The 'Holy Trinity' of Micro Four Thirds lenses

Great things come in threes. Three is a very lucky number in various cultures. It’s balanced (think of the rule of thirds in composition) and just feels ‘right’ for some reason. Photographer’s often talk about the ‘holy trinity’ of lenses – which varies slightly depending on manufacturer. The ‘holy trinity’ of Canon pro zooms, for example, is the 16-35mm f2.8L, the 24-70mm f2.8L and the 70-200mm f2.8L. Another (slightly cheaper) alternative might be the 17-40mm f4L, the 24-70mm f4L, and the 70-200mm f4L. With Nikon, it will be slightly different. Their ‘holy trinity’ of pro zooms consists of the 14-24mm f2.8G, 24-70mm f2.8G and 70-200mm f2.8G.

For the Micro Four Thirds system to be a real contender with working pros and serious amateurs, Olympus needed to address this ‘holy trinity’ in their M43rds zoom lens line up. With the release of their pro body, the E-M1, they also released their first ‘pro’ lens, the 12-40mm f2.8 (24-80mm f2.8 equivalent). This was followed up by the 40-150mm f2.8 (80-300mm f2.8 equivalent), and now finally we also have the 7-14mm f2.8 (14-28mm f2.8 equivalent). All fast (f2.8) pro level glass with solid metal construction all the way from 14mm to 300mm in three lenses. The M43 ‘Holy Trinity’ of Olympus zoom lenses.

The Zoom Trinity. 7-14mm, 12-40mm & 40-150mm f2.8 Pro's

Again, it is slightly different if you are a Panasonic shooter – although of course you can use the Olympus lenses on your Panasonic bodies. If you want to shoot with Panasonic’s own lenses however, then the holy trinity will look something like this; Panasonic 7-14mm f4, Panasonic 12-35mm f2.8 and Panasonic 35-100mm f2.8.

If we switch our attention to prime lenses, then it gets a little more subjective. Some consider the Olympus 17mm f1.8, 25mm f1.8 and 45mm f1.8 to be the holy trinity of primes for micro four thirds. Or, on the Panasonic side, we have the Panasonic 15mm f1.7, Panasonic 25mm f1.4 and Panasonic 42.5 f1.2 which gives a decent spread of fast primes. But it all depends on the focal length you are after.

The Olympus Prime Trinity. 17mm, 25mm and 45mm f1.8 primes

Other options include the Olympus 12mm f2, 75mm f1.8 or 300mm f4 Pro, and the Panasonic 14mm f2.5, 20mm f1.7 and 30mm f2.8 macro. Not to mention some amazingly fast 0.95 (manual focus) lenses from Voigtlander. The 17.5mm, 25mm and 42.5mm f0.95 lenses make up their own ‘holy trinity’.

Of course, the great thing about the micro four thirds system is that you can mix and match lenses from the various manufacturers who support the lens mount (including Sigma, Tamron and Tokina). My prime lenses at the moment are the Olympus 17mm f2.8 and the Olympus 45mm f1.8. I’m not quite sure which lens to add to the mix to make my own trinity – I’m torn between the Panasonic 14mm f2.5 or the Olympus 25mm f1.8. The 17 and 45 give me a wide standard (34mm) and reasonable telephoto (90mm). Do I want to go wider still with the 14mm, or more ‘standard’ with the 25mm? I’m not really sure.

I will probably eventually gravitate towards the ‘classic’ 17, 25 & 45mm combo – although there’s nothing that says you only have to have three lenses J   

Adding primes to my Olympus Micro Four Thirds System

When I first decided to jump into the micro four thirds format, I immediately gravitated towards Olympus. Not that there's anything wrong with Panasonic mind you. It's just that, rightly or wrongly, I think of Panasonic as a video camera company, and Olympus as a stills photography company. And largely, I think that's how it's playing out.

Olympus OM-2 body

Of course, as a stills guy who started on film, Olympus's redesign of the classic Pen and OM series was very hard to resist. I owned an OM-2 and several prime lenses and absolutely loved using it. In fact a few years ago, on a film blog, I wrote that if Olympus could put a digital sensor in the back of my OM-2 I'd be a very happy photographer!

And while they didn't quite achieve that with the OM-D E-M5, I think they've produced the best homage they could to the original OM, while still developing a photographic tool for the 21st century.

So now that I have the OM-D E-M5 Mk2 (and am loving it), I have started building a system around it that can cover most (if not all) of the shooting scenarios I can throw at it. I have the 12-50mm f3.5/6.3 EZ kit lens, the 40-150mm f4/5.6 telephoto zoom, and the 45mm f1.8 portrait prime. What I'm really lusting after though, are the fast 'Pro' lenses - the 12-40mm f2.8 and the 40-150mm f2.8. But therein lies my problem.

