"The Numbers, Mason!! What Do They Mean??" My Personal Focal Length Guide

Hey guys, first of all I want to apologize for the corny reference from a Call of Duty quote on the title, but today I want to explain about the different focal length and how to utilize them to your photography in my personal way. It's all about the numbers on your lens!

75mm (150mm full frame) focal length.

Focal length, as we know, is the "zoom" of the lens. It's how far or how close can the lens cover a certain image. It's measured in milimeters. Basically the more "zoomed in" the lens is, the higher the number of the focal length, vice versa. You can identify the focal length on your lens with the indicated millimeters number printed on it.

Both understanding and choosing the right focal length are very critical to the composition of a picture as the focal length does impact an image in a few different way. That's why, I hope that by the end of this post, you will be able to utilize the focal length on your lenses to their maximum potential.

Let's start

Different focal length exhibits different characteristics on the same camera, regardless of the aperture, shutter speed, ISO, sensor size, etc. The most obvious one is how "zoomed in" or "zoomed out" the picture is; we call this "Angle of View". But in reality there are three image aspects that are being affected by the change of focal length. They are:
1. Angle of View
2. Depth of Field
3. Perspective(Distortion/Compression)

Angle of View
As mentioned before, angle of view is how zoomed in or how zoomed out the composition of the picture is from a certain position. The wider the angle of view, the more zoomed out the picture is, vice versa. As you may already figured out, the smaller the number of the focal length, the wider is the angle of view, and the higher the number of the focal length, the narrower and tighter is the angle of view.

Very tight angle of view, courtesy of ultra telephoto focal length

Depth of Field
Depth of field is the amount of focused field on the picture. The shallower the depth of field, the less focused area appear in the picture and you will see a lot of blur or bokeh in the picture. The wider the depth of field, the more focused area appear in the picture, everything else beside the focused part of the picture will appear sharper. Smaller focal length will give wider depth of field naturally while larger focal length will give shallower depth of field.

Relatively blurred background, courtesy of mid-telephoto focal length.

I know, I know, you will say "I can stop down my aperture to get more depth of field or shoot wide open to get more defocused background, regardless of the focal length.". That is true, but have you tried photographing an object using 300mm focal length at f/16? The background still looked somehow blurred, isn't it? Or have you tried photographing a landscape using 14mm lens at f/2.8? Everything still looks sharp, isn't it? You'll get the idea.

Perspective
Perspective is the relationship between the objects(foreground and the background) and the eye. It's how big and small the objects are in the image relative to our vision. As an example, we know that the size of a certain pencil physically isn't changing whether it's close or far. If we see a pencil pointing at us from far away, visually the size of the rear part of the pencil and the pointy front part of the pencil will look almost the same. however, when we move the pencil closer to our eyes, the rear part will visually look a lot smaller than the front pointy part; this is called perspective distortion. Try it!

Perspective distortion, courtesy of ultra wide angle focal length

As you already guessed, smaller focal length will exaggerate the perspective distortion, meaning that the object on the background will look a lot smaller. The bigger the focal length, the object on the background will get more perspective compression, meaning that the object background will appear a lot larger.

Focal Length Characteristics and Crop Factor

At this point, I want to clarify some things regarding crop factor and focal length conversion because the standard measurement of focal length are often being mentioned in terms of 35mm full frame sensor size/film size. Here are some of my observation:

1. The angle of view gets affected by the crop factor. This means that when you use a 50mm lens on a Nikon D7000 or Sony A6000, it will give you the same angle of view of a 75mm lens on a full frame 35mm camera.

2. The depth of field isn't exactly affected by the crop factor, but it does sort of get "affected" indirectly. Let me elaborate using an example, a 50mm lens on a Micro Four Thirds body will give you the same depth of field of a 50mm lens on a full frame body. The part where people get confused is that in Micro Four Thirds, we treat and use 25mm to achieve the full frame 50mm angle of view; 25mm and 50mm isn't the same focal length even though they give the same angle of view on their respective bodies, therefore it won't give you the same depth of field.

