Micro Four Thirds Lens Buying Guide

Hello everyone, today I want to talk about which Micro Four Thirds lenses that you should buy if you are going to build a complete all-around Micro Four Thirds kit. This is just based on my opinion and also based on my experience since I don't have every single MFT lenses available.

The Beginner MFT Kit

Maybe you just started photography and you chose MFT as your preferred system. You want some good lenses to start with but you don't have a preferred genre of photography yet. I will recommend my lenses of choice for beginning photography with MFT:

1. Budget kit 
(US$399.00 to US$699.00 approximately)
(a) Any kit lens and 
(b) Olympus 45mm f1.8
Start photography with the kit lens. MFT kit lenses are sharp enough and they will cover flexible focal lengths. Learn to master the kit lens before you jump into any other lens and keep the kit lens because you will still need it even after you progress far enough with your photography. Add the 45mm f1.8 and learn to shoot portrait with it, it will give you the best result for portrait.

2. Beginner Prime Lens kit 
(US$500.00 approximately)
Olympus 17mm f1.8
I recommend this one prime lens and learn to use it exclusively for a few months and get acquainted with the feel and the field of view of this lens really well. This might even be the only lens you need because it is very flexible for both landscape and street photography. Everybody needs 35mm full frame eq. lens!

3. Super Zoom
(US$800.00 approximately)
Panasonic 14-140mm f3.5-5.6
Maybe you just need one lens to cover everything, you don't do serious photography but you want everything at your fingertips. Then the Panasonic 14-140mm will cover everything you need in terms of focal length.

The General/Traveler MFT Kit

My choice for general photography or for travel photography is usually one or two zoom lens maybe with some prime lenses for night photography or for portrait. The key when traveling with MFT is to keep everything lightweight and versatile. So I will limit the choices for two lenses only

1. Budget kit 
(US$399.00 to US$699.00 approximately) 
(a) Any kit lens and 
(b) Olympus 45mm f1.8
If you by any chance own either the Panasonic 14-42mm f3.5-5.6 II or Panasonic 20mm f1.7 as a kit lens, keep it! Either one of them will be the perfect lightweight travel lens because they are sharp, small and versatile enough for almost any kind of shot. You will not be able to get extremely wide or extremely telephoto with them however. Add the Olympus 45mm f1.8 for portrait and mild telephoto and you will have a very versatile kit with just two little lenses.

2. Super Wildlife kit
(US$600.00 to US$1000,00 approximately)
(a) Panasonic 14-42mm f3.5-5.6 II or 20mm f1.7 and 
(b) Panasonic 100-300mm f4-5.6 or Olympus 75-300mm f4.8-6.7
This kit is the preferred kit for travelling to a location where you will have some wildlife photography photo shoots. Either Panasonic or Olympus telephoto zoom will give you that extreme 600mm equivalent zoom and the 14-42 or 20mm to cover the short focal length needs.

3. Versatile kit 
(US$1,200.00 approximately)
(a) Panasonic Lumix 14-140mm f3.5-5.6 and 
(b) Olympus 17 or 25mm f1.8
The Lumix will provide coverage for all focal length, be it wide or telephoto and the Olympus will do emergency portrait and night photography. With just the 14-140mm, you will be able to photograph almost everything at any focal length, and with either one of the Olympus you will be able to get that shallow depth of field pictures and low light capability.

4. Ultimate Focal Length kit 
(US $1,800.00 approximately)
(a) Panasonic Lumix 14-140mm f3.5-5.6 and 
(b) Panasonic 7-14mm f4
With these two lenses you will be able to cover everything from extreme wide angle 14mm full frame eq. to a whooping 280mm full frame eq. focal length. This is the best way to cover all sorts of picture from all focal lengths if you don't need low light capability and shallow depth of field. This is also my personal traveling kit choice.

5. Ultra Serious kit 
(US$ 2,000.00 to US$3,000.00 approximately) 
(a) Panasonic Lumix 12-35mm f2.8 and 
(b) Panasonic Lumix 35-100mm f2.8  
(c) Panasonic 7-14mm f4 (optional). 
These two lens will provide fast apertures at all critical focal lengths and will guarantee good sharp pictures throughout your holiday. The main drawback is the fact that they are expensive and the telephoto end only reaches 100mm (200mm full frame eq.). Keep in mind that these lenses are the top of the line kit for Micro Four Thirds! I said only two lenses for each kit but you can add the 7-14mm to cover ultra wide angle if needed, and those three lenses will be your Holy Trinity lens in the MFT world, perfect for travel or even professional works as well!