17mm f2.8 Pancake

Currently, there's this romantic notion of the 'street' photographer in stealth mode, with one body and a prime lens - capturing the 'decisive moment' (a-la Cartier Bresson). The camera is usually a Leica rangefinder (in the movies) and the lens is a 35mm to give a wide to normal angle of view. 'Street' shooting with mirrorless cameras and a prime lens has become incredibly popular over the last few years. I hadn't even heard the term 'street shooter' ten years ago.

One of the major selling factors of mirrorless is to 'go light', with just a camera and a lens - and in the case of the lens, the smaller the better. Enter the Olympus 17mm f2.8mm 'pancake' lens. With an equivalent focal length of 34mm on a film camera, and its tiny size, it would seem to be the ideal companion for any photographer engaging in stealth mode.

But here's the thing - and getting back to those 'Pro' lenses - I'm not really a prime kinda guy. Sure, I love the idea of shooting with primes. And most of the time I even love the results when shooting with primes. But I must confess to loving the sheer convenience of shooting with zooms. Maybe I'm lazy?

Yet I too have been seduced by the 'micro' in micro four thirds. I am enjoying the benefits of smaller and lighter (although not too small or too light - there is a tipping point). So I am seriously considering getting a used 17mm f2.8 to add to the 45mm prime in my bag.

The Oly 17mm on a Pen. Almost pocketable.

I fretted about buying the 45mm f1.8 prime, even though many micro four thirds users claim it's a must have lens. And I'm sure I will use it. But will I use it enough?

Same is true with the 17mm f2.8. It's the ideal walk-around lens for the system - as close as it is to the classic 35mm focal length. It's the goldilocks of prime lenses - not to wide and not too tight. Just right :-)

There is also an f1.8 version which, not surprisingly, is optically better - at twice the price. And that brings me to my final point with these prime lenses - the price. For a small, light, reasonably sharp and reasonably fast lens, these are a real bargain. They are so much cheaper than the 'Pro' f2.8 zooms (not to mention lighter - obviously), that it just makes sense to get them and use them - at least in the mean time.

I will probably still have the 12-50mm kit lens on the E-M5 Mk2 80% of the time. But maybe, as a walk-around lens, the 17mm f2.8 prime might surprise me. I think I might have to get it and see?

The Olympus Grainy Art Filter

The 'Art' filters in the Olympus cameras are a bit like oysters (bare with me). You either love them or hate them (there you go). There's plenty to choose from (14 in the OM-D EM-5 Mk2) - ranging from pop art, pinhole, sepia, cross process and tilt shift type effects. 

To be honest, I'm in the 'hate them' camp on the whole. But there is one - just one - art filter that I have a slight affection for; the Grainy B&W filter.

Art Filter '5' - Grainy Black and White

Let's be honest, who doesn't like a good grainy black and white image? And the 'Grainy' art filter does produce a great grainy black and white image - with the option of a cool grungy border. Bonus.

Fortunately, Olympus also makes using the art filters worthwhile for the more 'serious' photographer. They don't hamstring the filters by making them only work in the automatic modes. Even while you are in aperture or shutter priority, the art filters are available as an option through the picture mode function. So you get complete creative control while using them - which is exactly as it should be.

And it gets better. You can use most of them when shooting video as well. And it gets even better still! Although the file output of an art filter shot is only a jpeg, if you are shooting in RAW, the camera will take an art filter shot in jpeg as well as the unedited RAW image, for the best of both worlds. As long as you are set to RAW, you'll automatically get two files. Very cool.

Struggle Street. 1/500th @ f5.6 ISO 200 (RAW)

I recently decided to go out and take a couple of images that I'd been meaning to take for a while - that I knew would look great in grainy black and white. I shot my OM-D E-M5 Mk2 in aperture priority, in RAW, with the 12-50mm on f5.6.

Of course with its EVF, the other great thing about choosing to shoot in an art mode is that you get to see the effect immediately through the viewfinder. So you can decide there and then whether the effect you've chosen suits the subject or not.

One thing I did notice with the Grain Art filter had to do with exposure control. It was a fairly overcast day, so exposure shouldn't have been a problem. But Grain Art boosts both the shadows and highlights to increase contrast, blowing out both in the process. I ended up taking the middle ground and blew out both the shadow and highlight ends of the histogram equally.

I knew I would have the RAW files to fall back on, but in actual fact, even the jpegs had decent leeway for pulling back detail in the both the shadows and the highlights once I got them into Lightroom.

Grainy Art Filter Mode 1.

Within the Art Filter's themselves, there are also various options (this is Olympus after all). You can choose Grainy Mode 1 or Mode 2, add a border or not, add a vignette or not, and add colored filter effects (orange, yellow, red, green, blue) or not. Above is Mode 1, with the grunge border effect added. Mode 1 is the higher contrast setting which really ramps up the effect to 11!