3. The perspective distortion and compression are affected by the crop factor, but it sort of "doesn't get affected" indirectly. We use 25mm in Micro Four Thirds to match the 50mm angle of view on the full frame body. Because the angle of view between those focal lengths on their respective sensor, we get the same compression or distortion between 25mm Micro Four Thirds and 50mm full frame. On the same note, when we put 50mm Micro Four Thirds, it will have the same compression or distortion of 100mm full frame.

And now, my thoughts for each focal length

I will explain how I treat some of the commonly used focal lengths. All are mentioned in full frame terms with equivalent field of view focal length terms:

18mm (12mm APS-C, 9mm Micro Four Thirds) and lower

Ultra wide panoramic landscape photo

This is an ultra wide angle focal length, good for wide landscape, wide architecture, interior, and wide astrophotography. I've done some close range street photography at this focal length too and it gives a very unique result.

Given the small focal length, the depth of field of this focal length are generally very wide, which makes everything looks relatively focused and sharp even at big aperture(small F numbers). This means that this lens isn't the best choice when it comes to blurred background picture or bokeh, even when you could afford big aperture lens for this focal length.

Please note that at this focal length the perspective distortion is very pronounced and also the vertical lines will get very tilted if you are not careful. This is my go to focal length when I want to include as many objects in a single photograph, with the exception of a group photo.

24mm (16-17mm APS-C, 12mm Micro Four Thirds)

Very wide semi landscape photo

This is a very wide focal length. As far as I can tell, this focal length generates the same field of view of human eyes, meaning that if you can see everything in that scenery, chances are you can fit the same scenery into a picture using this focal length. I use this focal length for general landscape, architecture, general scenery, cityscape, wide-field street photography, and environmental portrait.

Where this focal length really shines is when you you use it for travelling, because it is wide enough to capture most sceneries of the places that you visit during your travel and it's also a good enough focal length for vacation portraits to include your family members and the scenery in the same frame.

The perspective distortion is still pronounced at this focal length, but not too bad. This is not really my favorite focal length to be honest, but I will treat this as sort of my ultra wide angle lens when I didn't carry my ultra wide with me. I may consider this focal length for a group photo if I must but I will usually go to 28mm or 35mm if I have the choice.

28mm (18mm APS-C, 14mm Micro Four Thirds)

Moderate wide angle focal length

This is a moderate wide angle focal length. This is usually the focal length of the rear camera of your smartphone. Anything from iPhone to Android to Windows phone uses this fixed focal length for the rear camera of the phone.

If you are used to a smartphone camera, you're already familiar with this focal length. It's best for general landscape, architecture, cityscape, street photography, environmental portrait, group photo, and full body portrait. It's good for travelling too, as 28mm is still wide enough for most scenery that you want to photograph but I still prefer 24mm for travelling sceneries as sometimes I will find an object that's too big for the 28mm to cover especially when there's space restriction.

It's pretty similar to 24mm but the extra few millimeters will help to reduce the perspective distortion and making it easier to photograph things without having the vertical lines look too tilted exaggeratedly. I always use this focal length to take a group photo too as it doesn't make the people on the edges of the frame to look stretched due to distortion.

35mm (22mm APS-C, 17-18mm Micro Four Thirds)

Classic street 17mm MFT(35mm full frame) focal length

This is a normal wide angle focal length. Good for tight landscape, 3/4 body portrait, tight group pictures, general walk-around lens, environtmental portrait, and documentary.

This is also happens to be one of the classic street photography focal length. Many people swear by this focal length and it could be the only focal length that they need when doing street photography. This lens will require you to get a bit close to your subject when doing street photography, but on the contrary, you will need to back up a little bit when you're photographing wide sceneries as now your focal length is a bit tighter compared to 28mm or 24mm.

