One Camera, Two Lenses

April 14, 2014

I’m increasingly finding that much of my photography is being accomplished with just two lenses, the M.ZUIKO 45mm f/1.8 (90mm equivalent on so called ‘full-frame’) and M.ZUIKO 25mm f/1.8 (50mm equivalent on full-frame).

The usefulness of the 50mm lens (in full-frame speak is well documented. Here’s the reason from the master himself, Henri Cartier-Bresson from a recently discovered interview with him by the freelance writer and photographer Sheila Turner Seed.

It [the 50mm lens] corresponds to a certain vision and at the same time has enough depth of focus, a thing you don’t have in longer lenses. I worked with a 90. It cuts much of the foreground if you take a landscape, but if people are running at you, there is no depth of focus. The 35 is splendid when needed, but extremely difficult to use if you want precision in composition. There are too many elements, and something is always in the wrong place. It is a beautiful lens at times when needed by what you see. But very often it is used by people who want to shout. Because you have a distortion, you have somebody in the foreground and it gives an effect. But I don’t like effects. There is something aggressive, and I don’t like that. Because when you shout, it is usually because you are short of arguments.

In the studio where I do a lot of my work the 25mm and 45mm are just ideal for capturing full length and head and shoulder shots respectively. Yes sometimes you need to take a couple of steps backward or forwards to frame the shot rather than zoom in or out but hey, what’s wrong with a bit of exercise while you are working?

Here’s a couple of examples of each lens from a recent shoot.