides of each frame can look somewhat distorted, which has meant that when I’m taking pictures of Hannah, I have to keep her right in the frame center. I already have the 25mm f1.4 lens of course too and that’s marvelous for portrait work, but it’s a little too long at the same time and not appropriate for half-body shots unless I have plenty of room to step back.

The fourth lens I’ve been keeping an eye on this year has been the 17mm f1.8, which offers a 34mm perspective with the m4/3 crop factor. It’s identical to the Fujifilm X100 I loaned from my student a year ago, and a wonderful compromise between the 14mm wide-angle and the 25mm normal perspective. The lens isn’t cheap at USD499 but I finally bit the bullet to pick it up yesterday afternoon after Ling’s pre-delivery EKG scan of our coming baby boy. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the lens’ price here approaches the US pricing.

The lens is made of metal and silver - not quite like the other black-painted m4/3 lens I have.
The lens is made of metal and silver – not quite like the other black-painted m4/3 lens I have.

First initial pictures using the new lens:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Yum.

Yes the price hurts, but with pictures like this, it’s worth it!

 

2 thoughts on “Olympus 17mm f1.8

  1. Looks nice! Any chance that the 17mm f1.8 unseats the 14mm f2.5G as your go-to lens?

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