The Landscaper MFT Kit

For the landscape kit you want to have a wide angle of some sort and a general lens to cover the blind spot of the wide angle lens. Here's my recommendation:

1. The Mandatory Landscape kit 
(US$ 1,000.00 approximately)
(a) Panasonic 7-14mm f4 and
(b) Any kit lens
The Panasonic 7-14mm is a serious landscape photographer's lens, and the ultra wide coverage that it covers is enough for all kinds of landscape that you will need to do. Add any kit lens to complement the longer focal length for your landscape shoots and you will be good to go. This is my preferred kit for landscape photography.

2. The Low Light Landscape kit 
(US$1,500.00 to US$1,800.00 approximately)
(a) Olympus 12mm f2.0 and 
(b) Any other f1.8 prime lens of your choice(Olympus 25mm or Olympus 17mm or Olympus 45mm)
The Olympus 12mm f2.0 is the best landscape lens for those times when you need to have low light capability such as during wide field astrophotography shots or during nightscape shots. Add one more prime fast lens of your choice to cover longer focal length and you will have the ultimate low light landscape kit.

The Street Photographer MFT Kit

There are plenty of MFT lenses that will suit your street photography needs. For street photography, all you want are primes; there is nothing wrong with zoom lens for street photography, but with the prime you can isolate the subject with the shallow depth of field capabilities. Here are some of my recommendations with two lenses for each kit that I recommend:

1. The Versatile Street kit 
(US$800.00 approximately)
(a) Olympus 17mm f1.8 and 
(b) Olympus 45mm f1.8
This is a very versatile kit since you have a normal wide and a short telephoto focal lengths both covered with these two lenses. The 17mm will provide 35mm full frame eq. field of view which is versatile enough for most environmental street photo with a possibility to do close up. The 45mm will be handy for street portraits as well as for some detailed architecture shots. This is my preferred kit for street photography.

2. The Classic Street kit 
(US$1,000.00 approximately)
(a) Olympus 17mm f1.8 and 
(b) Olympus 25mm f1.8
Both 35mm and 50mm on full frame field of view is the classic focal length preferred by many street photographers. Both of the Olympuses will provide you with two of the most common focal lengths used in Street Photography. The gap between 17mm and 25mm isn't much, however there are many photographers who find that they always need both of them.

3. Wide Shot Street kit 
(US$1,500.00 approximately)
(a) Olympus 12mm f2.0 and 
(b) Olympus 25mm f1.8.
There are times when you want to include as much environment as you can to the subject of your photography and that's when the 12mm f2.0 will shine for your street photography. Add the 25mm to cover a bit longer focal length and you are good to go.

4. Mild Telephoto Street kit 
(US$1,500.00 approximately)
(a) Olympus 75mm f1.8 and 
(b) Olympus 17mm f1.8.
I know that telephoto lens isn't common in street photography but the fact that sometimes you need to get to a subject that is far away or to compress the background into the foreground will require you to get a telephoto lens of some sort. My choice for that will be the Olympus 75mm f1.8. Add the 17mm for a normal wide shots and you will be able to cover everything.

That's all for my MFT lenses guide. I hope you enjoy this post. Cheers and God bless :)

Update: Wondering about my own main personal kit that I currently use for semi serious work everyday? It's the Panasonic 12-35mm f2.8 and the Olympus 75mm f1.8. Both these lenses cover everything that I currently need with the best possible output for the Micro Four Thirds.

Billingham Hadley Small Review

Hello all! I want to do a quick review on my new camera bag that I just recently purchased. It's the Billingham Hadley Small!

Why Billingham Hadley Small

I've been wanting to replace my Timbuk2 Classic Messenger bag for quite some time because it is not a dedicated camera bag and it does not provide bump protection although it is quite weather proof. I've looked for so many camera bags but most of them looks too plastic-y velcro-y with lots of pockets, slips and zippers which made the bag looked very complicated. I narrowed down my choice to ONA Bowery and Billingham Hadley Small.

I was about to pull the trigger and jump into ONA Bowery because it is smaller, simpler and overall more attractive to my taste. It is also quite cheaper too! Unfortunately it is not available easily at where I live and I have to import it or at least ask someone who's on a trip to somewhere that sells that particular bag. So I contemplated for a long time and decided to get the Billingham instead.

