A Tribute to the Best Lenses I Ever Used: My Top Picks Part 2
- 1 day ago
- 8 min read
Okay..... a lot has happened since that Part 1 post. I am questioning all my gear again, and I even bought back into the Fujifilm system.... Oh boy.
Buy hey, I guess that is part of the fun. I feel reacquainted with an old friend. And that friend has been working out and doing a lot of self-improvement! Holy moly, the X-E5 is an amazing camera! I ended up putting the good old 35mm F1.4 on it and I am loving that combo at the moment. However, I did not remember just how much chromatic aberration that lens has, but I guess that is what nostalgia will do to you. Still a super nice combo.
Anyway, back to the missing brands for this part 2: Sony FE-mount, Pentax K-mount, M43 mount, and a little bit of Hasselblad X and Fujifilm GFX. We kick it off with Sony. Picking my three favorite lenses was rather easy because I just don't feel so much when it comes to Sony lenses. So I could pick from a short list. I know this is ridiculous. Lenses are just glass, metal, and plastic. What is there to feel? And yet.... But let's not talk about the more sterile part of the Sony FE-mount catalogue, let's talk about the juicy bits. I will do this ranging from wide angle to short tele-photo. Where does wide-angle begin? The internet seems to not be able to agree. For me, I would say that 24mm is in the wide-angle camp. But without the funny business in the corners. Anyway, the Sony 24mm F1.4 is an absolute gem of a lens. You can find dozens, if not hundreds, of raving reviews about this lens and I totally get why. To have F1.4 on a 24mm full-frame lens is already amazing, but this lens also brings that soft sharpness that is so unlike Sony which usually borders on the outright clinical.
It is of course amazing in low light but I think it also shines in the wide angle background separation. This is also the appeal of a camera like the Leica Q. Given that the lens on that camera is quite a bit wider than the 28mm it says on the barrel, I think these two can be compared. The lens was released in 2018 and these days you can buy it for around 1300 euros, but second hand prices still hover around 1000 euro which shows how much this lens is loved. Sigma makes a 24mm F1.4 that is comparable in weight and length for Sony FE-mount. Canon also has one on offer. Nikon used to make an F-mount 24mm F1.4 but as far as I know has not designed one for Z-mount. And then there is Leica which offers a manual focus 24mm F1.4 Summilux. But that is in a league of its own in terms of manual focus, size, and.... cost. The Sony 24mm F1.4 is a beautiful lens. If you like that focal length, it is one of the best options, if not THE best out there.
I owned the Sony 50mm F1.4 GM lens for a while and shooting with that lens made me realize that the Sony 50mm F1.2 GM is truly something special. The F1.4 GM is..... fine. It has everything you need. It is maybe a bit big but all modern full frame lenses that operate at amazing-miraculous-outstanding levels are big(ger). The F1.4 does not make me look twice at an image the way the F1.2 did. That lens makes you look at a photo on your screen, then click to the next, and immediately return and go 'hold up a minute.... wow!'. It has a specific painterly touch, while not sacrificing anything on sharpness and removing unwanted items (I am looking at you Fuji 35mm F1.4).
I mean, come on! Just look at the easy contrast between the sharp in focus part and the blurry background. I am getting impressionist vibes from this lens.
Another example to show that it can be clinical when it wants to be. The reason I got rid of this lens has much more to do with the camera attached to it, not so much the lens itself. It's heavy, yes that is true. And I would only recommend to carry this lens in a one-lens setup.
On to the third lens for the Sony FE-mount and this one is a short tele. I have always loved 135mm as a focal length and the Zeiss Batis 135mm F2.8 is a great option. More than great. It is actually has lens stabilization built in, and while F2.8 isn't all that special, it makes up for it in how it renders and how lightweight it is. You could argue a Tamron 70-180mm F2.8 is a much more rational choice as you would get so much more focal range. And... you are right. But this is not about rationality. If it was, nobody would write or read blogs like these to begin with. This lens speaks to me. In ways I can't explain. Let me show you.
For me, the Batis 135mm produces images I want to look at. In a way, I find the rendering very similar to the Sony 50mm F1.2 GM. I could pick so many photos, but this blog can only be so long, so I will add one more from the Batis and let you decide whether it is worth it. For most people, carrying a 135mm F2.8 prime makes no sense at all. And I get that. Then again, I just see something special, something I can't put to words when I look at photos taken with this lens.
