Upgrade Options

Falcon04 wrote:

Greetings everyone. I’m in the market to upgrade my ancient Oly E-PL1 and am stuck with some indecisiveness given the myriad of options that are currently available. My job currently has me working in Europe for the foreseeable future so I need a camera that can do a little bit of everything—travel, street, museum, landscape and general everyday use for capturing our kids (still and/or video). I want to stay in the M43 ecosystem since I like the portability of the form factor. I’ve spent the last few weeks researching on the internet as well as these forums and DPR camera reviews and have essentially narrowed my options to the following based on availability and a budget of $900-1000 and potential reuse of my 2 existing lenses.

1. E-M10 mark ii w/14-42mm kit lens and a Oly 17mm f/1.8

2. E-M10 mark iii w/14-42mm kit lens and 40-150mm zoom (would upgrade my existing lenses from my E-PL1)

3. Pany G7 and a 25mm prime

4. Pany G85 w/12-60mm kit lens

5. Buy some combination of lenses for my current body (researching the Oly travel lens kit is what started me on this journey in the first place)

Of these, options 1 and 4 are where I’m being indecisive. On amazon, both come out at the same price.

I’d appreciate any and all thoughts on these options (or any others that I may not have thought of)

I'm partial to #4 since I bought a G85.  Fantastic video, excellent still photo features as well, plus what is probably the best kit lens available in the system.  The only issue I can think of is that you don't have a fast prime with that choice.  But you can pick up a used 20/1.7 for a very reasonable price if you want to shoot low light stills.  The AF is a wee bit slower than other lenses but it's not a big deal.  I have a 15/1.7 and 25/1.4 but still keep the 20/1.7 because a) it's still a great lens and b) it's tiny!