Jerome Marot
Well-known member
To complement the thread about choosing a small camera system, I decided to look about the primes offered for the new camera systems. I think that the new camera systems are:
Sony NEX
Olympus-Panasonic µ4/3
Samsung NX
Leica S (yes, I know it is not a compact and light system, I just throw it in for comparison)
The basic idea behind the listing is to come from the point of view of a photographer who is using a small set of primes. Can he/she find a set of primes in any of these new systems? A set of primes would be a wide-angle, standard and small tele, and maybe another lens. Something akin to the focal lengths used for the Leica M6 (understood as the focal lengths for which the built-in viewfinder had a dedicated frame). I know it is arbitrary, but this is just an exercise: "can a photographer walk around with a camera and a small set of primes today as he/she did in the 50s?".
I decided to list the lenses by angle of view, given in equivalent 35mm format. Small lenses (so called "pancakes") are in magenta. Macro lenses have the letter M, lenses with Optical Stabilisation the letter S. Sony has 2 converters for the 16mm, making it into a wide-angle and fisheye primes, those are listed in grey (are they primes or not?). I list the lenses announced, even when not yet available.
__________________fish_______18_______24_______28_______35______40_______50______75______90________135_____
NEX_______________2.8________2.8_____2.8________________1.8________3.5M ________1.8S_______________________
Olympus _____________________________2.0________________2.8______________________________1.8_______________
Panasonic_________3.5__________________________2.5______________1.7______1.4_____________2.8MS____________
Samsung______________________________2.8___________________________2.0____________________________________
Leica_S2_______________________________________2.5________________________2.5________________2.5M_______3.5
Interestingly, all manufacturers have around 4 primes (except Samsung), but they did not chose the same focal lengths for them. µ4/3 has more primes than any other system, because it is supported by 2 independent manufacturers.
Sony NEX
Olympus-Panasonic µ4/3
Samsung NX
Leica S (yes, I know it is not a compact and light system, I just throw it in for comparison)
The basic idea behind the listing is to come from the point of view of a photographer who is using a small set of primes. Can he/she find a set of primes in any of these new systems? A set of primes would be a wide-angle, standard and small tele, and maybe another lens. Something akin to the focal lengths used for the Leica M6 (understood as the focal lengths for which the built-in viewfinder had a dedicated frame). I know it is arbitrary, but this is just an exercise: "can a photographer walk around with a camera and a small set of primes today as he/she did in the 50s?".
I decided to list the lenses by angle of view, given in equivalent 35mm format. Small lenses (so called "pancakes") are in magenta. Macro lenses have the letter M, lenses with Optical Stabilisation the letter S. Sony has 2 converters for the 16mm, making it into a wide-angle and fisheye primes, those are listed in grey (are they primes or not?). I list the lenses announced, even when not yet available.
__________________fish_______18_______24_______28_______35______40_______50______75______90________135_____
NEX_______________2.8________2.8_____2.8________________1.8________3.5M ________1.8S_______________________
Olympus _____________________________2.0________________2.8______________________________1.8_______________
Panasonic_________3.5__________________________2.5______________1.7______1.4_____________2.8MS____________
Samsung______________________________2.8___________________________2.0____________________________________
Leica_S2_______________________________________2.5________________________2.5________________2.5M_______3.5
Interestingly, all manufacturers have around 4 primes (except Samsung), but they did not chose the same focal lengths for them. µ4/3 has more primes than any other system, because it is supported by 2 independent manufacturers.