My favorite (MFT) lenses
published:I use the Olympus PEN E-P7 as my everyday camera. Here are some of my favorite lenses for taking pictures:
☥ Laowa Argus 18mm f/0.95
By far my favorite lens is the Laowa Argus 18mm f/0.95 MFT APO. With the MFT crop factor, it's comparable to a 36mm f/1.9 full frame lens. The optical quality is stunning, especially for the price, but it is also one of the harder lenses to use because the focus is fully manual. Especially at f/0.95 it's hard to nail the sharp area, which means I discard a lot of photos. It's a lens for when you have time, not if you need to nail a shot quickly. I rely heavily on the zoom function and focus peaking on the camera when using this lens, especially at f/1.4 or f/0.95. The bokeh is especially pleasing. Sometimes it feels a little bit like an anamorphic lens due to the barrel distortion. The lens has a switch mechanism to set the aperture ring to "click" or "smooth", so it's also suitable for video. The focusing ring is buttery smooth, and the aperture ring has a satisfying click (or is buttery smooth as well when you switch it to de-clicked mode). There is also a 25mm f/0.95 version (full frame equivalent of 50mm f/1.9) of this lens.
☥ Lumix 14mm f/2.5 & 20mm f/1.7
My everyday lens is the LUMIX G 14mm f/2.5 II Asph. In combination with the E-P7, it makes for a very lightweight and compact camera with a 28mm f/5 full-frame equivalent field of view and a decent autofocus.
I also use the LUMIX G 20mm f/1.7 II Asph., which offers a 40mm f/3.4 full-frame equivalent field of view with shallower depth of field. I carry it with me all the time, but the autofocus is much slower and it is a bit too "zoomed in" for my taste, so I don't use it that often.
☥ Honorable Mentions
The Laowa 7.5mm f/2 brought back my joy for photography in 2020. All photos in my photo diary (except the iPhone shots) from 2020 and 2021 were taken with this lens. It has manual focus, but it is so wide that everything is sharp anyway if you set the focus point to 1m or more. There is now also a 6mm variant for an even wider field of view. Nowadays I use this lens less, but it is so small I can take it with me without adding much extra weight.
Another great wide-angle lens is the Leica 12mm f/1.4. It's a super sharp lens with fast autofocus, but a bit on the heavier side, so I don't carry it that often. I probably should use it more often, though.
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