I wasn't disappointed at all! In fact, I am glad that I purchased the Billingham instead of the ONA! This bag screams quality all over the place. The size of the bag is perfect, the canvas-like material is waterproof, it feels comfortable when being slung around my body, and the leather accent as well as the overall styling of the bag is very sweet. It's not cheap though at almost US$300.00. Anyway, let's dive in deep into the details of the bag!

From the Outside

The bag doesn't look like a camera bag. The all black color in particular looks very nice and very stealthy with only the brass buckle loops and the little brass buckle holders being the non black colored parts of the bag. The size of the bag is small but not too small, big but not too big; it's the perfect size for city walkaround, travelling, casual walking with just carrying little gears. It measures 27cm horizontally at the top of the bag and 20cm vertically at the side of the bag.

From the side of the bag, it is not the slimmest bag in the world but it is still pretty compact considering the capacity of the bag. It is quite flexible too so if you tighten the buckle a little bit, it will compress the depth even more so that it becomes slightly slimmer. It measures approximately 10cm at the bottom of the bag and 12cm at the thickest point of the bag when I fully loaded it with my gears.

The flap is quite big and it's quite tight so that it seals the bag properly. The flap opening mechanism is very stealthy with no velcro involved; you open the bag by pulling the leather buckle away from the brass holders. When you first have the bag, that opening method is a bit fiddly but after a while you'll become quicker and it'll feel much better than pulling zipper or velcro.

From the Inside

There is one main compartment with removable padded insert for storing your camera as well as lenses, and there are two pockets on the front of the bag for storing small things that you usually carry with you such as filters, memory cards, straps, lens cleaning cloth, or even a pancake sized lens.

Because of the way the insert fits into the bag, it will make you have two slips that you can utilize to store more items in the bag. You can store a small tablet like a 7 inch Nexus or Apple iPad Mini behind the insert at the rear part of the bag. And you can store unused items that you won't use regularly such as rear cap or body cap in front of the insert at the front part of the bag.

As you can see from the picture above, the width of the Billingham Hadley Small is long enough for me to store two small camera bodies side by side especially cameras like Panasonic GX7, Sony Alpha A6000, Sony NEX series, Canon EOS M, Olympus PEN E-P5 or the OM-D E-M10, or Leica rangefinders with the lenses attached on each bodies. 

As you can see in the picture above, I have two bodies with lenses attached and three extra lenses; all of them fits into the bag nicely with extra room for a mobile phone, wallet, powerbank, earphone, paper documents, Android tablet, batteries, filters, and more. You can even fit a small DSLR camera but you might not be able to put as many extra lenses on the bag and it will not become slim anymore unless you uncouple the lens from the body. 

It comes with two tall dividers and two small dividers, enough to customize your insert into a comfy home for your lenses and camera bodies. With the smaller dividers, you can organize them vertically so you can have protection between lenses should you stack the lenses vertically.

That's all for my short review now. I will add more information here after a few weeks and have some real world usage report. Cheers and God bless :)

My Thoughts on Panasonic Lumix GX7

Hello everyone! As some of you already know, I own a Panasonic GX7 and I shoot with it extensively for both casual and some serious photography needs. It is my main camera since August 2014 and it is still until today and I plan to use it as long as I can until it breaks or needs to be replaced.

In this post, I want to talk a little bit about my opinions on the GX7, my shooting experience, some little details that I find interesting and worth mentioning especially from my point of view. This should be treated as my personal opinion and your mileage may vary.

My Panasonic GX7 with the 14-140mm lens, the perfect combination for daytime photography.

To start

I took one full month researching about the GX7 before I finally settled on it and replaced my Canon kit with the GX7. There are many reasons why I think GX7 is the right camera for me.

First, it has a very compact form that resembles a rangefinder camera but with a viewfinder that actually works and is just awesome. Thus, it is very inconspicuous, unobtrusive, easy to carry, and more comfortable for long session of picture taking and video recording. It weights around 500g with battery and kit lens attached, and it has a tiltable LCD screen that allows me to shoot from the hip easily when doing street photography. The GH3 or Olympus OM-D E-M1 would have better grip and is more rigid but then the big size really hinders me from getting it(though it isn't big at all to be honest, it's just me being picky hahaha!).

Second, the still pictures, while not perfect, is adequate for my need. I don't need full frame picture quality, I don't worship the high-megapixel-big-sensor-is-the-only-way-to-go religion, I need something small and compact with plenty enough dynamic range, adequate signal to noise ratio performance, good color, and enough headroom in the shadow and highlight aspects in the RAW files. Sensor size and big megapixel are just two aspects that is not really a top priority on my list although they are surely nice to have when given by default.

