Micro 4 3rds sell it to me

[the black fox]

Hmmm a lot of assumptions in this thread based on individual needs , I find That the Olympus OM1 to be well above my needs , the I.b.i.s ,the bird I.d , and upgraded menu system make it a dream machine ..couple that with a couple of Olympus pro lens with or without t.c and you have a unbeatable wildlife combo ..
it’s o.k having all this FF gear but from what I have seen it Still needs to be used with tripods ,gimbals,or monopods . Whereas on a day like today going out when you’re a bit under the weather it’s simply a case of grabbing the camera and lens and that’s it . No bags ,no tripod , no lens cover . Not even a spare battery these days ..
yes I still have all the above ( god knows why) and a good selection of lenses to . But unless I have something specific to shoot camera and 300mm f4 + 1.4 tc is my standard walk about gear . If you want to criticise my results fair does but I think I do fairly well ..
I have yet to see another brand ,combo etc that will match mine for weight ,reach , use ability, and most importantly £ price .. if you can tell of such a rig I will defo take a look

 

[snerkler]

With whatever FF you get, you will need a lens of over 800mm to match the 300 + 1.4 converter?

I'm guessing you meant you would keep it for macro and wildlife?

Not necessarily, FF can be cropped heavier without losing too much IQ, plus there are FF sensors with much higher MP than m4/3, you might find using a 400mm and cropping gives similar results

 

[snerkler]

For me, it's simple ergonomics.
I have large hands and I find them too small, fiddly buttons and they just don't sit right for me.
They are very capable though; at this time the DSLR is very much active.

I have very large hands but prefer the smaller bodies, the EM1-II I had was great, and I now use the A1 which is also relatively small

Hmmm a lot of assumptions in this thread based on individual needs , I find That the Olympus OM1 to be well above my needs , the I.b.i.s ,the bird I.d , and upgraded menu system make it a dream machine ..couple that with a couple of Olympus pro lens with or without t.c and you have a unbeatable wildlife combo ..
it’s o.k having all this FF gear but from what I have seen it Still needs to be used with tripods ,gimbals,or monopods . Whereas on a day like today going out when you’re a bit under the weather it’s simply a case of grabbing the camera and lens and that’s it . No bags ,no tripod , no lens cover . Not even a spare battery these days ..
yes I still have all the above ( god knows why) and a good selection of lenses to . But unless I have something specific to shoot camera and 300mm f4 + 1.4 tc is my standard walk about gear . If you want to criticise my results fair does but I think I do fairly well ..
I have yet to see another brand ,combo etc that will match mine for weight ,reach , use ability, and most importantly £ price .. if you can tell of such a rig I will defo take a look

I don't know any FF user that has to use all that gear except for specific scenarios where you'd use them regardless of the system. It's been discussed many times over but the weight saving of m4/3 is not what it once was. Yes there may be a specific lens that proves the point, but on the whole there's not so much in it these days.

 

[woof woof]

I suppose this combination is roughly the size of a Fuji X100 series camera but of course it has the ability to take different lenses. Pictured here it has a 14mm f2.5. TBH I love this combination for it's small size, sports car responses and silent shooting.



I suppose it might be possible to get an APS-C combination to rival this, maybe a Sony A6xxx of some sort but I'd want one with two near top of camera control wheels so it'd need to be a very old one or a very new one as most in the middle only had the one near top of camera control wheel.

For me the biggest downside when compared to my FF camera is DR.

 

[NCV]

If you are doing long lens work, or just want a pocketable little camera like the EM10, then the M43 system might be interesting.

I wanted a one lens solution for hiking, I discovered that a Z7 + 24-200 weighs about the same as an OM1 +12-100. It has become a bit of a myth that FF must be heavy.

 

[the black fox]

I have very large hands but prefer the smaller bodies, the EM1-II I had was great, and I now use the A1 which is also relatively small

I don't know any FF user that has to use all that gear except for specific scenarios where you'd use them regardless of the system. It's been discussed many times over but the weight saving of m4/3 is not what it once was. Yes there may be a specific lens that proves the point, but on the whole there's not so much in it these days.

as you well know toby my chosen avenue is wildlife 95% birds with a touc( of macro in the summer .. so your wrong in your assumption there . A Nikon or canon lens with a equal reach to mine I.e 840mm usually entails using a tripod and monopod and gimbal the sheer size and weight of the lenses needed is the problem..yes you can now get lighter long reach lenses from canikon BUT that comes with a price premium . And BTW with the OM1 if I wish to double that effective reach to 1680mm @f 5.6 handhold-able then I just need to turn on the inbuilt digital 2x tc that actually works well things never stand still .
If however my Chosen genre was landscape or street photography then I would agree with you .but it’s not and i certainly am not going to spend 4 K on a FF canon,Nikon,Sony body to get similar results I get now …
Horses for courses

 

[Denis99]

I agree with most of your response.

