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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n First initial pictures using the new lens:<\/p>\n Yes the price hurts, but with pictures like this, it’s worth it!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/blog-2013-photography-P1010901-17mmf18.jpg\")
![\"OLYMPUS](\"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/blog-OMDA6105.jpg\")