When I first got into photography I was a bit of a lens snob. I dismissed zoom lenses and instead aimed to collect a range of prime lenses in the belief that the image quality would be better.

With experience, I discovered that the quality of a modern zoom lens is indistinguishable from most prime lenses. And as I get older, I prefer carrying a couple of zoom lenses to hauling around a backpack full of primes — especially since a zoom lens is more flexible.

But that flexibility comes at a cost. Sometimes it’s good to give yourself constraints — psychologists tell us that constraints actually enhance creativity. So in lockdown 3, during my permitted daily exercise, I decided to blow the dust off my prime lenses and mount a different one each day on my Olympus EM-1 Mk II. I wanted to examine how each lens made me see differently. I do the same dog walk in the morning, a circular route of a mile or so, and it takes in a canal, bridges, some woodland, and a fishing lake.

I took around 30-60 photos each day and then went through each collection to identify the two I liked the most. To make the comparison meaningful, I didn’t allow myself to do any significant post processing (like cropping the images or cloning out distractions). I just allowed myself basic exposure and contrast enhancements in Lightroom. Here are my thoughts on each focal length.

On Day 1, I mounted my Olympus M.12mm f/2 (this is equivalent to 24mm on a full frame camera). Normally with a wide focal length like this I’m looking to find some foreground interest, but that was tricky on this walk.

On the plus side, the weather was misty and overcast, which meant I didn’t need to worry about having too much sky in my images.

Conclusion: This tends to be my go to lens for landscapes but it’s a hard perspective to master. Unless you can get in really close to something interesting in the foreground, it’s likely you’ll get empty areas in the frame that need to be cropped out. But at its best you’ll get an image that looks heroic and epic.

On Day 2, I used the Olympus M.17mm f/1.8 lens (this is equivalent to 34mm on a full frame camera). This is a focal length loved by street photographers and photojournalists.

Conclusion: I should shoot more landscapes at this focal length. It’s true that this lens doesn’t have the wow factor of a wider lens like the 12mm but it’s easier to compose with and it provides a more truthful, eyewitness view. It’s not as brash and in-your-face as the 12mm focal length but it can still bust a few moves when the music is right. I just need to watch my focus.

On Day 3, I used the Olympus M.25mm f/1.8 lens (this is equivalent to 50mm on a full frame camera). I’ve heard people describe this focal length as a 'normal' lens because it matches the field of view of the human eye. I’m not sure I agree with this assertion. It’s true that this lens make objects seem in proportion, but to my eye the world feels a bit zoomed in.

And that’s a good summary of how I felt using this lens: a bit zoomed in. I found myself needing to take a step back on more than one occasion to capture what I was seeing. Ironically, it didn’t feel as “normal” a view as with the 17mm lens. And although I felt closer in, the lens wasn’t close enough to take meaningful detail shots.

Conclusion: This lens feels like a good all rounder. If I’m heading out and I’m not sure what I’ll be shooting, this lens would probably be a good choice. It’s an easy lens to compose with as it makes everything in the scene feel in proportion. The downside is that it feels dispassionate and emotionless, especially with landscape views.

On Day 4, I used the Olympus M.45mm f/1.8 lens (this is equivalent to 90mm on a full frame camera). I didn’t have high expectations using this lens for landscape photography, and my expectations were pretty well met. It doesn’t have a short focusing distance, so it’s not very good for macro shots. At the same time, it pulls the scene in so close that it’s hard to create a vista (at least, that’s the case with the views on my dog walk). Perhaps it would fare better if there were semi-distant hills or mountains on my walk, although then I suspect I’d need an even longer lens like a 200mm equivalent.

I found it very difficult to see anything worth photographing with this lens. It wasn’t helped by the weather: it was grey and overcast with no interesting light. For some images, I found I needed to boost my ISO setting by a stop to ensure I avoided camera shake. I was taking shots pretty much for the sake of it — I knew that these pictures wouldn’t work, but I tried anyway. When I looked over the images later, it was hard to find even two worth showing.

Conclusion: This is a specialised lens that I’ll hold onto for portrait photography but I won’t be using for travel and landscape. I just can’t ‘see’ at this focal length and it brings the world in too close. It’s like that annoying person at a party who insists on getting inside your personal space but you can’t get away from them because there’s a wall behind you.

On Day 5, I used the Olympus M.60mm f/2.8 lens (this is equivalent to 120mm on a full frame camera). I like close-up photography, and from Day 1 of this project, I knew this was a lens that I would enjoy taking out with me.

Sadly, this being winter, it was a struggle to find suitable subjects: everything looks dead right now. I photographed chains and ropes on canal boats and some rusty metal textures but these weren’t the kind of detail shots I was hoping for.

Conclusion: This is another specialised lens but it’s one of my favourites of the set. I find it easier to ‘see’ at this focal length, especially since it’s a macro lens that lets me get in close. It encourages me to look for more ‘intimate’ landscape pictures — details in the landscape, rather than the epic vista. Unlike the 12mm lens that shouts, this lens whispers.

This is a circular walk that I’ve been doing for years. Most of the time, I walk the dog on auto-pilot and hardly pay any attention to the world. I enjoyed the last 5 days because I paid attention to what I was seeing. And that’s one of the reasons I do photography: to make myself see better. In terms of my expectations, I knew I’d enjoy the 60mm lens but I was surprised that I enjoyed using the 17mm lens so much. Before this, I would have said that a 12mm focal length (or even a super wide focal length, like 8mm) was where I liked to sit. It will be interesting to see if these findings extrapolate to more epic landscapes. Stay tuned to find out!