Tim in upstate NY
Veteran Member
. . . I know that this was published three months ago but I can't remember seeing it posted here and it sums up some of the reasons why I like m4/3 so much myself. I still use my DSLR for some things but I also enjoy the challenges that go with using my E-P2 which are similar to some of the experiences that I remember years ago with film.
BTW . . . I still drive a 34 year old car with no power steering, power brakes or airconditioning or auto anything else and I still adjust the valves, brakes and set the gap and dwell on the ignition points - you youngsters might have to Google some of that. . . . . LOL
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Thom's article from his website:
Micro 4/3 (Briefly) Revisited
June 2 (commentary)--A recent email from someone who had previously corresponded with me about my experience with m4/3 and who decided to go the E-P2 route along with the 7-14mm, 14-42mm, and 45-200mm lens route reminded me that I haven't written much about the m4/3 bodies since my reviews of them last year. On top of that, last week's "getting back to basics" assignment and this Monday's talk at B&H intersected with my thoughts as I responded to the email.
Digital has spoiled us on a whole bunch of fronts. Today's top of the line DSLRs are Ferraris compared to my old F3HP and Tri-X film. The D3s and D3x in the hands of someone who knows what they're doing produces stunning images in ways that weren't possible before. But they're heavy, expensive, complicated, and require great discipline.
A m4/3 kit with a handful of carefully selected lenses is like going back into the past. You give up some of the things that we take for granted, but it's smaller (by far), lighter (by far), and less expensive (by far) than picking up either of the D3 twins and the pro glass they work best with. What I find when I'm wandering the wilds with my m4/3 kit is that I'm mostly back into the old film world. To wit:
Limited dynamic range. I'm almost back to the old slide film DR with the m4/3 cameras, where I had to pay careful attention to exposure lest I produce clear or completely opaque acetate. So the old fill flash, graduated ND, and other tricks came back into play. Put another way, I spend more time controlling contrast in the field, just like I did in the days of film.
Limited ISO. In the film era, ISO 400 was the basic top of reasonably good film stock, and with some (like later versions of Tri-X) you could push to 800 with reasonable results. This pushed us towards using faster lenses and opened up the world of selective focus. And we're nearly back to that with the m4/3 cameras, too: ISO 400 is fine, ISO 800 is starting to be a stretch, ISO 1600 you probably want to avoid. And lenses? Make sure you have the 20mm f/1.7 and/or some old fast Leica M primes to play with.
Limited focus tracking. Birds in flight, active sports, and a whole host of other things are pretty much beyond the autofocus tracking capabilities of the m4/3 cameras. Yes, you can get some keepers, but your keeper rate is far lower, so you start reverting back to techniques you used with the old manual focus film bodies: preselected focus zones, for instance.
So what we end up with by carrying an m4/3 kit into the world with us instead of, say, a D300s-based DX or D700-based FX kit, is a slightly slower, more considered form of shooting, much like what I was asking everyone to try out last week in the You assignments. Instead of the cameras solving everything for you (auto exposure, auto ISO, auto focus, auto flash, auto everything), the m4/3 cameras force you to think a bit more, to slow down and use more manual techniques to overcome problems than relying upon camera "intelligence" to make decisions for you.
To some, that slower, more considered world is a blessing: you get back to the roots of photography and you find that one decision impacts another and that putting dedicating your brain power to those domino-like decisions really does impact how good your image will be and have much fun you have capturing it.
The camera makers, though, don't get this. It's as if they've all decided that the world only needs auto transmission, auto steering, auto speed monitoring, auto braking, auto everything. Where are the camera equivalents of Porsches or BMWs that try to bring back the joy of shooting? (In that context, the m4/3 cameras are a bit like Mini Coopers: some of the joy is back, and it certainly is smaller and lighter!)
