Lenses for all occasions

 Aside from the habit of finding OM1 bodies at prices which are too good to resist, there is also the question of which lens to buy. Or rather lenses. Of course you can't just have one...

I mentioned in an earlier post that prices of most OM series cameras are not too astronomical, and the same can be said for a lot of the Zuiko lenses out there. There are exceptions - the 85mm and 100mm primes tend to cost more than three or four OM1 bodies stacked on top of each other - but you can get a reasonable selection of lenses for not a huge amount of money.

Now I will say from the start that I am not one of those lens fanatics who blows up the top corner of an image and points out the distortion. Not to belittle their contribution to the world of photography, but I prefer to spend my time looking at the subject of the photo. (No doubt one day I will take a photo of some parallel lines and regret those words). What I do know is that on the whole the Zuiko lenses are pretty darn good. Aside from the reasonable prices, they tend to be small and light. So which have I ended up with?

While the 85 & 100mm primes remain my dream charity shop finds, I have put together a small set of lenses to cover all occasions, or at least, all I am likely to encounter. My 50mm is the f1.8 version - if the f1.4 or f1.2 come my way, then I might try one, but I really don't see a huge benefit. I like to take unusual shots of buildings, old and new, so for wide angles I have a 28mm f2.8. Then there are the 135mm f3.5 and 200mm f4 for telephoto shots - not used a great deal yet, but as I help out at a place with plenty of wildlife, I think they will come in handy.

The four primes

 

If I am going out with particular scenes and shots in mind, then I would take one or more of the above, up to the point where I run out of room in my bag. Sometimes, especially if it a case of going out with no idea what will show up, it is tempting to keep things simpler and lighter by taking a zoom. Some will say that the image quality may suffer, but for the sake of saving an aching shoulder, I am happy to go with it. So at the moment my favourite "one size fits most" lens is the 35-105mm f3.5-4.5, which is surprisingly compact, and can cope with most things I come across. If I am feeling even less inclined to carry weight around, the 35-70mm f3.5-4.5 is only marginally bigger than the standard 50mm. And finally, if it's a wide-angle sort of day, then I found a 28-48mm f4, which again is a very nice size.

Three zooms for light weight days

 

I don't think I paid more than £60 for any of those, several quite a bit less, and all are in top condition. Not wanting to get into dismantling and cleaning, I avoid any which warn of fungus or haze, and those where I suspect the seller wouldn't know if there was any. Maybe I am lucky, but I have only had to return one, where the lens which arrived was a different (and allegedly inferior) version to the one advertised. Other than that, eBay and a couple of dealer sites have been good to me.