I've survived a few days using this only lens to photograph half body and 3/4 body portraits as well as group photos without using any other lens. This shows how versatile this lens is. Granted, the distortion can still be visible sometimes especially when you are photographing something close, but it surprisingly gives me very acceptable results most of the time.

50mm (33-35mm APS-C, 25mm Micro Four Thirds)

Classic 50mm street focal length

This is what most people consider to be the normal focal length. It's good for very tight landscape, 3/4 to half body portrait, documentary, and product photography. This focal length also happens to be the standard fixed focal length on the kit lens in the old days of film cameras.

As with 35mm, this is also one of the classic street photography focal length. This focal length is what many photojournalists use on their cameras to produce some of the most iconic photo of all time. One notable person who is the master of 50mm is Henri Cartier Bresson, who was(and still is) the grand master of photojournalism; he uses only 50mm for his street photographs and never really use any other focal length except for a few occasions when he need to do landscape stuffs.

There is a debate going on about 50mm being "what the eye sees"; my personal opinion is that it's not what the eyes sees, it's just that there is no longer distortion and there is only a very slight compression happening on the picture yet at this focal length so the pictures look very natural and "normal" to us. I personally don't really love or hate this focal length but I extensively used this focal length when I started photography in 2013 for a few months to discipline myself with just a single focal length.

At this focal length, big aperture starts to translate into shallower depth of field, meaning that you can use this focal length for some blurred background pictures. But you can still stop down the aperture if you want everything to look sharp without stopping down too much.

85mm(50-56mm APS-C, 42-45mm Micro Four Thirds)

Portrait with 45mm MFT(90mm full frame, close to 85mm)

Many consider this focal length as a telephoto focal length. For me, I treat this focal length as sort of a good start for normal portrait focal length. I use it for half body portrait and I always get a very good result using this focal length. This focal length is also good for product photography, but depending on the lens, you might not be able to get close to the product due to close focusing distance limit, so you might need to consider about that.

I've done street photography with this lens too, but it looks more like a candid portrait rather than a proper street photo and it's not revealing much environment on the picture so it's not as useful as 50mm or 35mm. But sometimes you are too far from your subject when you are on the street, and when you can't get closer; on that matter, this lens can still deliver a street photo.

Not a focal length that I use everyday, but once I need it, this focal length will give a pleasing compression to the picture. Depth of field is already shallow with this lens, even on smaller sensor like Micro Four Thirds, so treat it carefully. You can stop down to get more depth of field but at this focal length, it's not going to be easy to get everything in focus.

135mm(90mm APS-C, 60-67mm Micro Four Thirds)

Notice the background compression of this focal length.

As a telephoto focal length, this is my choice when 85mm just doesn't cut it. Sometimes you need more compression for your portrait and you want to flatten face features to make your subject looks more flattering. This makes 135mm the logical choice if 85mm isn't enough. This is a good choice for shoulder portrait as well as a headshot portrait.

I love the super shallow depth of field inherent from this focal length. This makes this lens also ideal for full body portrait or product photography in a crowded space that has cluttered background, since the inherently shallow depth of field of this focal length will make it easy to blur the background without much effort.

I don't use this focal length for anything else, not even street photography. But sometimes 135mm can be used for close range sport where you can get closer to the action without the need of a longer focal length.

200mm(135mm APS-C, 100mm Micro Four Thirds)

Ultra compressed perspective, a classic signature of a telephoto lens of this focal length.

This telephoto focal length is the ideal headshot portrait focal length, and also a good start for wildlife focal length to shoot animals in the distance as well as for sport photography. The compression of this lens is perfect for flattening facial features of a head, and it also has the ideal tight field of view to photograph objects in the distance.

This focal length isn't easy to wield and is probably not gonna be used that much for day-to-day regular use. But for special purposes that the focal length is capable to deliver, picking up a lens of this focal length to photograph those special objects will definitely reward you with a good picture. Just make sure that you are using sufficient shutter speed, as at this focal length, lens movement is very pronounced.