So, yes, I continue to use my m4/3 cameras for those photo opportunities that are appropriate, and I find that I enjoy using them despite their limitations. And yes, I still pull out the D3s and D3x with all those massive lenses for most of my work. But I'm also finding that the more I use the m4/3 cameras, the more I'm turning off features of the D3 bodies. I want to control my decisions more, and I think this shows up in my images.
http://bythom.com/2010%20Nikon%20News.htm
BTW . . . I still drive a 34 year old car with no power steering, power brakes or airconditioning or auto anything else and I still adjust the valves, brakes and set the gap and dwell on the ignition points - you youngsters might have to Google some of that. . . . . LOL
.
.
.
Thom's article from his website:
Micro 4/3 (Briefly) Revisited
June 2 (commentary)--A recent email from someone who had previously corresponded with me about my experience with m4/3 and who decided to go the E-P2 route along with the 7-14mm, 14-42mm, and 45-200mm lens route reminded me that I haven't written much about the m4/3 bodies since my reviews of them last year. On top of that, last week's "getting back to basics" assignment and this Monday's talk at B&H intersected with my thoughts as I responded to the email.
Digital has spoiled us on a whole bunch of fronts. Today's top of the line DSLRs are Ferraris compared to my old F3HP and Tri-X film. The D3s and D3x in the hands of someone who knows what they're doing produces stunning images in ways that weren't possible before. But they're heavy, expensive, complicated, and require great discipline.
A m4/3 kit with a handful of carefully selected lenses is like going back into the past. You give up some of the things that we take for granted, but it's smaller (by far), lighter (by far), and less expensive (by far) than picking up either of the D3 twins and the pro glass they work best with. What I find when I'm wandering the wilds with my m4/3 kit is that I'm mostly back into the old film world. To wit:
Limited dynamic range. I'm almost back to the old slide film DR with the m4/3 cameras, where I had to pay careful attention to exposure lest I produce clear or completely opaque acetate. So the old fill flash, graduated ND, and other tricks came back into play. Put another way, I spend more time controlling contrast in the field, just like I did in the days of film.
Limited ISO. In the film era, ISO 400 was the basic top of reasonably good film stock, and with some (like later versions of Tri-X) you could push to 800 with reasonable results. This pushed us towards using faster lenses and opened up the world of selective focus. And we're nearly back to that with the m4/3 cameras, too: ISO 400 is fine, ISO 800 is starting to be a stretch, ISO 1600 you probably want to avoid. And lenses? Make sure you have the 20mm f/1.7 and/or some old fast Leica M primes to play with.
Limited focus tracking. Birds in flight, active sports, and a whole host of other things are pretty much beyond the autofocus tracking capabilities of the m4/3 cameras. Yes, you can get some keepers, but your keeper rate is far lower, so you start reverting back to techniques you used with the old manual focus film bodies: preselected focus zones, for instance.
So what we end up with by carrying an m4/3 kit into the world with us instead of, say, a D300s-based DX or D700-based FX kit, is a slightly slower, more considered form of shooting, much like what I was asking everyone to try out last week in the You assignments. Instead of the cameras solving everything for you (auto exposure, auto ISO, auto focus, auto flash, auto everything), the m4/3 cameras force you to think a bit more, to slow down and use more manual techniques to overcome problems than relying upon camera "intelligence" to make decisions for you.
To some, that slower, more considered world is a blessing: you get back to the roots of photography and you find that one decision impacts another and that putting dedicating your brain power to those domino-like decisions really does impact how good your image will be and have much fun you have capturing it.
The camera makers, though, don't get this. It's as if they've all decided that the world only needs auto transmission, auto steering, auto speed monitoring, auto braking, auto everything. Where are the camera equivalents of Porsches or BMWs that try to bring back the joy of shooting? (In that context, the m4/3 cameras are a bit like Mini Coopers: some of the joy is back, and it certainly is smaller and lighter!)
So, yes, I continue to use my m4/3 cameras for those photo opportunities that are appropriate, and I find that I enjoy using them despite their limitations. And yes, I still pull out the D3s and D3x with all those massive lenses for most of my work. But I'm also finding that the more I use the m4/3 cameras, the more I'm turning off features of the D3 bodies. I want to control my decisions more, and I think this shows up in my images.
http://bythom.com/2010%20Nikon%20News.htm
