One might be asking themselves ok great you sold a bike here's a cookie. Well for me selling this bike does a few things. One its going to actually be used which it hasn't been ( I hate seeing things go to waste). Two I have more space in my garage with it sold (yahh, which Christina will tell you I am the King of getting rid of things). Lastly it provides me with the opportunity to purchase my first µFT (apparently µ stands for the micro in micro four thirds) lens.
Ok so which lens will it be? One of the new amazing Olympus lens? Not the 45mm f1.8 this time around. What about the Panasonic 20mm f1.7, a good choice but still not quite what I was looking at. Ok so maybe he went with the Panasonic 25mm f1.4 to get that amazing bokeh, nope still off. How about the amazingly beautiful Olympus 12mm f2, oh so close but nope.
The lens I finally decided on for my first µFT lens is the Panasonic 7-14mm f4 lens.
Now the question is, why? Well let me tell you what prompted the decision for this lens. To start out, for my Canon I have a few lens 18-55, 28-135, 70-300, 50 prime, so this is a range I have never played with before. I read review after review to decide between this lens and the Olympus 12mm f2. They are both great lens with slightly different purposes. I started looking at the wider angle due to the enjoyment I received out of shoot my little Panasonic LX-3. Both of these lens will do landscapes well and they are both super sharp. The main difference is that with the Olympus you can get the amazing bokeh and its a great street photography lens. The Olympus 12mm was very appealing to me but I do not see myself using a wide angle lens for bokeh. Sure it helps in low light situations to have the faster lens but this is not the lens I was looking for to do that (maybe either the panasonic 25mm or the 20mm for that later on). The benefit of this 7-14mm lens really is the extreme angle and almost Olympus 12 sharpness. Looking at some photo comparisons of the two images both at 12mm f4, the difference for me seemed negligible. Then the idea of the added wide angle really started to appeal to me. Looking at breakdown charts of the field of view of a 7mm (14mm equivalent) vs that of 12mm (24mm equivalent) was just amazing. I was just having two hard of a time choosing a lens.
With a great trip coming up soon to Alaska and the Denali state park in my mind helped to convince me to move towards the panasonic 7-14mm. Even with the picturesque images of Denali looming in my head I was still thinking about the Olympus 12mm. So many good reviews have been writing about that lens that I feel I should jump on board. But the same questions remained, will it be wide enough, do I want to lose the versatility of the Panasonic 7-14mm. Then I heard my fathers voice in my head once again, "Your never really going to know if it is the right lens (camera etc) until you have used it for a few months and take a few hundred pictures with it". With the upcoming trip I decided to take a leap and commit(for now) to the 7-14mm, thus ending my arduous decision making process. Photos will follow when the new lens arrives, which I am eagerly awaiting.
Have a Great Day :)