Talking about shadow and highlight, I was also looking for a camera that has better dynamic range than my EOS M and EOS 650D so that I don't have to do HDR bracketing too often for landscape shots. For Canon shooters, the only way to increase dynamic range is either by buying a 5D Mark III or switch to Nikon/Pentax/Sony. Upgrading to 7D or 70D only gives you the same dynamic range and noise performance since the sensor is not too different (even the sensor on the 7D it is exactly the same as with the ones in 60D, 600D, 650D, EOS M, and so on). My GX7 delivers better dynamic range although it is still not in the range of Nikon or Sony; but it is not too far and is enough for me. Keep in mind that dynamic range is important for me since I also shoot landscapes and city scapes and I don't want to get white/grey sky on what supposed to be a clear sunny-bright-blue-sky day.

Third, I also shoot some video and the GX7 is an excellent little video recording device. It is not perfect since it doesn't have mic input and headphone jack, but it gives good video output in both AVCHD and MP4. My previous Canon also does good job on video but the output quality is still not as good as the GX7; they also lack important features such as focus peaking, fast autofocus during video, and high bitrate options. Most of the time, I record audio separately for my video so I don't really mind the absence of mic input and headphone jack.

Fourth, surprise, there is a built in image stabilization in the body, so you can attach any kinds of lenses that doesn't have optical stabilization and the GX7 will stabilize it! This is really a surprise for me because it actually works! It is not the best stabilization ever, but it just works and it helps at least to get one stop of exposure with it, so it is just nice! There is no other Lumix camera to date that has built in body stabilization, even for some cameras after the GX7 was announced.

Also, there is Silent Mode operation, where all the sounds will turn off and the camera switches to electronic shutter. This is an ABSOLUTE BLESSING FROM HEAVEN for us street shooters and events documenter! I can now be really inconspicuous when doing candid, street photography, and shooting events. I can also now shoot birds and the birds won't hear a clicking sound from the camera so they stay longer on the same spot. My goodness, I wish every camera has this option!!

With the added Olympus flash for some product photography.

Some cons that you need to know

Well, I won't go into technical details, this is not a review and you can find so many people that already wrote so much technical stuff about the GX7. But I do want to address some of the negative issues that I encountered with the GX7 that I think you should know before you buy this camera.

First, I confirm that there is a shutter shock issue. Shutter shock will cause your pictures to appear blurry on some mid shutter speed range. It is noticeable, but it actually isn't as bad as what people say on the forums. The way to completely fix this shutter shock issue is by either shooting very fast or very slow, or also by switching on the electronic shutter option. Be mindful that if you turn on the electronic shutter(or silent mode), you need to watch some light sources as computer screen, projector screen, light bulbs, and other light sources because they can cause banding if you are not careful. Also be careful with "rolling shutter" effect when shooting moving objects when you are in this mode, moving objects will appear stretched when you shoot with electronic shutter.

Second, the battery life of this camera can only go for a few hours on a serious shooting day. Be sure to carry extra batteries with you since you will definitely need it! This is a shame since my E-PL6 can go even longer than the GX7 when shooting on the same conditions.

Third, there are some delays happening when you switch from the LCD screen to the viewfinder. It is only less than a second but I find it very annoying especially when you switch between screen and finder quickly and frequently.

Fourth, while the grip is very dense and comfortable, the placement of the shutter button is a bit uncomfortable for my taste; I would like to have it on the front part of the grip so I can comfortably grab the camera without my index finger keeps getting sore from gripping the camera and get stuck on a weird angle by the sharp edge of the PASM dial.

Last but not least, the color in the GX7 is different from the E-PL6 and it is actually very good. But after owning the E-PL6, I tend to prefer the color from it and I always try to match the pictures I took with GX7 to look like the E-PL6 by reducing the green/yellow hue and adding just a hint of purple hue into the color balance. Well, this is actually only a minor thing and the difference is only noticeable when you shoot indoor or under low light. It's still worth mentioning if you are switching from Olympus, since Olympus white balance is the best for low light and indoor usage. If you never shoot Olympus before, then the color won't even become a problem at all.

The whole Micro Four Thirds kit. The GX7 accommodates all those lenses very well thanks to IBIS!