Grainy Art Filter Mode 2

Mode 1 is a little too much for my taste. I tend to go with Mode 2, which while still punchy, is a little more reserved than Mode 1. It's also worth noting that in all the examples shown here, I have still tweaked them a bit in Lightroom, and then taken them in to Photoshop for a final round of curves adjustment and sharpening. So even with the 'out of camera' art filter effects, I'm doing some post-processing to get the effect exactly how I want it.

Front Yard Bus. 1/320th @ f5.6 ISO 200

Above is the RAW file, converted to Black and White in Lightroom, and then tweaked in Photoshop to my taste. Looking at them all, I would say that I like both two and three - with a preference for the RAW file converted to b&w in Lightroom.

DXO Film Simulation conversion - Kodak TMAX 3200

Just for a laugh, I also placed a color jpeg of the RAW file straight into DXO's Film Conversion pack and chose the 3200 Kodak TMAX preset. I then jumped on the internet and downloaded a free grunge border and plonked it over the top - flattening the image to the final jpeg. Took about 5 minutes, and looks remarkably similar to the Olympus Grainy Art Filter in Mode 2.

So what, if anything does this prove? That there's more than one way to skin a cat? That the Grainy Art Filter is great? That the Grainy Art Filter is dumb? All of the above?

I suppose for me, it reconfirmed what I kind of knew already. Yes, the Grainy B&W Art filter is fun, and yes, it can produce some good results (in Mode 2). But even so, I'm still going to end up tweaking the final result in Lightroom and Photoshop - so why don't I just do my own conversions in the first place (which ultimately I preferred anyway).

Yet having said all that - if you are someone who wants to use the results of the Grainy Art filter straight out of camera, without going anywhere near Lightroom or Photoshop, then have at it! You'll get some fantastic results. And in true Olympus style, you get heaps of various options within the filters themselves so you can tweak 'in-camera' to your hearts content.

Go ahed and try the Art Filters. They can be a lot of fun, and really suit particular subjects. Me - I think I'll stick to Lightroom for my black and white conversions. Guess I'm just too much of a control freak?

Olympus Zuiko 12-50mm kit lens for landscapes

The Olympus OM-D E-M5 MkII comes with a 'kit' lens that has a useful 12-50mm (24-100mm in traditional film terms) focal length range, with a less than useful f3.5-6.3 variable aperture. I must confess to never having owned a lens as 'slow' as f6.3. In fact, the very thought would cause me to break out in a cold sweat! But this came with the camera, it is a useful focal range, and so it will probably be on my camera 80% of the time (until I can afford the 12-40mm f2.8). So it better be good - right!?

West Coast Batches. Olympus OM-D E-M5 MkII with Zuiko 12-50mm EZ lens. 1/100th @ f5.6 ISO 200

It's an interesting lens to use on the E-M5 MkII. Some have called the design of the lens ugly, but I actually quite like it visually. It has a clutch mechanism design whereby you push the central collar of the lens towards the camera body to engage manual zooming, push it out to engage the electronic zoom, and then hold the macro button and push it out once again to engage the macro function. Fortunately a small window on the lens gives you a visual reference as to what mode you are in.

I'm a manual zoom kind of guy and prefer to use it in this mode, although while turning the lens barrel to zoom it does make a slight 'gritty' noise. I presume this is 'normal', and if you shoot video a lot, then switching to the electronic zoom makes this gritty noise go away. But then, of course, the zooming is now done electronically (and therefore silently).

Zuiko 12-50mm at 20mm. 1/100th @ f5.6 ISO 200

In everyday use, the grittyness of the manual zooming doesn't bother me, and I don't even notice it anymore. The lens balances nicely on the E-M5 MkII, and I can see why Olympus has included it as its kit lens. It's quite a bit larger than the 14-42mm pancake zoom that comes with the E-M10, and it focuses internally so there is no change to the size of the lens, whether you are shooting wide or telephoto. I like this feature, so don't mind that the lens itself is a little larger because of it.

Of course the front lens element doesn't rotate either, so using a polarising filter is straight forward. The lens has a decent heft without being heavy - and uses a metal lens mount for extra strength and rigidity. The rest of the construction is plastic, although it looks (and even feels) a lot like metal. It's dust and splash proof (another reason to match it with the E-M5 MkII), and uses 2 aspherical lenses, 1 ED lens, 1 HR lens and 1 DSA lens in its construction.

Starfish. Zuiko 12-50mm. 1/80th @ f5.6 ISO 640

That's all a bit of a mouthful. But what it means in reality is that despite its modest variable aperture, the Olympus Zuiko 12-50mm is a solid performer. All that good glass on the inside is working to produce some very contrasty, clear, sharp and distortion-free images. It's not perfectly sharp wide open, but stop it down just a little and it sharpens up very nicely. Shoot at around f5.6 to f 8 and you'll get some truly gorgeous images.

