Beginner Write me a shopping list!

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Right, so - the scenario is:

Four or five years ago I was quite keen on photography, I never actually took many photos and those I did weren't great but I could rattle off specs & theory like nobody's business! I even had an account on here but it's long gone so this is a new account.

I had a Panasonic m43 system which I'd bought as an upgrade to a pentax dslr setup but sold it all to free up cash to buy kit relating to my other interests.

Fast forward a few years and I've got the bug again, only now I don't have a camera. However, things have moved on and I've forgotten everything.

I want a system which is:

Small
Weather resistant
Light
Sturdy
Compact
Relatively cheap - new body £500ish
Packable
Decent range of modestly priced lenses available
Tilting screen
Viewfinder

And less importantly, capable of basic 4k filmmaking with mic inputs etc.

The set up is intended for documentary style adventure travel photography and I've spent ages looking at various manufacturer websites but but the lack of any decipherable range structure/naming convention is doing my head in!

I've no real preferences for manufacturer, I like the look of Fujis but have an irrational dislike of Canon for no reason at all.

So if anybody wants to write me a shopping list to fill the above criteria that would be massively helpful, tips and pointers would also be appreciated!

Oh, and crop factors - when I see a m43 lens which say its 50mm or whatever does that mean it's an actual 50mm or 50mm+crop factor? Are lenses always described in full frame terms?

Thanks all!
 
When you see a 50mm MFT lens it really is 50mm because usually lenses are labelled up as what they are and it's a 50mm lens but on MFT it gives the equivalent field of view of a 100mm lens on a FF camera. I find it helps me to apply the crop factor when using MFT so that I understand the effect all this has. I also apply it to the aperture for depth of field and the implications for exposure, ISO and general image quality. But that's me and I grew up with film. Younger people may not care about these things.
 
Thanks for the reply, it brought it all flooding back to me - a 50mm is a 50mm until its used on the thing its designed to be used on then the 50mm is actually really a 100mm (sort of)!

I think this was why I went m43 rather than aps-c last time, the bloody maths was easier...
 
I had Canon APS-C DSLR's which are x1.6 crop but to make it all a bit easier I used x1.5 as it's close enough.

I can't help with your other questions. I have a Sony A7 and a couple of Panasonic RF style cameras and I suppose any one of them would be a capable camera for someone although I don't know about Video. I don't tend to worry about weather sealing and I've never had a weather related issue apart from a series of out of focus shots at a very humid place in Thailand when I assume something fogged up. If you're going to be using the kit in very challenging conditions then I suppose it could be an issue but in coming up to 50 years taking pictures in any and all weather I've (maybe luckily) got away with just common sense measures.

If it's a definite requirement for you I believe Olympus make some kit with well regarded weather sealing.
 
Fuji are an excellent range, great lenses and XT1 for 300 or XT2 around 500?
 
Realistically I don't think video is that important, it'd def be a camera first and foremost but the video capability might be worth having down the line.

Equally, the weather resistance is only really a "nice to have" as well, I've had Peak Designs shells in the past which have been really good. Plus, I tend to prefer desert/arid places than anywhere too wet and cold!
 
So I've had a look at the xt2 and it seems a great option but the lenses are pretty expensive, is there a system which is known to have "more accessible" lens options?
 
Why not take another look at MFT?

One advantage seems to be that the lenses can be a bit of a bargain on the used market. Most of my lenses were bought used. At the moment I'm impressed with the 14-42mm mega ois kit zoom. There seem to be a few kit zooms with similar names but the one I'm talking about is the really small one, it's prime sized really. I like that it's so small and light but focuses pretty much instantly and it's sharp enough from wide open. That lens plus the 45-150mm and a f1.8 prime would do almost everything for me. Body wise I have a GX80 and a GX9. I've seen GX80's at bargain prices at times.

As an outside choice how about a Sony A7 and adapted film era lenses? A7's are cheap these days, adapters are available from around £10 and up and a set comprising of 28mm f2.8, 50mm f1.8 and 135mm f3.5 or f2.8 wouldn't cost a lot. If you want action shots it's not an ideal set up (unless you use zone or hyperfocal focusing) but for slow deliberate picture taking or even zone or hyperfocal shooting it's fine. I have Minolta Rokkor, Olympus Zuiko, Canon FD and Nikon lenses and 3rd party lenses in those mounts. Manual film era lenses on a mirrorless camera can be a lot of fun.

Another option could be the Sony A6000. It's cheap and capable and some of the lenses aren't all that expensive. It could be worth a look.
 
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I might well go m43, it's be a bit annoying though as I had a decent little kit at one point before I sold it so!

Not hugely keen on the older manual lenses with adapters, did a bit of that with my pentax kit cos that's the law when you own pentax I believe and it always seemed like a bodge.

Will investigate the Sony though.
 
I'm not sure bodge is the right word as there's no electronics that half work or work unreliably. Used with purely mechanical lenses the adapter is just a spacer to place the lens at the correct distance from the sensor and as long as it's not sloppily made there are no problems.

I've taken a lot of pictures with film era lenses. It's not for everyone though :D
 
No, bodge probably isn't the right word in fairness, it always worked but just "felt" off. I'm not very mechanically sympathetic so I think I just like to know that thing A def works with thing B and introducing thing C to make thing D work as well was a step too far!
 
I am still using my OMD E-M1 & 12-40mm f2.8 and it got a soaking yesterday and it worked the whole time as I expected it to.

Remember if you want a weather resistant camera the lens will need to be too.
 