300mm(200mm APS-C, 150mm Micro Four Thirds) and above

Super telephoto focal length.

This is considered as super telephoto focal length, which is what you will need for wildlife photography; bird photography in particular. Many wildlife photographer will also extend the focal length even further by applying a Tele Converter which multiplies the focal length to get a longer focal length and a much tighter field of view.

I personally only use this focal length for wildlife, and sometimes for distant big objects like the moon, planes, etc. I don't use this focal length for general purpose and I rarely carry a lens with this focal length except when I purposefully want to have this focal length covered.

Now this brings us to another popular debate: Zoom Lens vs Prime Lens

After discussing all about the focal lengths themselves, many will automatically start to think about the application. This brings us into the world of lenses and you basically have two choices for your preferred focal length: zoom lens and prime lens.

I don't worship one more than the other. I love both, and I use both differently for my photography needs. Granted, neither one can deliver everything and I need both of them for different reasons.

That being said, I love prime lens because they are small, they are sharp, they tend to have a large aperture, and they are very portable. I can just stick a prime lens if I know what I'm about to photograph to get a very good and predictable result. I usually attach a prime lens on my E-PL6 to reduce the overall size of the camera so I can carry it in my short's pockets or in a small bag for ultimate portability.

However, when I am travelling, I usually rely on zoom lens, because I don't know what I'm about to photograph; sometimes I may need to take a picture of an object that requires the flexibility to change the focal length constantly and that's where the strength of the zoom lens lies. Zoom lens is generally bigger than prime lens, so I need to have a bag to carry a zoom lens attached to my camera. It also doesn't work too well in low light situation because of the relatively small aperture(except for the f2.8 zooms) so I tend to use it only during daylight.

So, be sure to choose the right focal length for the right job!

I hope this post will help you to understand more about focal length and hopefully that will help you to utilize all the different properties of the focal lengths to your advantage as well as to help you determine which focal length that you should use for what you need to photograph. Thanks for reading and God bless you :)

Big Result in Small Package: Olympus M. Zuiko 45mm f/1.8

Hello everyone, I want to share a little bit of my experience on Olympus 45mm f1.8 lens that I love so much. I primarily want a light and portable lens that can cover a mild telephoto focal length with large aperture for shallow depth of field and low light performance. This lens is the answer.

I mainly use this lens for portrait that requires a bit of reach. But this lens doesn't only do portraits; it excels on other things such as tight landscape, street photography, architectural photography, close ups, and many other genres of photography. At this focal length, the depth of field produced by the lens is already quite thin for my taste and you can get some serious creamy bokeh from this lens without putting too much effort.

Let's dive in, what's good from this lens?

Technically speaking, the 45mm covers an equivalent of 90mm in full frame term, which is in the range of the sweet spot of many portrait lens such as 85mm, 90mm, and 105mm. On full frame terms, those lenses that I mentioned will definitely be big, heavy, and expensive. The opposite is true in the Micro Four Thirds world; the Olympus 45mm f1.8 is one of the lenses that embodied the "Spirit of MFT" in which the lens is small, very compact, lightweight, and not terribly expensive, but it delivers sharp image quality, punchy contrast, good autofocus performance, and adequate build quality.

This is one of the smaller lenses available for Micro Four Thirds. You can carry this lens inside your jeans pocket or jacket pocket and take it out only when you need it! It's not a pancake or anything like that, but still it is very small and surprisingly can always be carried in your camera bag without taking any space significantly. Combined with a small body like an E-PL6, you will pack a big picture in a small overall package.

Talking about image quality, it is just as sharp as you can get for a lens at this category. At f1.8 it is already sharp, stop it down to f2.0 it is a bit better, stop it down further to f2.8 and it is at its maximum performance. Take it down further to f4.0 and the sharpness improves only slightly from f2.8. I use this lens without hesitation at f2.0 most of the time and I know that I can extract a beautiful picture out of the lens.

