In the words of the Clash...

[@imagesBV]

Should I stay or should I go now.....

I've sold my G10 and replaced it with an Olympus PEN. The quality from the micro four thirds sensor is impressive - pictures are as good as from my 50D (except at ISOs over 1000 - and for action - slower frame rate and focussing) - but that doesn't matter for 95% of what I do.

Question is - shall I get out of EOS altogether and re-invest in a nice iMac, or stick with the EOS and save to upgrade to full frame.

What would you do?

[APOY1998]

Re: In the words of the Clash...

Hi Brian,
My wife has just purchased the Olympus E-P3 with a 14-150 lens and what a brillient camera, all the benefits of SLR work but half the weight and size. An ideal travelling camera system and even for general use. I myself have the 50D kit, would I change? No, because good as the new CCS system is it is not a DSLR, it does not have the traditional feel of a SLR camera and the pen is only 12 mps. The pen is a perfect backup system to a DLSR kit and the pen will be your main image machine but I would keep them both, at least until you are sure the pen does what you want better that the 50D.

Graham.

[@imagesBV]

Re: In the words of the Clash...

I agree with all you say....I took both on my hols....used the PEN all week and enjoyed it, then took the 50D out and you are right it felt like a 'proper camera'....but there was no difference in the pictures except for the smaller 12MP image.

Maybe I have the best of both worlds.

By the way I'd recommend the Lumix 20mm f1.7...a great quality lens with real nice shallow depth of field capability...a good addition to the 14-150.

any other opinions out there?

[Hereford_EOS2]

Re: In the words of the Clash...

Hi Brian
That's a touch one to answer but I guess your mind is 90% made up already.
What do you want to achieve with your photography and what tools would be best to achieve it?
A good investment is in good lenses. Canon "L" lenses generally hold their prices due to the quality whilst computers quickly become out dated and worthless.
Is the Olympus PEN good enough for what you really want to achieve or do you want more?
If yes then that's your answer.

With computers they are usually out-of-date within a few weeks/months with faster this, bigger that.. becoming available
A basic iMac is going to cost £900+ is it worth the investment?
Are you going to be able to achieve more with an iMac than your current system?

What is your priority the computer or the photography?
Which gives you more enjoyment the computer or the photography?
Which one can you live without more?

Good Luck

[DrJon]

Re: In the words of the Clash...

I have a GF1 (m43) plus a lot of Canon stuff. I really like the low size and weight of the Panasonic and tend to carry it more and more. (I can put the body and the - in 35mm terms - 40/1.7, 28-280 and 200-600 lenses in a small Retrospective 5 bag and the whole lot weighs in the ballpark with a 5DmkII and a 24-105.) IMHO I do think the IQ of the 5DmkII is still far enough ahead that's what I'll take to shoot anything serious. However I'm just coming out of a bruising discussion on that subject on an m43 forum, where a bunch of people are convinced their cameras are as good as the Canons/Nikons or better. Personally I think that only the G3 and GH2 have sensors that I'd think of as pretty good, and they still lag a bit in that area. (Not that the other cameras are bad, but lagging a bit compared to the best ones elsewhere, and with a small sensor you do notice less DR and more noise.)

Last week Panasonic waved a bunch of amazing looking lenses (which is still the weak area of m43, IMHO) around. The c. 1" long 28-84 zoom (in the high-quality series, I so want one) and the 24-70 and 70-200 wide-aperture zooms will definitely help.

I think it depends on what you want? What do you shoot and what do you want to achieve? I'd start there.

I suspect it's portability and fun vs. ultimately better quality pictures. I went with both :-)

Also the best pics come from the camera you have with you. I'm not sure I'll get any of the Panasonic fast X-series zooms, if I'm adding that much weight I might just go to the Canon, but if the promised GF7 body - my possible GF1 upgrade - is actually good I might consider it.

Okay, so in summary - I think in a year's time m43 will be a pretty serious system, although still fighting physics a little, and lagging C/N a bit (perhaps still with focus tracking and flash, especially off-camera, plus missing some more exotic lenses). I was starting to worry all the whizzy new m43 kit was beginning to mean all my Canon kit would start to look like bad value for money, as I took it with me less and less. That might still prove true. I do like a big optical viewfinder though... also I'm a little more fussy on image quality than some... fun times ahead I suspect...

John

[@imagesBV]

Re: In the words of the Clash...

Indeed fun times ahead.
I am trying to stop beating myself up by scrutinising everything at 100% on the screen. I mostly print upto 12x18 for wall mounting and sell some images through fotolia and Alamy - which I want to continue to do. So if MFT satisfies that then I'm happy.
The PEN E-P1 that I have is on the Alamy recommended list. And I have printed 12x18 from my PEN.
I only bought the PEN to replace and improve on my G10....but I love it, so much extra fun and creativity....I guess thats the same as saying bulk gets in the way of creativity.
I have a 5 year old dream of going full frame....but I guess I should ask myself why that is.
My macbook air is a bit small for editing and with ( a 50D and two L lenses) £2k worth of hardware doing nothing I'm tempted to exit dSLR world.

It will be interesting to see if Canon enter the MFT market next year....