Tidal Pool. Olympus OM-D E-M5 MkII and Zuiko 12-50mm EZ lens shot at 15mm. 1/125th @ f5.6 ISO 200

I went out the other evening with the E-M5 MkII and 12-50mm EZ lens to capture some landscapes. At 12mm, this lens starts at a landscape friendly 24mm in traditional terms, something that I'm not all that used to, coming from the 1.6x crop factor of the Canon DSLR world. I like the 24mm focal length, and have always found it to be my 'sweet spot' for a landscape lens.  I'm not a huge 'ultra-wide' fan, so for me, 24mm is plenty wide enough. The above image was shot at 15mm - around 30mm in traditional film terms.

12-50mm shot at 13mm. 1/100th @ f5.6 ISO 200

I was hoping for a beautiful sunset, but it never happened. Of course there was one the day before and the day after I went out with my camera. Sigh. Murphy's Law strikes again.

When I got home and looked at the images on the computer, the muted colours lent themselves perfectly to a black and white conversion - which I tend to do in Photoshop rather than Lightroom. I do like Lightroom (having previously been an Aperture user), but have used Photoshop since version 2, and am just more 'at home' using it for most tasks.

I also tend to prefer a dark and moody black and white treatment for my landscapes, although this will depend on the image. But from my darkroom film days, I had it beaten in to me (not literally) by several teachers that a black and white image must have a full range from white whites to black blacks. Too many black and white image conversions I see on the interweb are very flat and lack any contrast. The DNG RAW files that I'm getting out of the E-M5 MkII have bucket loads of data and detail in them, and are manipulating in Photoshop beautifully. I'm very pleased with the RAW output from the E-M5 MkII, and for me, 16MP is more than enough data.

Low tide. Olympus E-M5 MkII and Zuiko 12-50mm EZ shot at 12mm. 1/125th @ f5.6 ISO 200

Anyway, I digress (a little). Back to the lens itself. Focus is very snappy and silent - as quick as any DLSR I've ever used on single shot autofocus. It did start to hunt just a little towards the end of my session, but by then the light was very low, and again it was similar to what I would expect a DLSR to handle.

Another feature I really like about the 12-50mm EZ is its extra function button placed on the lens. This can be programmed to do almost anything you want (of course it can), and I've got it set up to initiate the autofocus selection screen. I've also got the function button next to the shutter release programmed to re-set the autofocus point to the centre, so with the click of two very conveniently placed buttons I have complete finger-tip control over autofocus selection. Brilliant. And it's little touches like this that ender you to the Olympus system and make you realise that it was designed by photographers, for photographers.

Rockface. 1/13th @ f6.3 ISO 1600

One of the last images I took was actually of this terra-cotta mask set into the concrete wall of a batch (cottage). Not exactly a landscape, but it caught my eye as I was walking back to the car and it was the perfect opportunity to test out the 5 axis image stabilisation of the E-M5 MkII. Does it work? You bet you're bottom dollar it works! It's crazy, insane juju magic and really opens up new possibilities for low-light hand-held shooting.

This image (and a series of others), is perfectly sharp, but was shot at just 1/13th of a second, while I was balancing precariously on a rock, zoomed right out at 50mm, at f6.3. Generally not a recipe for successful image making. But the 5-axis stabilisation nailed it!

So am I happy with the Olympus Zuiko 12-50mm EZ f3.5/6.3 lens as my walk-around and serious landscape lens? Absolutely.

The f6.3 aperture at 50mm may have put me off initially, but when I'm shooting landscapes around the 12-15mm range, then an aperture of f5.6 (which is opened up two stops) is where I want to be anyway, and is giving me good sharpness and great files. Micro four thirds sensors have more depth-of-field due to their smaller size, so f5.6 is about f11 in DSLR terms. That's perfect landscape territory, so I'm very happy with the 12-50mm for my landscape work. Maybe if I was printing 40" prints I'd find that I was reaching the limit of the lens/sensor combination? Maybe. But I'm not. So for the blog, the web, and for 8x12" prints, I'm a happy camper and the 12-50mm will remain on my camera for 80% of what I shoot.

Of course, if you can afford the Olympus 12-40mm f2.8 Pro lens, then by all means, get that instead. It will be a 'better' (eg. sharper and faster) lens in all respects. BUT, it will also be a heavier (much heavier) lens to carry around, and then you really will have to consider the body that you pair it up with.

For the well healed/pro photographer the 12-40mm f2.8 Pro is a must. For everyone else (us mere mortals), the Olympus Zuiko 12-50mm EZ f3.5/6.3 is a perfect image making tool. Can't ask for anything more - especially in a 'kit' lens.