Small and very light weighing in at a mere 55g it packs a bigger punch than it's reputation. Just my opinion of course. It's actually so small it looks out of place on the bigger MFT bodies. It's a 28mm equivalent on FF so it might not suit everybody.

However, mount it on one of the smaller bodies like a GM1 or GM5 and you have a perfect carry everywhere camera system.

My Fuji system is small and light with superb XF lenses and the cameras are a joy to use. They have a plethora of small light and quite bright prime lenses and they really shine too.

Since the introduction of the X-T30 and X-T3, Fuji have finally cracked the autofocus speed problem that their earlier cameras had. Not that they were really bad, it's just that other system cameras were a lot better. I took the ...

Lens 1. Panasonic 8-18 f2.8-4.0

Panasonic 8-18 f2.8-4.0
Weight: 315g
Size: 88mm x 73mm
Aperture: f2.8 - f22
MFD: 23cm
Filter: 67mm
Price: €1050

I decided to replace my Panasonic 7-14 f4 lens because of the problem I have of using it on my Olympus cameras. The purple blotch problem was just getting out of hand and I do tend to favour my Olympus cameras over the Panasonic. However, I think this lens ...

For those of us that like using manual focus lenses, I'm sure that we all have our favourites that we always grab on the way out the door. I have a few so I thought I would mention them here. maybe I can get a few tips an what you like, and maybe, just maybe, you can recommend one that I haven't tried and turns out to be a gem.

Samyang
I believe this manufacturer to be ...

Spur of the moment purchase - Sony FE 70-300 f4.5-5.6 G OSS

Weight: 854g
Size: 144mm x 84mm
Aperture: f4.5-5.6 - f22-f29
MFD: 90mm
Filter: 72
Price: €1250

Let me just say out front that this was a spur of the moment purchase. Do I need it? No. I just wanted it and for the following ...

It's been a number of weeks since I've posted. Life just gets in the way sometimes.

I though the fact that Tamron have brought out a firmware update for their 14-150 F/3.5-5.8 Di III [Model C001] was worth mentioning. I reported some time ago that the lens performed better on my Panasonic GX7 than on any other camera. If you look back at the FW update notes, version 1.1 was actually ...

Brought onto the market by Panasonic in 2007, this lens was my permanent buddy on one of my 4/3 Panasonic L1 bodies. It always went with me on my holidays and it has seen a lot of action over the years.

Weight: 520g
Size: 90mm x 79mm
Aperture: f3.5 - f22
MFD: 50cms
Filter: 72mm
Price: €1000

I believe I paid in the region of €1200 for ...

Having just tested the Olympus 14-42 f3.5-5.6 EZ I was expecting the same sort of performance from this lens. Lets just look at these two for a minute; both are 14-42mm, both are f3.5-5.6 and both have a power zoom (or electronic zoom). Lets see the specs for the lens:

Panasonic Lumix G Vario 14-42 f3.5-5.6 PZ Power O.I.S.
Weight: 95g
Size: 27mm x 61mm
Aperture: f3.5 - f22
MFD: 20cm
Filter: 37mm
Price: €330

This lens (or my copy) can't be described as Olympus' greatest achievement. I think this was the kit lens with one of the earliest EM models. Forgot which but it doesn't really matter.

Olympus 12-50 f3.5 - 6.3 EZ (24-100 35mm equivalent)
Weight: 212g
Size: 83mm x 57mm
Aperture: f3.5 - f22
MFD: 20cm
Filter: 52mm
Price: €230

I like the range 24mm - 100mm in FF ...

One of my first post was about using 135mm legacy lenses on mirrorless systems. Since then I've acquired another 135mm lens but not one that can be adapted to all systems. The original post was about legacy lenses easily adapted to modern digital mirrorless systems via a cheap dumb adapter.

This new lens has an FE Sony mount as the Sony native lens selection is rather lacking. I have some A mount lenses but ...

After the purchase of the Samyang 135mm f2 lens, and being very impressed by the image quality I decided to acquire the Samyang 100mm f2.8 Macro also in the E-mount version (I know I've said it before but I'll say it again anyway, there's no way I'm going to pay Sony the prices they're asking for their newer lenses). I did look at the Zeiss equivalent but I had to pick myself up off the ...

My last post was just me philosophising a little about what X-Mount lenses to buy or not. I still haven’t acquired the Fujinon 10-24 f4 because it’s just too expensive. Can’t justify it, and if I personally say that about a lens then it’s got to be serious. It doesn't mean that I've given up on that lens though, it's just on hold.

I decided to go another route with my X-Mount lenses with ...

                                   Zeiss T* 85 F4 Tessar ZM

Sometimes, just sometimes you purchase a new piece of equipment and you just fall in love with it. This is the experience I had after purchasing the Zeiss Tessar 85 f4 lens. It's just a wonderful piece of engineering. It's actually quite compact at 95mm with a diameter of 54mm but I class it as being quite hefty weighing in at 310g. As a matter of fact I wanted ...

Over the years I have accumulated a number of manual focus lenses from Olympus, Nikon, Minolta, Zeiss, Canon among others. All of these lenses have been tested (read used) on APS-C and M4/3 cameras with good results for most of them. Those lenses that didn't pass the test on those cameras have no chance of passing on a full frame camera for the simple reason that the sensor uses the sweet spot of ...