We are saying goodbye to Sony now and moving on to the quirky Pentax K-mount. I like Pentax. I like that they are holding on to what they believe in. It will be an uphill battle but they have created some momentum with the K-3 iii monochrom and with Ricoh being part of the company, the GR cameras are doing well. But we are not here to discuss the economic feasibility of digital single lens reflex cameras in a market that has clearly chosen for mirrorless. We are here to talk about lenses.
Modern Pentax SLR lenses weren't so much my thing. What pulled me to the K-mount was the limited trio of 21, 43, and 77mm. The 31mm never really spoke to me. The limited series lenses are all beautifully made. I loved holding and using them. What was less cool but somehow part of the experience was the focusing mechanism. The camera powers the screw mechanism and it is an noisy and inaccurate experience... I did enjoy the manual focus experience with the beautiful viewfinders of either the K-1 Mk2 or the K-3 Mk3.
Say what you want about Pentax but Leica choosing to go with 43mm for one of their most important cameras in recent years, shows that the engineers from Japan get it right, a lot of the time. They don't play by conformist rules. The Pentax 43mm F1.9 is a great walkaround lens.
We move to the longest lens in the limited range, the Pentax 77mm F1.8. Again, the parallel with Leica is more than clear. These are companies that look at what makes for a great focal experience and then they just build them*. I think 75mm or 77mm is such a sweetspot. The Pentax 77mm is such a small lens for what it can do. The beauty of the K-mount is that you can use the lens on full-frame and APSC and create a 112-ish mm lens out of it.
Finally, there is the Pentax 21mm F2.4. Not as amazing as the other two I mentioned, a bit more clinical. Maybe even just a better lens, but there was not as much excitement in it compared to its brothers. But if you are looking for a strong wide angle option for K-mount, this is it.
Now... let's talk about the last lens mount I have extensive experience with: the Micro Four Thirds mount. This was actually the system that got me into mirrorless, after shooting Nikon in DLSR times. I was amazed by the portability, and..... disappointed by the levels of noise. I have dipped my toes into the system a few times over the years. I still have a weak spot for it.
The lens that is just so easy to recommend is the Panasonic 20mm F1.7 - both versions. It's the kind of lens you have on an M43 camera with you when you go ziplining in South Africa and a small chameleon jumps on your face. Once you succumb from the shock and the little fellow is on the wooden ledge, this lens is what you use to capture it.
A similar focal length lens was made for M43 later, the OM System 20mm F1.4 lens is much better, but it is also about twice the size. I did really enjoy that lens thought, that 40mm FF FOV being a great option as an everyday carry camera. The photo below was taken with the advantage of that silly stabilization that you get from modern M43 cameras. To get this effect handheld is still incredible to me.
I talked about 75mm being a great focal length and even though on M43 the FF equivalent is 150mm, it still is 75mm on M43. The Olympus 75mm F1.8 is so good. It is quite an older lens but if I was to build a M43 kit today, this would be one of the first lenses I would buy. Beautiful rendering.
Finally, a lens I only really used on Safari, because who uses a M43 200mm lens for anything else if you don't shoot sports? So this is a bit of a one trick pony and by now also surpassed by OM System's 50-200mm F2.8, but the Leica 200mm F2.8 is a joy to shoot with. Fantastic and true Leica build quality and what it produces is very yummy.
OK, I will do a final shout out to two lenses from the digital medium format realm. The first one is the stunning Fujifilm GFX 110mm F2. I've written about this lens before. I have no words. It is a beast.
And then a nudge to a slightly shorter telelens from the competitor camp, the Hasselblad 90mm F2.5 V. Again, painterly rendering. I'd put this in the same camp as the Sony 50mm F1.2, the Leica 50mm F1.4 and 75mm F2 in terms of how it brings a special spice to your images.
So there you have it, my favorite lenses ever..... These two posts have been interesting to write and made me reflect on what truly matters in photography. It has become much more than a list of amazing lenses. It has helped me see that what I seek in photography is not ultimate image quality. I want gear to help me see the moment, to frame it, to capture the light that reveals it. I also want to feel a sense of accomplishment when I shoot something. Some lenses help here, and some you almost actively have to overcome to get a result. Both can be enjoyable. I want my photos to invoke or reinforce memories of time well spent. Any lens that helps me do that is a great lens in my book.... *shoutout to Viltrox and Tamron for doing exactly that
What a "departure" from your previous post, yet I feel your voice is well experienced and thought out! It's a refreshing take from most influencers peddling the newest sponsored optic solution.