I tested the hell out of this lens by shooting all kinds of tree leaves and branches from all sorts of distances and I can't seem to find any chromatic aberration in this lens at all aperture setting. I was not expecting it to be this good! Even the mighty 75mm f1.8 has chromatic aberration and this lens easily put that monster down to shame in the chromatic aberration department.

Autofocus is fast and instantaneous, just like the 75mm f1.8, the 17mm f1.8, 25mm f1.8, Panasonic 12-35mm f2.8, Panasonic 14-140mm, and many others. In fact, there are only 1 lens that has slow autofocus in the Micro Four Thirds department and that is the Panasonic 100-300mm.

Price wise, it's definitely less than US$400.00 which is crazy cheap for a lens that is 90mm in full frame term. You can definitely go to a more pricey option in this category by choosing the 42.5mm f1.2 by Leica Panasonic if you really need f1.2.

A couple of note that you should know...

Though this lens is already classified as a mild telephoto lens, the lens proved to be more flexible compared to a more serious telephoto prime such as the 75mm f1.8. However, please note that this lens doesn't focus as close as the 17mm or the 25mm. In fact, it won't do any good for any kind of macro photography unless you have a specific lens attachment for macro or similar device.

Also please note that this isn't the best lens for headshot although you can do it with this lens and get a good compression(heck, I sometimes even do headshot using the 25mm). I would suggest at least 60mm focal length in MFT for headshot as the compression starts to really help to flatter the image significantly.

Final thoughts

This is one of those "must have" lenses in the MFT world. I personally love this lens and I use it a lot for different purposes and this lens never fails to deliver the best result for a mild telephoto work. If you need a mild telephoto lens for your kit, then look no further.

Here are some of my sample shots

Bokeh is excellent!

Again, the bokeh doesn't show any lemon shapes or hexagons, it's just rounded circular bokeh that we all adore.

See how sharp the lens is!

Again, you can see how the lens managed to produce sharp results

This lens can do wonders in low light situation

This is not the most perfect composition but you get the idea of what the lens can do.

Taken during an indoor low light action show

Street photography? No problem!

Candid photo? No problem!

This is the ideal lens for this kind of portrait

I hope this post will help you to decide whether the 45mm f1.8 is the right lens for you or not. Thanks for reading and God bless you! :)

Dat Sharpness Doe: Olympus 75mm f1.8

I just got a sweet deal on a used Olympus 75mm f1.8 which I've been considering as a serious headshot/portrait lens. The focal length of this lens is quite useful to compress the picture and smash the whole thing to look more interesting and flattering especially when shooting a person's face and thus will help me achieve better portrait result.

When it comes to portrait, the ideal focal length is a mild telephoto focal length between 85mm and 200mm in full frame terms; this prime lens is the equivalent of 150mm full frame which sits right in the ideal focal length range. Coupled with a nerve-wrecking f1.8 aperture, this is ideal to get either low light performance or a super shallow depth of field.

The lens itself isn't lightweight; it is at least as heavy as my old Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 non VC but it is not as large. It is as big as my 14-140mm f3.5-5.6 lens though. For Micro Four Thirds standard, this is big. But for APS-C standard, this is just as big as a standard kit lens.

A warning when using a lens of this focal length: shutter speed matters! You have to get at least 1/200s without stabilization to make your picture sharp. With my E-PL6 in body stabilizer, I can shoot sharp at 1/60s but lower than that is pretty much hit and miss.

What's so special about this lens?

The sharpness is OFF THE CHARTS!!! Shoot wide open, and the picture is already sharp. Stop down to f2.8 and it will reveal the smallest detail possible from a picture. Stop down to f4 for it's maximum possible sharpness but even at f1.8 the sharpness is already crazy enough!

