UKH

HI All,

I'm looking at getting an Olympus E-M5 mk II or III. I'd be looking at using it mainly for trailing running. Would also use it for hiking and mountaineering. 

Are there any lenses you would recommend? Ideally I'd still like the camera to fit in my running vest stretch pocket. (Salomon ADV skin 12) 

I'm currently thinking that the Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 EZ would be a good choice cause it's nice and compact and has a decent zoom range.

Any other lenses which you would recommend? A nice zoom range would be great.

Cheers

Glenn

the alternative pancake lens is the panasonic 12-32mm that i use, but would prefer the oly..

youtube.com/watch?v=fkK632kezlI&

The panny 20 is good but cannot be sensibly manually focussed. I ditched it in favour of the Oly 17 f1.8 which is good for shots of your mate on a VF and wide enough for most landscape. It can also be manually focussed. For hiking I have the oly 12-40 f2.8, it's too bulky for carrying on VFs or climbs.

I really like the Panasonic 14mm f2.5 on my Panasonic GX80. Small and pocketable when out and about. Image quality tends to be good enough to crop in post if required. Also tend to find the fixed focal length makes taking photos on the go easier, I find that my brain starts to think in the focal length (28mm in this case) when looking for things to take shots of rather than messing about with a zoom, might be worth considering as an option to try especially as they can be picked up pretty cheaply. 

I've just acquired Olympus E-M10 mk III secondhand from Park Cameras.  That has an Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 14-42mm 1:3.5-5.6 with which I am impressed, to the extent of being surprised by what it can do. It gets a bit fatter when you put a filter on the front to protect the lens which is otherwise very exposed.

The biggest problem is finding a case that fits snugly - I have an old CCS case which is 'rucksack compatible' but that is rather too roomy.  The camera goes climbing - wrapped up in a tenba 12 inch wrap, which is a bit marginal frankly.  Both together fit nicely in the CCS case.

To be fair, I've not got much to compare it to - the old Panasonc Lumix that it replaced and an equally ancient Pentax K10 which is built like a cornerstone of the Bank of England.

17mm f1.8 would be my suggestion too. I don't regret buying mine.

My partner has the 14-44mm pancake lens. It's great in terms of size but I don't like motorized focus. (I got myself an older model 14-44, the non-pancake option for manual focus).

As an alternative to the Olympus 17mm

the Panasonic 15mm 1.7 is a lovely lens pin sharp and a handy Goldilocks focal length.

https://www.photographyblog.com/reviews/panasonic_leica_dg_summilux_15mm_f1...
 

Dji also do a rebranded version of the same lens which can be picked up on eBay , I quite often leave this on my EM5II as a walkabout lens.

Thanks for the replies everyone.

Best Regards,

Glenn