Just saying.

When I used film, I ran 3 systems. 135, 120 and 5x4. It was quite normal for passionate photographers to run two systems. In London at least, there was an abundance of cheap second hand gear, and stuff stayed current and usable for years. Each of my three systems took care of different subjects and interests.

Fast forward to digital. At the moment there is a whole lot of talk about cameras costing €2000 or much more.

If you are a professional or need some special aspect of one of these new cameras; well stop reading and pass onto something more interesting. If you do photography for your own personal pleasure, then read on.

I just want to propose another idea for using the camera hobby slush fund.

If you have already a M43 kit why not think about doing FF on the cheap. Think about those areas of your photography to see if there is a better fit than what you can do with M43. For example, I wanted to do architecture and craved after a PC lens that does not exist in M43. With FF there is a far subtler colour palette and of course it has an advantage in low light. I picked up a D700, a 28PC and a nice 24-120 zoom for less than €1000. The same lenses with a more current D750 would still be had for less than €2000.

If you do not have M43 then a nice lightweight kit can be thrown together surprisingly cheaply. A second hand EM5 goes for €250 where I live. Panasonic bodies also loose value like this too. Lenses can be had quite economically too. The image quality from these “cheepys” is almost indistinguishable from the latest models. M43 has made travel photography more fun for me.

And so we could go on.

I believe you can have much more fun with your photography in this way, and I think the images you come back with by having two complimentary systems will improve too.
My main system remains M43, but the FF addition has opened up a lot of interesting avenues.

Here are some examples:


GX1 +100-300. A cheap SH body and a consumer lens. I won a challenge here with this. The Levee was closed to traffic. I knew where I wanted to take the shot and had to walk an hour. M43 was the perfect choice for this shot.


28 PC lens. Cost me €200. M43 is missing a PC lens. No software Correction is different.


The colour and shadow is more subtle with my FF. This is important for some subjects.


Face recognition and EVF made taking concert pictures easy.


M43 perfect for a 10 hour hike

--
http://nigelvoak.blogspot.it/
https://momenti-indecisivi.blogspot.it/

That bicycle shot is so attractive.

Yes, I think it makes a lot of sense and a lot of people do this.

Me and my wife have a decent DSLR system from Pentax with a bunch of lenses covering a lot of shooting situations (super wide angle, small and fast primes, manual portrait lens, zoom etc.). It is fantastic for IQ, especially after raw processing. We also have a secondary m43 kit with an Olympus pen e-p3 and just 3 lenses: sigma 19mm, panasonic 25mm f1. 7 and the kit zoom. With either of these lenses it makes a tiny and light kit and it has great looking jpeg output so we don't always need to process raw.

I'd say in the last year we've been using each system about half of the time, depending on what was needed.

Also me shoot more and more on smartphones and a lot of these pictures turn out quite ok.

The sole reason I bought an a7ii is to adapt my legacy film lenses. The cheapest way to get DoF when you need it that's for sure.

Lu1Wang said:

The sole reason I bought an a7ii is to adapt my legacy film lenses. The cheapest way to get DoF when you need it that's for sure.

Click to expand...

I tried adapted lenses on my old D300, but yes a FF is the way to go with old 35mm film lenses.

Putting a cheap "old" FF camera behind a lens is often cheaper than a Metabones adaptor.

The building shot is terrible it has lots of distortion and looks just wrong from a builders perspective I think you need to revisit your technique.

Don

Donald B said:

The building shot is terrible it has lots of distortion and looks just wrong from a builders perspective I think you need to revisit your technique.

Don

Click to expand...

have you thought the buildings might actually be built that way?

Wu Jiaqiu said:

Donald B said:

The building shot is terrible it has lots of distortion and looks just wrong from a builders perspective I think you need to revisit your technique.

Don

Click to expand...

have you thought the buildings might actually be built that way?

Click to expand...

No . the lines on the left are all over the place. the only structures that were built to allow for our human eye perspective distortion where the columns in Rome.

