Maybe you don't need exactly what you think

I have been shooting for around 13 years, mainly wildlife (from birds to mammals to landscape to macro) and art (architecture), and of course I know my needs very well. Very well. Or so I thought.

While thinking about the P 100-400 vs the O 300, I thought:

As a wildlife shooter, the 100-400 should be better because of the zoom versatility. And those 100 extra mm may be useful sometimes (I have also the 50-200 + EC2.0, so I know that 400mm may be quite useful).

On the other hand, the 300 is 5/4 stops faster, and I usually shoot in dark rainforests. I'm used to shoot at even ISO6400 obtaining usable images, but fast is really needed.

So I thought to look at the actual statistics of my shooting. I looked at all the pictures in my home page shoot with the 100-300 (776 images) and the 12-40 (713 images). This is what I got:

At the left, the 100-300, at the right the 12-40. FL means "Focal length", AP "aperture". # means the number of shots.

About the 100-300:

What I saw is that 87.5% of my pictures taken with the 100-300 were taken at 600mm (FF eq), and 3% at 572 (probably a mistake, I thought the lens was at 300). Then very little up to 200mm where I shoot 2% (probably I was with the wrong lens and needed a wide angle).

So: 90% at full 300mm! What a surprise, zoom seems much less important than reach: I need a longer lens more than a zoom.

Then the aperture: more than 85% of my shots are taken wide open. I actually expected this. So I need a faster lens.

Therefore, what I need is a fixed 400mm F5or so. Come on, Oly...

In other words, all this analysis did not serve to decide between the two lenses, since I need a bit of each. But now I know that I don't need a zoom as much as I thought.

Then the 12-40:

53% taken at its widest 12mm, 78.5% at less than 21mm. Most wide open also (I usually stop down a bit for landscapes, but churches and the like are very dark). So: I need a wider lens. In fact, I would love to buy the 7-14, but the pany has the purple glow problem and the Oly is too expensive. But definitely I need a wider lens!

I wrote this story just to tell you that maybe it would be useful for you to analyze your photos to know what you actually need. Maybe is not what you think, maybe you don't need a zoom as much as you think.

Hope this is useful to someone.

Cheers,

L.