Most of mine is macro.

I suppose I am looking for a ff camera for 35mm and 85mm primes for more candid photographs of people.

I have tried with my 4/3 primes, f1.2 ish, but find I need a flash to get lower noise.

For wildlife and macro, no issue.

Plus, I don’t want to spend a fortune on any ff camera.

 

[snerkler]

as you well know toby my chosen avenue is wildlife 95% birds with a touc( of macro in the summer .. so your wrong in your assumption there . A Nikon or canon lens with a equal reach to mine I.e 840mm usually entails using a tripod and monopod and gimbal the sheer size and weight of the lenses needed is the problem..yes you can now get lighter long reach lenses from canikon BUT that comes with a price premium . And BTW with the OM1 if I wish to double that effective reach to 1680mm @f 5.6 handhold-able then I just need to turn on the inbuilt digital 2x tc that actually works well things never stand still .
If however my Chosen genre was landscape or street photography then I would agree with you .but it’s not and i certainly am not going to spend 4 K on a FF canon,Nikon,Sony body to get similar results I get now …
Horses for courses

I didn’t make any assumptions and I also said there will be specific examples where m4/3 will be lighter

Out of interest which lens is giving you 840mm before TC’s?

 

[Sangoma]

I agree the weight difference isn't what it was.

I don't think I would be happy using FF and a 400mm lens then cropping to get as good at the M43 with a 400mm lens, I would want to take advantage of the FF high resolution sensor, and have 800mm of lens! Otherwise I may as well stick with the M43

There is more to it than weight and cropping, ease and comfort of use, portability, stabilisation, features that suit my use, cost, quality of standard lenses, menu systems and I'm sure there are more factors that different people with different uses will mention.

I would love to try an R5 with Sigma 150-600, just to see what it is like, but I don't think I would buy one, unless there was a really huge difference (and I wanted to spend that much money)

 

[snerkler]

I agree the weight difference isn't what it was.

I don't think I would be happy using FF and a 400mm lens then cropping to get as good at the M43 with a 400mm lens, I would want to take advantage of the FF high resolution sensor, and have 800mm of lens! Otherwise I may as well stick with the M43

There is more to it than weight and cropping, ease and comfort of use, portability, stabilisation, features that suit my use, cost, quality of standard lenses, menu systems and I'm sure there are more factors that different people with different uses will mention.

I would love to try an R5 with Sigma 150-600, just to see what it is like, but I don't think I would buy one, unless there was a really huge difference (and I wanted to spend that much money)

Yep there are indeed really good reasons to use m4/3, it’s a great system. We just need to move away from the old beliefs that FF has to be big and heavy, it’s just not the case anymore

With regards to cropping a 400mm lens to 800mm I agree it’s not ideal and would not buy a high res FF camera just for that purpose, however if it’s something you’re not going to do a lot that it’s a great thing to have and then you get the benefits of FF for your other type of shooting.

All preference of course.

 

[the black fox]

I didn’t make any assumptions and I also said there will be specific examples where m4/3 will be lighter

Out of interest which lens is giving you 840mm before TC’s?

It’s the 300mm f4 + 1.4 tc toby .. I.e =420mm x 2 = 840 mm effective in FF terms .couple that With the bells and whistles of the OM1 or OM1 mkii and you have a killer birding combo

 

[snerkler]

It’s the 300mm f4 + 1.4 tc toby .. I.e =420mm x 2 = 840 mm effective in FF terms .couple that With the bells and whistles of the OM1 or OM1 mkii and you have a killer birding combo

Ahh OK, yeah it's a lovely lens that. I didn't realise you could combine TC's, i.e add the 2x to that to make it 1680mm. I'd imagine you need really good light to use that combo though as it's effectively f11?

 

[Craikeybaby]

For wildlife and macro m4/3 has got a lot going for it. If those were my main areas of photography I would look at switching for sure.