Don

--
Olympus EM5, EM5mk2 my toys.
http://www.dpreview.com/galleries/9412035244
past toys. k100d, k10d,k7,fz5,fz150,500uz,canon G9, Olympus xz1

Nice post. I agree with you. And I liked looking at your photos very much.

It's too bad that someone left a reply exposing themselves for their inability to construct a grammatically correct sentence. But on the other hand, were so helpful (not) in their criticism.

Tom

Donald B said:

Wu Jiaqiu said:

Donald B said:

The building shot is terrible it has lots of distortion and looks just wrong from a builders perspective I think you need to revisit your technique.

Don

Click to expand...

have you thought the buildings might actually be built that way?

Click to expand...

No . the lines on the left are all over the place. the only structures that were built to allow for our human eye perspective distortion where the columns in Rome.

Don

Click to expand...

The yellow portion of the wall at left is either deliberately buttressed or is poorly constructed. If you look carefully at the portion just to the right of the barred window you can see the thickening. You can also see it at the point where it joints with the face of the wall of the other building.

The odd lines and angles are not products of the lens or of the respective chosen by the photographer

Peter

Messier Object said:

Donald B said:

Wu Jiaqiu said:

Donald B said:

The building shot is terrible it has lots of distortion and looks just wrong from a builders perspective I think you need to revisit your technique.

Don

Click to expand...

have you thought the buildings might actually be built that way?

Click to expand...

No . the lines on the left are all over the place. the only structures that were built to allow for our human eye perspective distortion where the columns in Rome.

Don

Click to expand...

The yellow portion of the wall at left is either deliberately buttressed or is poorly constructed. If you look carefully at the portion just to the right of the barred window you can see the thickening. You can also see it at the point where it joints with the face of the wall of the other building.

The odd lines and angles are not products of the lens or of the respective chosen by the photographer

Peter

Click to expand...

Lol. the lens has done a great job of creating curved lines.

Don

--
Olympus EM5, EM5mk2 my toys.
http://www.dpreview.com/galleries/9412035244
past toys. k100d, k10d,k7,fz5,fz150,500uz,canon G9, Olympus xz1

Donald B said:

Messier Object said:

Donald B said:

Wu Jiaqiu said:

Donald B said:

The building shot is terrible it has lots of distortion and looks just wrong from a builders perspective I think you need to revisit your technique.

Don

Click to expand...

have you thought the buildings might actually be built that way?

Click to expand...

No . the lines on the left are all over the place. the only structures that were built to allow for our human eye perspective distortion where the columns in Rome.

Don

Click to expand...

The yellow portion of the wall at left is either deliberately buttressed or is poorly constructed. If you look carefully at the portion just to the right of the barred window you can see the thickening. You can also see it at the point where it joints with the face of the wall of the other building.

The odd lines and angles are not products of the lens or of the respective chosen by the photographer

Peter

Click to expand...

Lol. the lens has done a great job of creating curved lines.

Don

Click to expand...

I see no curved lines, only poor construction of that yellow building.

Here's a close-up section showing the lines which give the impression of distortions. Note the non-parallel pair of lines I've drawn next to the barred window and in the RH corner to highlight the slope or thickening of that portion of the wall towards the ground.







Civil Engineering/Architecture is Nigel's specialty so he will no doubt make his own comments.

Peter

If I already am invested solidly in m43, why the heck don't I just get a MF system instead of FF?

Is that not allowed because you're not a MF salesman or is there some other reason that you would object to?

4x5 didn't kill MF, MF didn't kill 35mm, and so on. These discussions are ludicrous. I shot MF and 35mm, but never compared the two since they're different tools for different purposes. And I can't imagine a better for a hike than my Oly with the 12-100 attached.

So there.

daleeight said:

If I already am invested solidly in m43, why the heck don't I just get a MF system instead of FF?

Click to expand...

I've asked the FF guys that, but they usually fall back on "there's not that much of a difference." I guess they can't access the comparison tool.

daleeight said:

Is that not allowed because you're not a MF salesman or is there some other reason that you would object to?

Click to expand...

I'd rather stick with one system.