Talking about the bokeh, this lens will give the most bokeh for your money. It has a crazy shallow depth of field due to it's focal length(even in Micro Four Thirds environment) and you should treat this shallow depth of field carefully to your advantage. I find that shooting short range portrait using this lens will require me to stop down to f2.8 to get a person's facial feature sharp from the front of the head at least to the ears. F1.8 is a bit too unwieldy to use when shooting portrait, unless your subject is far away from you.

You can read full detail of the lens on so many different websites who did some lab tests for this lens, but for real world usage this is definitely an ultra sharp lens that you can use at large aperture with ease.

The build quality of this lens is also top notch! It's all metal and the focusing ring is very smooth and just nicely dampened a little bit. It doesn't come with a lens hood and if you care about lens flare or protecting your lens, you should find either the Olympus one or the cheap third party one.

People seemed to love talking about the "color rendering" of this lens so much. I don't get it, I don't find that it produces different looking colors when compared to the other lens shooting more or less the same scene. I don't seem to notice anything about the color anyway but let me assure you that the contrast level is at least top notch! I can notice the contrast level because I used to have a lens that doesn't have a good contrast when I was still shooting Canon.

What do I need to know before I buy this lens?

Be mindful, 150mm is not a general use focal length, you might not going to use this lens frequently for your photography. 150mm is neither long or short; it's definitely not a wildlife lens and it's not short enough to get environmental photo without stepping back very far from the subject. Think carefully before purchasing this baby because the price isn't cheap and you only get one focal length. If you are specifically looking for a portrait or a headshot lens, definitely this is the right one for you. If you are looking to shoot general photography stuff or even street photography, I don't really think this is the right lens. You will be better served with something more flexible such as the Panasonic 35-100mm f2.8, or the Olympus 45mm f1.8, or similar lens.

Also, one thing that bothers me is the amount of chromatic aberration produced by this lens. I don't know if mine is a defective one or if it's simply just the case with every 75mm f1.8. The chromatic aberration doesn't go away even at f4. I have to stop it down to f5.6 for the fringing to completely disappear which is kinda sucks. The good news is that the chromatic aberration is easily removable using Lightroom or similar software.

In summary

Buy this lens if you are doing portrait or low light mild telephoto stuff. Don't buy this lens if you are doing wildlife, it is not long enough. Also for street photography, the 45mm will be easier to wield than this lens unless you are doing specific thing with your photo that requires a longer focal length. If you want a more flexible lens, get the 35-100mm f2.8 or similar lens.

Here are some example of pictures that you can expect to get using this lens:

This was shot at f1.8. Very sharp! See that bokeh?

The compression makes everything look flat and pressed. Good for portrait stuff

See those individual hair? That's the sharpness level that you can expect from this lens.

Very useful at low light to get reasonable mild telephoto street photo.

Get closer to your subject than the 45mm f1.8.

Headshot using this lens gives a very flattering result!

I hope this post helps you to decide whether this lens is the right one for you or not. Thank you and God bless you :)

The Perfect Camera??

GX7 and E-PL6

I am really happy with my current camera gear with all the lenses and accessories; to me all of them combined enables me to shoot almost anything anytime anywhere. If I want to shoot low light and be invisible, I will pick my E-PL6 with an Oly 17mm f1.8 or 25mm f1.8. Or maybe I want to shoot high quality portrait of some people in an important event, I will use my GX7 with an Oly 45mm f1.8 and pickup the Oly FL600R flash as well.

Or maybe I'm on a holiday and I want to take tons of different style of pictures? I will bring my GX7 with the Pan 14-140mm. Wildlife and ultra long range photo? GX7 and 100-300mm. Interior and wide field architectural? E-PL6 and 7-14mm. Be as small as possible but still take great picture? E-PL6 and the 17mm f2.8.

In fact, I can carry them all in just one small messenger bag and still weight less than 3kg and be ready for anything with the E-PL6 wielding one of the utility lenses such as the 100-300mm or 7-14mm to cover the blind spot of the 14-140 on the GX7 on the daytime or the 45mm or 25mm at night to complement the 17mm on GX7 in low light.