That are some of my thoughts about the GX7. Once again, this is based on my personal review so please treat this post accordingly. If you are now seriously considering the GX7 as your camera, definitely read some of the cons and pros that I wrote above, filter the aspects above that you find important for you, and do some further research on the camera on other sites as well. Even with the cons that I listed, I still find that GX7 is the perfect camera for me!

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed the post. Cheers and God bless :)

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The Wisest and the Widest Lens: Panasonic Lumix G Vario 7-14mm f/4

I admit that the title of the post is kinda lame, but I want to talk about the Panasonic 7-14mm wide angle lens. To start off, let's talk a little bit about wide angle lenses and their common characteristics. Wide angle photography is all about trying to squeeze as much as possible into the frame; you can squeeze a very small room into the whole picture and make it look big easily. It is also about pushing far away things to become even more far away; it will make your background look really small and very uncompressed. It is also about making thin people fat (oops!); try to photograph a girl with this lens and put her on the edge of the frame, she will gain a few pounds instantly!

A warning when using wide angle lens: be wise! Don't over-do anything because wide angle lens is very unforgiving especially when we talk about perspective distortion and its very non-compressive behaviours.

The Panasonic 7-14mm f/4 lens with the non-standard lens cap besides it.

I didn't do much wide angle photography to be honest but there were times when a wide angle lens was really a necessity and I just had to get one to fulfil certain photography requests like shooting building interior, exterior, general landscape or cityscape. During my Canon days I would resort to my lovely Tokina 12-24mm F4 AT-X Pro DX II (what a lame and mouthful name!!) to get the jobs done. Now that I switched to Micro Four Thirds, the Panny 7-14mm was and is the right candidate to replace the Tokina in my system.

The Panasonic 7-14mm on my E-PL6 with 25mm f1.8 besides it. Look how small and tiny it is! It isn't bigger than the grip of my palm!

Onto the lens itself, what does the Panny 7-14mm do that the others don't do?

1. It's as wide as you can get without using a fisheye lens. At 7mm, it is equivalent to 14mm on a full frame or 9mm on APS-C so it is as wide as Nikon's legendary 14-24mm f2.8. It is quite crazy when you think about how wide 14mm on full frame, you can cover 115 degree field of view from the lens. Anyone sitting besides you will get into the frame if they move forward a bit.

2. It's so much smaller and lighter compared to its equivalent on other formats. Yeah I know I talked about this too much, but my Tokina is quite a pain in the butt to carry around and I ended up not carrying it anywhere, I just left it at home gathering dust. The Panny 7-14mm isn't big at all, in fact it is just slightly bigger than the kit 14-42mm lens even with the huge bulbous front element on the Panny 7-14mm.

3. It is as sharp as you can get! At 7mm f4, it is so crazily sharp, it makes my eyes bleed whenever I saw photographs that I took with this lens! Joking aside, the sweet spot of this lens is f4 at 7mm, so you don't need to stop down which means this could help you in poor lighting conditions.

What I don't like from this lens?

1. F4 is a bit too slow. Well to be honest I want an f2.8 for such a lens but that would turn this lens into a big heavy lens just like a Tokina. So I am still happy with f4, unless Panasonic or Olympus or whoever makes MFT mount lens is crazy enough to come up with 7-14mm f2.8 that is as small as this one if not smaller.

2. No way to attach filter on the front. There is no filter thread or anything, so basically you have to make some kind of DIY clamper to be able to attach filters on the front of the lens.

3. It is crazy expensive. Well considering the price of the Tokina, this lens is twice the price. I'm not too fond about its price and sometimes it's difficult to justify such a crazy price tag for a lens that I don't use too often.

Now some pictures taken using the lens:

Exterior with dramatic blue sky is this lens' speciality!

It's also no slouch on capturing architectural details of a building.

Some crazy people, like me, even incorporated this lens for street photography at 7mm!

I love how this lens works unbelievably well on interior architectural shot!

Way too close for street photography but I like how it pushes the background so far away!

City scape? No problem

Wide-field concert or art show? No problem!

I make the hallway looked longer than what it's supposed to be with this lens.

I also made the hall looked larger than what it's supposed to be

I can get the whole benches and table in the frame as the foreground to the building behind it.

Interior in tight space? No problem!

Be careful with perspective distortion, at 7mm it's very unforgiving even for a very slight vertical tilt!

More interior picture.

This lens is perfect for real estate photo shoot.

I hope you enjoyed this post, see you next time and God bless :)

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