Confused about wide angle lenses..

[slackerinabox]

Have an olympus e-pl1 that I absolutely love (micro four thirds) and would like something a little wider than the kit lens (14-42mm). I don't know much about photography but need the widest lens possible (while sticking below $500, mind you) and have found the following lens:

Olympus 17mm
Panasonic pancake - 20mm

What I don't understand is, isn't my kit lens' 14mm wide than the very well reviewed panasonic pancake's 20mm? Am I missing something?

Also, back in the day I used to use screw on lens for my canon HV20 to go a little wider than stock - are there any screw on additions that I can purchase that would work, without a ton of barrel distortion? I know the $20 ones suck but would a pricier one from a better name work, or am I just better off getting a micro four thirds lens?

Thanks!

 

[ElFenix]

20 mm isn't a wide angle of view on u4/3. it's actually fairly normal (normal is 22.5 mm for u4/3). 17 is 'equivalent' of 35 mm on a 35 mm film camera, which is considered slightly wide (a very useful focal length, imho). the kit's 14 mm wide end is equivalent of 28 mm, which is considered the gateway to wide angle. and yes, it is more wide than 17 or 20.

 

[996GT2]

Have an olympus e-pl1 that I absolutely love (micro four thirds) and would like something a little wider than the kit lens (14-42mm). I don't know much about photography but need the widest lens possible (while sticking below $500, mind you) and have found the following lens:

Olympus 17mm
Panasonic pancake - 20mm

What I don't understand is, isn't my kit lens' 14mm wide than the very well reviewed panasonic pancake's 20mm? Am I missing something?

Also, back in the day I used to use screw on lens for my canon HV20 to go a little wider than stock - are there any screw on additions that I can purchase that would work, without a ton of barrel distortion? I know the $20 ones suck but would a pricier one from a better name work, or am I just better off getting a micro four thirds lens?

Thanks!

Your kit lens is 14-42mm, which is equivalent to 28-84mm in 35mm terms. That range is moderate wideangle to short telephoto. The Panasonic 20mm is not well reviewed because of its wideness, but rather because of its sharpness, fast aperture, and the fact that 20mm (40mm equivalent) is a useful "do it all" focal length.

Olympus makes a 9-18mm lens for the PL1, which translates into an 18-36mm ultrawide. Panasonic makes a 7-14mm, which is much more expensive but gives you a 14-28mm equivalent ultrawide range.

The Olympus 9-18mm sells for around $550, which is close to your price range. Combined with the image stabilization of the PL1, this lens would make for an excellent indoor architecture lens that doesn't need a tripod.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...X94SYEQ6GDSH99

However, if $550 is too much, you could look into buying an ebay wide-angle converter for the 14-42mm kit lens. Image quality will suffer (especially around the edges of the image), but if you don't plan to make large prints and only want to display small versions of the images online, it should provide acceptable quality.