When You Have Only One 'Dance Partner' for the Whole Evening

• Professional photography article •

It is rare to find a dance partner with whom you can slow-dance intimately, rock out passionately and throw yourself into a wild pogo — all in the same evening.

The M.Zuiko 17mm PRO is exactly that kind of “dance partner”.

Where do I even begin praising it? :)

To understand why I love and use the M.Zuiko 17mm PRO, 45mm PRO and 75mm 1:1.8 lenses so much, we need to look back a little.

It was late at night and I was standing on the stage of a Ski & Snowboard Festival.

Beside me, the DJ was driving the atmosphere into a frenzy.

Below me, the crowd was lost in the music.

I had an M.Zuiko 45mm 1:1.8, an M.Zuiko 25mm 1:1.8 and my favourite creative tool, the Olympus PEN-F.

The camera was not the problem.

The two lenses, however, soon became problematic in that situation.

I wanted to isolate faces in the crowd.

To my surprise, my beloved 45mm 1:1.8 almost immediately reached its limit.

The f/1.8 aperture was not bright enough for the shutter speed I wanted.

I had to increase the ISO and wait.

Wait.

And wait some more.

I needed the disco lighting to hit a face at exactly the right moment — while, of course, also waiting for exactly the right expression.

A serious challenge.

And a test of patience.

No problem.

I like that kind of thing.

After all, I only needed one or two perfect photographs for the article, and the party would continue for hours.

Minutes passed.

Then suddenly:

Maybe now.

Now.

Now.

Yesss.

The perfect photograph.

I looked at my watch and nearly fell over.

I had been standing on stage for almost forty minutes. :O

Never mind.

Now I only needed the DJ.

Oops.

That was already a different guy.

I had missed the one I wanted.

Damn.

Now I had to wait again because this DJ was not particularly relevant to the article, although the next one would be.

I pulled out the 25mm 1:1.8.

Surely everything would fit perfectly with this, I thought.

On full frame it corresponds to roughly 50mm.

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And 50mm is supposed to be the great all-rounder.

I started testing it.

My enthusiasm began to fade.

Again, f/1.8 was not enough.

And the lens was not separating the subject from the background the way I wanted.

This was not what I was used to.

I had switched to Olympus from a Canon 6D, and with a 50mm f/1.4 on the Canon I could have solved this easily.

All right — at ISO 3200, to be fair.

On top of that, the 25mm was too tight for me.

I had to step back.

But there was no space.

The situation was getting complicated.

And now we can return to the present.

I imagine many photographers have experienced a similar feeling when trying to achieve strong background separation with a Micro Four Thirds system.

After that event, I began investigating how I could create genuinely soft background separation even at distances of less than a metre.

The real, elegant solution came in two forms:

the 45mm PRO,

and the wider 17mm PRO.

The latter gives a full-frame equivalent field of view of roughly 35mm — which, for me, is perfect for practically everything.

It is difficult to explain this with dry numbers, so with the help of a model I tested the lens both on the street and at home in order to show the result visually.

In the image above, for example, the window is only around 30–40 cm from the model's face, yet the subject is still beautifully separated from the background.

All the photographs below were made at f/1.2, and I think they speak for themselves in terms of detail as well.

Look at the street scene, for example, and how naturally the background falls away from the model.

If I deliberately want to exaggerate perspective a little, I move closer.

But even from around 1.5 metres, the proportions remain balanced and attractive.

I love breaking the basic rules of photography.

In composition, I often enjoy irregular, “not normal” choices.

I have four different black-and-white settings programmed into the PEN-F, and I often love shooting only RAW + JPEG.

All of the photographs shown here were also produced as JPEGs in camera.

But what do we even call normal?

I don't think there really is such a thing.

Different people find different things beautiful.

Different things work for different people.

That is precisely what makes photography such a wonderful profession:

We can show the same thing in completely different ways.

And, ultimately, none of us owns the absolute truth. :D

So, for all the reasons above, if I could keep only one lens, it would definitely be the 17mm PRO.

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After all, dancing is best when you and your partner can feel the rhythm together no matter what song starts playing. :)

P.S. The M.Zuiko 75mm 1:1.8 is an entirely different world. I'll write about that one soon too. ;)

And I would also like to thank one of the most professional models I have ever had the pleasure of working with — who also happens to be a mother of two — for the uniquely atmospheric photographs:

Radogna Melody

High-quality event photography builds a lasting visual story out of natural, authentic moments.

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For the professional context and practical side of portrait photography, visit the BANHALMI professional website. Related art series, books and exhibitions are preserved in the BANHALMI ART archive.