Imaginary Camera

However, there is always some time when I get a little bit more imaginative with my thinking and I've been wondering if there's such a super camera that can do more than what both my GX7 and E-PL6 combined can do.

So I started the process of writing down what I like from my current cameras and what is still missing on them that could be added. If any company makes this, I will surely be a happy geek.

E-PL6 with Olympus 45mm f1.8, perfect for quick portrait and long range street photo.

So here it goes...

First, it has to be in the advanced compact rangefinder style, like a GX7: 

- built in EVF that doesn't add bulk like on the GX7,
- lots of manual controls with preferably dual assignable control dials and a separate dedicated ISO dial wheel with 1 stop increments,
- standard hotshoe,
- built in bounce-able pop-up flash like in the GX7,
- assignable custom program modes,
- swiveling screen like the GH4(not just tilt and flip, it's difficult to do video with it),
- generous grip with front-positioned shutter button access preferably similar to E-M1
- it must not be bigger than the GX7.
- and it must be able to accept external vertical grip option if I want to have extra battery or extra ergonomics.

My GX7 with 100-300mm lens, perfect for wildlife and ultra telephoto needs.

Then, the technology must also be good: 

- 16MP Micro Four Thirds sensor will be enough but with removed optical low pass and AA filter so I can get more sharpness and detail,
- wifi features as good as the GX7
- super control panel like in the E-PL6
- improved ISO performance,
- improved dynamic range,
- video quality as good as the GX7 (I don't mind the absence of mic and headphone input, I always do external audio anyway),
- I don't need 4K, 1920x1080 is good enough for me but the video resolution down-sampling process must be at least as good as my GX7,
- 5 axis in body stabilizer like E-M1,
- some degree of weather sealing,
- good tracking auto focus,
- 10fps mechanical shutter burst with at least 20 shot buffer RAW,
- metering and white balance as good as my E-PL6,
- color processing as good as my E-PL6,
- bold focus peaking colors and indicators,
- in camera RAW editing with lots of parameters to edit the image and save it to JPEG,
- and also built in white balance compensation.

Anyway

This camera doesn't exist yet, with the closest one being the GX7. If the GX7 have a better grip with front-located shutter button, a swiveling screen, an Olympus-like color, an Olympus-like white balance accuracy, in camera RAW editing/processing, 5 axis in body stabilizer even during video, a dedicated ISO wheel, and weather sealing, then it will become my perfect camera. I actually won't mind if it's not a Panasonic or Olympus; any brand will do as long as it is still compatible with all my lenses.

This is just a sort of imaginary perfect camera, it doesn't exist.....yet. Nevertheless, I am happy with my current setup of GX7 and E-PL6 and I am sensing that they will be used for quite a long time. That's all for this post, I hope you enjoy this post. Don't forget to follow me at plus.google.com/+GaryWiryawan. Cheers and God bless :)

Update: The newly announced Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II is getting closer to my idea of the perfect camera. We'll see how it turns out.

More Update: The newly announced Panasonic GX8 answers almost all of my requirements, better than the E-M5 Mark II for sure!

My Love of Prime Lenses

Before I start

In case some of you don't know what a prime lens is: Prime lens is a lens with fixed focal length, meaning that you can't zoom with that lens. Usually, a prime lens does have a somewhat large aperture such as f/2.8, f/2, f/1.8 or even f/0.95; prime lens also usually delivers much better image quality result when compared to standard zoom lens due to simpler optical design. Prime lens does perform better in low light because of the large aperture which lets in  more light; it is also capable of blurring the background much more compared to zoom lens.

This was shot with a 50mm f1.8 on Canon APS-C which is 80mm eq full frame.

Back...