 

[the black fox]

Ahh OK, yeah it's a lovely lens that. I didn't realise you could combine TC's, i.e add the 2x to that to make it 1680mm. I'd imagine you need really good light to use that combo though as it's effectively f11?

no toby once again you have based it on a assumption , with my lens + t.c I have in full frame terms a effective reach of 840mm .. the camera has a inbuilt 2x digital crop so effectively giving a reach of 1680mm and at F5.6 but still producing a full 20mp image as well ..o.k its jpg image but if you take the time to fine tune your jpg settings its nearly as good as a raw file and can still be processed slightly or used s.o.c .
the use of the 2x digital crop was largely ignored on the earlier models till Andy rouse tested it on his OM1 and found it vastly improved .
here's one from last fri ,rainy misty weather straight out of camera 1680mm @f5.6 handheld absolutely nothing done to it bar cropping
1680mm @f5.6 s.o.c by jeff cohen, on Flickr

 

[snerkler]

no toby once again you have based it on a assumption , with my lens + t.c I have in full frame terms a effective reach of 840mm .. the camera has a inbuilt 2x digital crop so effectively giving a reach of 1680mm and at F5.6 but still producing a full 20mp image as well ..o.k its jpg image but if you take the time to fine tune your jpg settings its nearly as good as a raw file and can still be processed slightly or used s.o.c .
the use of the 2x digital crop was largely ignored on the earlier models till Andy rouse tested it on his OM1 and found it vastly improved .
here's one from last fri ,rainy misty weather straight out of camera 1680mm @f5.6 handheld absolutely nothing done to it bar cropping
1680mm @f5.6 s.o.c by jeff cohen, on Flickr

Ahh I missed that is was a 'digital' TC, ot be fair you do get that with other brands too e.g. clear image zoom.

If you're happy with that image that's all that matters

 

[the black fox]

Ahh I missed that is was a 'digital' TC, ot be fair you do get that with other brands too e.g. clear image zoom.

If you're happy with that image that's all that matters

No not really happy with it . But it shows the potential .

 

[snerkler]

No not really happy with it . But it shows the potential .

Yeah I guess it depends on your expectations of what that potential can give

 

[Knikki]

Sell you on M 4/3?

There is a fairly large range of cameras you can now choose from, both Olympus & Panasonic (Panasonic GH5 series still highly regarded video machine).
Their IBIS, especially on early cameras is really good, when compared to other machine of the same era.
Colours out of them are just fab and do not need much post tweaking with to get nice images. Can print large images from them and look good
DR on the early machines can be an issue but the RAW files you can do a lot with (when compared to FF cameras, which I think is a bit unfair)
Early machines (I have and still use a OMD 5MkII from 2015) the ISO, while you can push up to 800+ noise does tend to look "not nice" (modern day software Topaz for example may deal with this)
Lens, especially if you stick to the f1.8 primes can be very small, my OMD 5 MkII with a 17mm f1.8 is nearly pocketable.
You can get a load of adaptors for M43 so you can mount virtually any mount from CCTV lens to many older manual focus lens

Downsides
ISO, as I have mentioned (massively improved over the years as I have no issue shooting ISO1600+ with a OMD-EM1x from 2019)
Talking of which you can get around this by using some of the sub menu items, which take multiple shots and blends them in camera, only JPEG.
That 'bokeh' look, really then you are looking at the Pro range like the 25mm f1.2 for example or some of the Voigtlander manual focus lens for another example.

If you are thinking of older machines, as they are now quite inexpensive look up a YouTube channel 'Micro Four Thirds Nerd' as she champions smaller M43 and older ones.

 

[GreenNinja67]

Agree with the above.

I've had good results at ISO 6400 using Topaz DeNoise Ai with my EM1X.

 

[AndrewFlannigan]

Yeah I guess it depends on your expectations of what that potential can give

I would always prefer an image that was technically "imperfect" but showed what I wished to show, to a technically "perfect" image that failed to show what I wished to show.

Other people will have different opinions.

(Panasonic G9 with Panasonic Leica 100~400mm...)

 

[snerkler]

I would always prefer an image that was technically "imperfect" but showed what I wished to show, to a technically "perfect" image that failed to show what I wished to show.

Other people will have different opinions.

(Panasonic G9 with Panasonic Leica 100~400mm...)

View attachment 417895

Well that’s a given, although it would depend how bad the IQ was for me. Even if it showed what I wanted, if the IQ was too poor it would be binned 99.9% of the time as I wouldn’t enjoy looking at it. The only time I’d save it is if it was sentimental or something along those lines.