[@imagesBV]

Re: In the words of the Clash...

Dr Jon

Am I right in thinking the photosites and density of the MTF sensor are similar to the 7D....albeit cut down in overall size?

[APOY1998]

Re: In the words of the Clash...

The P-E3 is a great camera, the reviews can't be wrong and if Canon don't offer something soon (I am sure they will) they will loose a big market. Imagine, a small compact size camera that can take your EF lenses if desired! They would never replace the SLR for serious photographers who demand ultimate flexibility from their kit.

Graham.

[@imagesBV]

Re: In the words of the Clash...

The P-E3 is a great camera..... They would never replace the SLR for serious photographers who demand ultimate flexibility from their kit.
Graham.

You might be right but there is already tons of flexibility so I think they just might takeover. The market expectation of clients expecting serious togs / pros to turn up with the quintessential SLR might be the only reason that cameras retain that format. Just my opinion.

[KEITH H]

Re: In the words of the Clash...

..............................and if Canon don't offer something soon (I am sure they will) they will loose a big market. Imagine, a small compact size camera that can take your EF lenses if desired! They would never replace the SLR for serious photographers who demand ultimate flexibility from their kit............

That is what I am holding out for Graham, until then I am sticking with the G11.

[DrJon]

Re: In the words of the Clash...

Dr Jon

Am I right in thinking the photosites and density of the MTF sensor are similar to the 7D....albeit cut down in overall size?

The pixels in the 12MP cameras (which is basically all of them except the G3 and GH2) are half the size of those in the 5DmkII but a little bigger than the 18MP Canons (7D, etc.).
The GH2 pixels are a third the size of the 5DmkII ones, the G3 a very small amount larger (although the GH2 appears to have perhaps the best sensor in a m43 camera at present, other opinions are available on that :-)
A G11 has pixels 1/10 the size of the 5DmkII ones.

A further complexity is that the m43 sensors are 4:3 vs. 3:2 for the Canons. This means you lose less in vertical resolution. (Actually the GH2 is multi-aspect, so it has 18MP and you get around 16MP in any aspect ratio, all the others are 4:3 so if you shoot at 3:2 or 16:9, which they allow, they just crop it out of the sensor and you get less pixels in the image - so a bit pointless.)

Currently it seems the 16MP Sony sensor has the best performance available in a crop camera (assorted Sonys, Nikon D5100/D7000, others) so hopefully that will encourage the rest to play catch-up.

Do note that noise performance is related to sensor size (and how good a sensor it is) but not pixel size (assuming you end up with the same size image on screen/print).

Hope that helps...
John

P.S. one of the fun things about m43 is you can get adapters to fit a huge variety of lenses, including EF (I haven't tried that though).

P.P.S. numbers (Camera, Sensor size, pixel size - square this for area!):
5DmkII/1DsIII, 24x36, 6.4um
D7000/others 15.6x23.6 4.78um
7D/60D/others, 14.9x22.3, 4.3um
GF1/other m43, 13.5x18, 4.5um
G3, 13x17.3, 3.75um
GH2, 13x17.3, 3.63um (note sensor is 10.7x19 in 16:9 mode)
G11, 5.7x7.6, 2.1um

[KEITH H]

Re: In the words of the Clash...

P.S. one of the fun things about m43 is you can get adaptors to fit a huge variety of lenses, including EF (I haven't tried that though).

Including EF that I did not know! I assume with no AF or iris control, which I would hope will be included if / when Canon enter the market, I remember Canon did EF adaptors for the XL (?) hi8 camcorder.

[@imagesBV]

Re: In the words of the Clash...

Dr Jon, thanks for that clarification.

Keith....sounds like you're tempted?

[DrJon]

Re: In the words of the Clash...

I believe you can get adapters that can control the aperture from the adapter, but by a (manual) diaphragm in the adapter itself. I have no idea how well that works (they run about £40). Or go the whole hog and get an adapter that does on-the-fly protocol conversion (for aperture, I think still MF) and even powers the IS...

http://www.birger.com/

Note the Panasonic AF1 camcorder has a m43 mount, so it will probably work with all m43 cameras (I did say probably). Don't get too excited, it's allegedly $700...

EF lenses are very big on m43 bodies though. My longest lens is the 100-300 (equiv FoV 200-600) which is about 5" long.

M mount lenses are quite popular, also old Olympus MF ones.

I can't see Canon helping the competition out to the extent of doing an adapter... they'd much rather you used a 5DmkII/7D than a GH2.

[DrJon]

Re: In the words of the Clash...

Oh, and while double-checking the GF1 sensor size I ran across this review:

http://www.digitalcamerainfo.com/content/Panasonic-Lumix-GF1-Digital-Camera-Review-21204.htm

I'd completely forgotten about them. While they do produce a forest of numbers and so a slightly meaningless rating, there is a huge amount of detail in the 20+ pages.
They've done the G3 and EP3 too:

http://www.digitalcamerainfo.com/content/Panasonic-G3-Digital-Camera-Review.htm

http://www.digitalcamerainfo.com/content/Olympus-E-P3-Digital-Camera-Review.htm

(They wouldn't be my first choice for a review, but I'm mentioning them as they might be new to others too...)
John