Not a flame war. A legitimate lens comparison

golfhov wrote:

Eric Nepean wrote:

golfhov wrote:

Glen Barrington wrote:

I think you got what you wanted.

Yes and no. I wanted to be sure I was right about one simple thing. Lenses and lenses only. Equivelant lenses. I did get the nice point that m43 and apsc both open up smaller less expensive lenses as long as someone is willong to forgo equivelant depth of feild. Instead opened up an ever persistent flame war.

Sigh

In my mind, your comparison misses the essential reasons for choosing an M43 system.

Was I comparing the entire system?

No, it seemed to me that the cost comparison you made was about even for three systems at least.

The reasons I chose, and stay, with M43 are

1) Smaller and larger camera bodies available that share the same lens system. Smaller camera does not necessarily imply lower quality sensor.

This is a great point. However it is not universal that sensor size correlates with a smaller camera. This would be a model by model comparison along with the various features

2) Camera bodies from different vendors with different feature set/evolution available that share the same lens system

M 4/3 definitely seems to win the variety discussion. The variety obviously does not matter if a system has the lenses you want. Samsung only has like 10 lenses. If those lenses are what you want it would be irrelevant

True, if you go in knowing exactly which lenses you need for a period of some years, it becomes a straightforward decision. My view was that my needs would change in unexpected ways as my life changed (but that I hated big and heavy), and as my skills and focus changed, and I wanted a system that was small and light and offered a variety of choices and enabled re-use as an alternative to replacement.

3) High quality lenses available for smaller sensor size

There are some great m4/3 lenses

4) High degree of compatibility with lenses from other systems, including 4/3 and Canon EF with full AF and AE

Are the canon ef lenses not compatible with practically every single mirorrless. ALong with a myriad of other non native lenses.

Yes this is partially a mirrorless vs DSLR value. (at the time I chose M43 it was the only mirrorless system, no longer the case). A myriad of lenses are mechanically compatible with any mirrorless system. This is nice (recently bought more FD glass) but more valuable and challenging is to find high functioning electronic compatibility. There have recently become available "electronic" EF to M43 adapters and speedboosters, and 4/3 lenses are electronically compatible with M43 cameras - the Panasonic ones, less well, with the Oly EM1 better than the 4/3 cameras.

5) Really good stabilization on most lenses

On every model? There are stabilized apsc and full frame also

For Panasonic lenses, any lens capable of >25mm focal length comes with good optical stabilization. e.g. 25mm F1.4 does not have OIS, 14-42, 12-32, do have OIS. (This OIS works well on any M43 camera) All Olympus cameras, and Panasonic GX7 and GX8, have in body stabilization for any lens, including 3rd party and out of system.

6) Possible to put together a reasonably high quality reasonably small system for affordable cost

Yes and no. The m4/3 seems to be the least expensive for the total package with native lenses depending on how you assemble your kit. These inexpensive lenses will not have the same look as the same aperture lenses from a larger sensor kit

M43 has some good inexpensive components, referring to IQ, function and durability. e.g. my kit for river tripping is my old G5, panny 14-45 and 45-150. Pretty good IQ, lightweight, compact, if the boat tips with my drybox open, I can replace the whole lot for <$1000. OTOH, I can share this with my EM1 and expensive lenses.

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Eric
When the light is gone, the picture is gone ....

At the end of the day I am not saying there is anything wrong with m4/3. I was just looking at the stereotype that you can get smaller cheaper lenses as the sensor size decreases.

I think the stereotype that the lenses are cheaper is incorrect and misleading - I have never considered it so. Smaller - yes - partially because of shorter focal length. The high quality lenses are not cheap, but cost competitive with fullframe and lighter

Consider the Oly 12-40F2.8 at on sale today at $800 vs the the Canon 24-70 F4L $800 on sale. 600g vs 380g.

The big problem I see is new camera users do not understand this issue and they buy a system and cannot figure out why they cannot get any background separation on their 2.8 lens.

In the telephoto focal lengths you will get some background separation at F2.8, but not at wide. The 45 F1.8 is not expensive and will give good background separation.