Hmmm, the E-M5mk2 seems to have that fuji look but without the price tag on the lenses. Yes it's over budget but I'll save in the long run...
 
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Welcome back :)

Sensor format is the most fundamental question - it drives all other technical aspects and changing your mind later tends to be expensive.

Basically, larger format advantages (eg full-frame) boil down to these two:
- better image quality (sharpness, noise, dynamic range)
- more control/scope for shallow depth-of-field

In practise, you may never notice the image quality disadvantages of smaller formats unless you want to make large prints of very best quality, or are an obsessive pixel-peeper. The shallow DoF look is very popular though (eg portraits) so bear in mind that the crop-factor applies to both focal length and aperture. Smaller formats deliver greater DoF and the difference compared to full-frame is one stop more (approx) on APS-C and two stops more on M4/3.
 
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It's unlikely I'll ever print anything out, especially at larger sizes. I am, however, a sucker for some shallow dof so I'll keep that in mind - ta!
 
I'm stuck with 2g at the minute but will have a watch tomorrow. I'm sure you just stumbled across it though, definitely not eyeing up new kit yourself...
 
I only have experience of Olympus (m43) or Canon (FF) and although it’s easier to get shallow depth of field with FF, the 1.8 prime lenses from Olympus are very compact and affordable. They also do a range of weatherproof 1.2 primes but these are expensive.

The image stabilisation in the Olympus is amazing and fantastic for video. The Panasonics may be as good, I don’t know.
 
Well I watched that video - now I've decided I need an XT-4 so thanks for that!

More seriously though, the Olympus range is looking promising.
 
Don't ignore Pentax. You've been there once. Why not again?
 
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I'm trying to keep the size down a bit so I'd assumed the dslr only line up would be a bit bulky really. Off to the website I go to make sure though...
 
Sounds like you really need to get hands on and try the kit from various manufacturers. The Photography Show is on at the NEC in Birmingham in a couple of weeks - well worth a visit I'd say...
 
That's not a bad shout actually, there's a camera shop locally I could go to but I've never really liked the place so wouldn't want to buy anything from there and if I'm not buying from there then I wouldn't want to go and waste their time handling their kit.

Looking at Pentax, they don't have a modern mirrorless option in their range yet, the Q series is still up but "out of stock" and that wasn't well regarded when I bought the Panasonic let alone now.
 
TP Username said:
That's not a bad shout actually, there's a camera shop locally I could go to but I've never really liked the place so wouldn't want to buy anything from there and if I'm not buying from there then I wouldn't want to go and waste their time handling their kit.

Looking at Pentax, they don't have a modern mirrorless option in their range yet, the Q series is still up but "out of stock" and that wasn't well regarded when I bought the Panasonic let alone now.
Click to expand...

With the Photography Show you can play with the kit on the manufacturers stands without any sales pressure and the staff on hand are generally very knowledgeable, which is great when you just want to get a feel for the kit and whether it works for you. I've found it very useful in the past
 
All things considered I'm not sure the Photography Show is going to be a go-er so I went to the shop I don't like (new staff, much better now) and had a look at a few options...

I had been thinking about going for a 1in bridge camera but they're huge so that seems less likely now - having said that the overall weight /size is likely to be the same as a m43 + a couple of lenses. Obviously the iq won't be as good but I'll be the weakest link in that particular chain anyway so not as fussed about that.

Wasn't a big fan of the Olympus EM10 mk3, it looked good but handled funny - the loops for the strap were in just the wrong place, there was no auto-retract on the kit lens when you powered it down and the dials were slippery.

The Sony 6000 felt very droppable and only had a tilting screen.

I had a look at a few of the Panasonics, the GXs were all a bit "slabby" and the GHs were out of my budget.

I liked the Nikon but again, too expensive.

Initially , the guy had suggested the Canon M50 but after I'd said I didn't want a Canon so no point getting one out he just left it on the side. So eventually I picked it up and straight away it just felt right. It was surprisingly heavy in a "dense" kind of way and could easily be used as some sort of weapon but it felt more reassuringly substantial and undroppable than anything else I'd looked at.

So I've gone from not buying a Canon, and definitely not buying anything from that shop to thinking a Canon from there is probably the way to go. I'm going to have a read up on them and if there's no show-stoppers then we might have a winner.

With that in mind, any feedback on the M50 would be much appreciated. I know lens availability might be an issue but what else should I be aware of? At a brief glance I couldn't see any sort of in body stabilisation?
 
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HoppyUK said:
Welcome back :)

Sensor format is the most fundamental question - it drives all other technical aspects and changing your mind later tends to be expensive.

Basically, larger format advantages (eg full-frame) boil down to these two:
- better image quality (sharpness, noise, dynamic range)
- more control/scope for shallow depth-of-field

In practise, you may never notice the image quality disadvantages of smaller formats unless you want to make large prints of very best quality, or are an obsessive pixel-peeper. The shallow DoF look is very popular though (eg portraits) so bear in mind that the crop-factor applies to both focal length and aperture. Smaller formats deliver greater DoF and the difference compared to full-frame is one stop more (approx) on APS-C and two stops more on M4/3.
Click to expand...
TP Username said:
It's unlikely I'll ever print anything out, especially at larger sizes. I am, however, a sucker for some shallow dof so I'll keep that in mind - ta!
Click to expand...
Not the first time this has been posted on TP but I feel its worth posting again

View: https://youtu.be/OGn3yPl59ZM
 
Surprisingly watchable that but Roger looked like he was being held against his will - do we know if he's been seen since?!
 
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