I feel that if I was running two systems, then I'd always be stuck in perpetual compromise. In contrast, with a single system, once that primary decision has been made, then (assuming I made a good system choice), the decision making is easy. Grab the appropriate lenses and go.

eg:

When it comes to buying lenses, I'd probably avoid too much redundancy between the two systems. eg: I wouldn't have a 12-40, and a 24-105. I presume I'd focus on lightweight glass for the smaller format, and high end glass for larger format.

Likewise for camera bodies. Would I rather spend x amount on a really good camera for one system, or two average cameras for two systems. While IQ may be marginally better for the average larger format camera, neither system would then be ideal for my uses, and I'd actually lose flexibility.

For any trips where I'd want both the lightweight and the larger format system, then I'd have to choose between them. This compounds with the previous issue in that if I took the lightweight system, I'd be short on high end glass (as those purchases would be prioritised towards the larger format), and if I took the larger format, I'd be very limited in terms of what I could take. If I took both systems, then one system would chew up valuable space from the other system and I'd have to take even fewer lens options.

Likewise, considering simple things like wandering around with a camera. I often take a camera with me when working, usually with a long tele, a macro and a wide zoom. Instead of taking my E-M1 II, 100-400, 60mm and 9-18, as I'd be having to split my money across two systems, I'd probably have something like an E-M1, 75-300 (as focussed on lightweight), 9-18 and 60mm. This is a small weight saving, but a significant drop in capability.

Turn that around and considering a dedicated photo walk - where I'd use the high IQ camera. Now I'd have minimal size and weight problems, but I'd have something like a D600, 200-500, and 24-105. While IQ may be better under some situations, for many it's unlikely to offer much compared to my E-M1 + 100-400, and will often be less capable.

The only situation where FF may offer an obvious improvement over my current system is indoor sport (and similar shooting scenarios). However that makes up a tiny part of my photography.

I suspect that for me there are very few situations where maintaining two systems would give me an improvement over a single system. I think that for most scenarios doing so will result in me using a less versatile system than what I have now. I think I prefer my approach of choosing the smallest system that is adequate to do all the photography that I do.

What about the bulge at the bottom of the yellow wall. Don't think the footing would have slipped sideways.

Don

daleeight said:

If I already am invested solidly in m43, why the heck don't I just get a MF system instead of FF?

Click to expand...

A Nikon D700 with less than 50k shutter actuations sells for 500-600 EUR, for this price you have to go back to a Hasselblad 500c/m; a Pentax 67 with lens starts at 1400. ...

daleeight said:

Is that not allowed because you're not a MF salesman or is there some other reason that you would object to?

Click to expand...

Is this necessary??

Peter

Saw a D700 body sell for $300 the other day, not in bad condition either. But in reality, you are going to have to choose to use decrepit old lenses on the cheap, or commit to modern FX which is an expensive proposition. So much for cheap.

Thanks for the reply.

Well the camera was set up using a spirit level in two directions, parallel to the sensor plane and a 90° to the sensor plane.

I believe the Nikon 28PC is well corrected for distortion. It was sold as a professional architectural lens back in the day.

A top architectural photographer, Norman McGrath in his book “Photographing Buildings Inside and Out” (Architectural Press) used this lens for many of the illustrations when he could not use the more normal 5x4. So, I guess this lens is not a stinker.

Now let the Engineer in me speak. Sabbioneta is in the wide and flat Po Valley. This area until it was drained in Medieval times was an uninhabited swamp. The soil is what we call “Limo”. It has a very low bearing capacity. These buildings date from the sixteenth century. The guys who constructed these buildings did not do test bores or other investigations, they did not send samples off to the lab, they just built by experience.
Many of these old building do not even have foundations!

In brief these buildings have moved differentially over the years, upwards, downwards, sideways, backwards and forwards. My lenses cannot correct for this.

I suppose to satisfy Donald, we should demolish the lot and build some new perfectly vertical buildings in steel or concrete founded on deep piled foundations.



--
http://nigelvoak.blogspot.it/
https://momenti-indecisivi.blogspot.it/