...in the Canon days, I used my EF 35mm f2.0 so many times to photograph almost everything, anywhere, no matter how good or bad the light is. It's a lovely lens and it still is until today one of my most respected lens. Coupled with my crop APS-C Canon body, it becomes a 56mm f3.2 equivalent of full frame sensor. It is very close to a regular 50mm but with a slightly wider and slightly more forgiving depth of field while maintaining equivalent exposure of f2.0 on the crop body.

And this was shot with a 35mm f2.0 on Canon APS-C which is close to 50mm eq full frame

I shot only on that lens for 4 months at least before I switched back to zoom but I really learned so many things in just that 4 months thanks to that lens. It teaches me to compose properly without trying to zoom in and out to achieve my composition. If I happen to need wide angle or telephoto lens, I would abandon the shot and just get a different angle or object on that particular scene and focus on it; it is really unforgiving and I missed many of what I thought would be my keeper pictures.

Nevertheless, I am still very thankful that I spent a lot of time with the 35mm f2.0 although I missed some shots. When I move back to zoom lens, I suddenly understand that the relationship between foreground and background changes drastically when you zoom, thus you have to pick how you want your foreground and background relates to each other.

Talking further about zoom lens, a lot of beginners would just zoom out to 18mm and try to get everything in the frame for typical landscape shot but then I learned that a slight zoom in to 40mm would sometimes work better to get that far background to come closer toward our eyes with the already close foreground and thus making a more interesting shot. With the zoom lens however, I can pull back the focal length in tight spaces and zoom in the focal length to get maximum magnification on some scenarios and thus get more keeper shots. However, as time goes, I miss shooting with that 35mm f/2.0 again and I occasionally put that lens back to my 650D and have some fun.

I then also acquired a 22mm f/2.0 which is the kit lens on my EOS M which is a 35mm equivalent on full frame that I also love very much for the versatility as well as the wide angle-ish look that doesn't exaggerate the foreground too much.

My Olympus E-PL6 with fun little prime lenses.

Now... 

...that I am on Micro Four Thirds system, I naturally want to gravitate back toward that 22mm f/2.0 and 35mm f/2.0 feel and vibe on my crop body. Luckily, there are plenty of prime lens choices in the MFT system for so many different focal length and aperture.

This was shot with a 17mm f1.8 on GX7 Micro Four Thirds, which is 35mm eq full frame.

I now have 17mm f/1.8, 17mm f/2.8, 25mm f/1.8, and 45mm f/1.8; they all cover all the necessary focal lengths that I usually need. Those prime lenses, if coupled with my Olympus E-PL6, are very inconspicuous, so they are ideal for keeping the size of the camera down as well as some street photography work. The 17mm lenses are very good for general street photography stuffs, imitating the focal length behaviour of my Canon EF-M 22mm f/2.0 perfectly; the 17mm f/2.8 in particular is perfect to make my camera very close to pocketable. The 25mm lens is perfect for tighter street photography stuffs or as a short range portrait lens. The 45mm lens is superb for portrait and slight compression effect.

My E-PL6 with 25mm f/1.8, a superb camera/lens combination!

Practice your photography with a prime lens!

Now I am suggesting you to have at least one prime lens, in particular the one that can give you a 35mm or 50mm focal length equivalent on full frame; stick to that lens for at least two months and don't change your lens at all, and start to really work hard to get your pictures (the 35mm will be more forgiving than the 50mm in my opinion). You will be surprised by the results and you will start to understand more and more about photography techniques which in time will make you a better photographer. I can now imagine how a scene looked on my 25mm f1.8 or 17mm f1.8 easily so I know whether I can get the shot or not before I turn on the camera. I am still practicing that same skill with my 45mm now, it's quite difficult actually but hopefully I'll get there.

If you don't want to purchase a prime lens and you only have a zoom lens, or if you only have a compact camera with no way to change lens, I suggest you to try the same thing by setting the zoom on your camera to 35mm equivalent or 50mm equivalent and keep it on that zoom for a few months.

Now, let's go outside and shoot some nice pictures! Until next time, cheers and God bless :)