Black Friday Equals New Lens!

Left to Right: Fujifilm 10-24mm f/4, Olympus 7-14mm f/2.8 PRO, Panasonic 7-14mm f/4 (click to enlarge)
A quick size comparison among lenses of approximately same angles of coverage.

Black Friday always brings deals.  In the past, I would save up money and hold off any anticipated purchases until the arrival of Black Friday.  This year I did the same.

Both Olympus and Fujifilm were generous and put almost all of their lenses on sale, each for a significant savings.  So, I availed myself of the bargains and purchased three, yes three, lenses.  Way too many, I know, but my habit is to sell gear to finance new gear, especially gear I don't use very often.  New lenses arrive and lesser used lenses will go.

Olympus 60mm f/2.8 macro lens (click to enlarge)
Tiny but everything I have read about it says it is a stellar macro lens;  I'll soon find out!

I anticipate delving into macro photography over this long, cold, winter.  I haven't done much macro in the past, so I thought it would be a good pursuit when the gray, dreary days in the dregs of winter are upon us.  I decided to purchase the Olympus 60mm f/2.8 macro lens.  It is tiny!  I mean tiny!  I look forward to some indoor tabletop macro work over the winter months, then outside in the spring when the flowers start to appear.

The Olympus 7-14mm f/2.8 PRO lens on my E-M1 (click to enlarge)
This lens is large compared to other M4/3 lenses, but not too large.  It fits nicely on my E-M1
(note: I normally keep the bottom half of a RRS L-bracket on the camera as shown above)

Also, from Olympus, I purchased the 7-14mm f/2.8 PRO lens.  I wanted to replace my Panasonic 7-14mm f/4 lens with this Olympus one.  Nothing wrong with the Panny and I'll sell it soon, but I wanted to standardize my M4/3 gear on all Olympus lenses.  I like the "snap back" focusing ability, especially when photographing with wide angle lenses.  The Olympus has this feature while the Panasonic does not.

However...  this lens is quite large when compared with other M4/3 lenses.  In fact, it is larger than the Fujifilm 10-24mm f/4 lens.  Of course, most of the difference is due to the maximum apertures of f/2.8 on the Olympus versus f/4 on the Fujifilm lens.

Another comparison of the lenses on their respective cameras; E-M1 on the left and X-T1 on the right. (click to enlarge)

The third lens I purchased was the Fujifilm 14mm f/2.8.  I wasn't using my 10-24mm lens as much as I thought I would when I first purchased it.  Additionally, I want keep the size and weight of my Fuji kit as small and light as possible, so I will substitute the 14 for the 10-24.  The 14mm f/2.8, in my initial tests, is not only small, lightweight but stellar in performance.  I will sell the 10-24mm f/4 soon as well.  By the way, the Fuji 14mm lens uses the same lens hood as the 18-55mm lens, so I need only to carry on, saving some additional space and weight.  A nice bonus.

Size Comparison between the Fujifilm 14mm f/2.8 and 10-24mm lenses
(click to enlarge)

All in all, the savings was $400 US.  In my mind, I justify my purchases by quoting the old saying, "you have to spend money to save money," at least that is how I try to convince myself to buy things.

I've included some images so you can see the sizes of these lenses compared to one another.

I'll have more to say and some comparisons in the future.

Thanks for looking. Enjoy!

Dennis A. Mook

All content on this blog is © 2013-2015 Dennis A. Mook. All Rights Reserved. Feel free to point to this blog from your website with full attribution. Permission may be granted for commercial use. Please contact Mr. Mook to discuss permission to reproduce the blog posts and/or images.