A12: 50mm vs 28mm

[becauseitsnice]

Okay, another amatuer question.
i know the differences between 50mm and 28mm: 28 is wide = more street photography, and the 50mm is narrow = more for portraits (you can still shoot street)

my question is (for those who have played with both lens) which lens is better?
better meaning:
-image quality?
-autofocus?
-manual focus?
-build quality?
-movie quality?
-anthiny thing you guys can throw at me.

i know what kind of photographer i am. i love shooting portraits, and i love shooting street. please don't say get both, i can't afford it. im fine with getting either because i can shoot street and portraits with 28mm wide, and vice versa with 50mm.

another question is, do you guys think ricoh is going to come out with 35mm prime for the gxr? if so i'll wait. i know they're coming out with leica m- mount... that's something for me to consider too, but i just don't want to manually focus.

 

[andrewteee]

If I were to recommend just one, which is a very tough choice, I'd recommend the 50mm. It has just a little extra fairy dust in the lens and it also does macro. A nice all-around focal length.

 

[odklizec]

-image quality? - about the same. Sensor and processing is the same, so there is no reason for big image quality differences. Both lenses are very sharp and even in JPEG you can get very usable results from both modules. I prefer to use RAW from historic reasons and mainly for high ISO photos and difficult lightning conditions. But there are many cases when I'm unable to reproduce the same good results from RAW as I get directly from JPEG

-autofocus? - in good conditions about the same (28mm lens has some edge), some hunting in case of low light and 50mm lens.

-manual focus? - well, in my opinion, it's annoying in both modules. Focus by wire is a very silly idea and will never be as usable as proper MF lenses. Ricoh implemented a shortcut for faster manual focus. But it's still nowhere nice to use as proper manual MF. This is where I put high hopes into the M mount module and good old manual lenses.

-build quality? - about the same top notch quality

-movie quality? - quality is not bad, but the overall video experience is very limited. Once you press the shutter, everything is locked and there is very little you can set before shooting. And the video files are big.

-anthiny thing you guys can throw at me. - The 50mm lens offers easier background blur, which is both bless and curse. Bless, because it's easier to make the main subject of interest separated from the background. Curse, because it makes the focusing a bit slower, harder to keep the camera in focus, not to mention it's harder to shot inside, where you quickly hit on relative limited ISO range. If you want to avoid using flash, ISO3200 is often not enough in case of 50mm and limited light conditions. Another disadvantage of 50mm lens is much harder usage of Snap focus, because of narrower DoF.

It's hard to recommend particular module. Both lenses works great for different purpose. I think the 50mm lens is nicer to have because of greater bokeh and for me personally, because of its angle of view, not so far from my favorite 40mm. And one does not have to go as close to the subject of interest. People gets easily distracted if you go too close to them

another question is, do you guys think ricoh is going to come out with 35mm prime for the gxr? if so i'll wait. i know they're coming out with leica m- mount... that's something for me to consider too, but i just don't want to manually focus. - don't you have easier question? I would love to see fast 40mm pancake from Ricoh. But I seriously doubt there will be anything like that in a near future (let's say one year from now). There are just too many other thing to do for Ricoh for this year. The M mount module, the A12 zoom module, GRDIV, CX6, maybe some GXR accessories and I guess there will be new GXR body introduced as well? Even if we skip the idea of some accessories and new GXR body, there is a lot of things to do in next 6-7 months

 

[becauseitsnice]

hahahaha, yeah. my questions are: i guess too much? hahaha. i thank you a lot for the time you put into answering my questions. i am leaning towards the 50mm.

it would be nice to see 40mm pancake lens for the gxr, but who knows.

a new body for the gxr would be very nice. maybe with manuel shutter knobs (like the x100) along with 40mm pancake lens with manual aperature ring? hehehehe one day...

 

[ginger]

I also think A12 28mm handles better in lowlight and extreme lowlight conditions. The 50mm is quick to bump up Max ISO when light sources start to diminish. With the 28mm, I can still use respectable shutter speeds between 30-40secs at ISO 3200. I got shaky hands so this is a good thing for me to prevent shots from getting blurry! That said, the 50mm is my preferred lens for street portraits in daylight conditions -- it just gives a magical look that I cannot explain.

 

[alorenzen]

Thx - all your comments helps a lot - being in front of the same decision.
So far it looks the A12 50mm would be the better choice for me as well. The most annoying thing is the size, as my original intention to buy the GXR was to get a real compact camera.