I sold my full frame stuff a little while back..long story won't bore you!..Anyway, I want to invest in a system mainly for macro work, insects, still life, etc. but due to health issues want a lightweight system and excellent view finder with good AF where practical (though I realise from my experience , many subjects are better using MF) Could going 4/3 be a good option? Suggestions.
If you look at my gallery here, you can see that I do a ton of flower and moderate insect work.
I have both FF and M43, and M43 really hits a sweet spot for macro, for a couple of reasons:
First, the crop factor means that at any given (equivalent) focal length, the DOF at any specific aperture will be deeper on M43 than on FF. So, for example:
If you have a 60mm f2.8 FF lens on a FF body, and a 30mm f2.8 lens on an M43 body, you will get the
same field of view, in terms of subject coverage in frame. However, at the same f stop (say f2.8 on both), your DOF on the M43 lens will be twice what it is on the FF lens (equivalent to the DOF on the FF lens at f5.6). Note: I am not talking about ANY OTHER equivalence factors here, just DOF per any given aperture at the focal lengths of both lenses that give an identical field of view. (As you might guess, this gets into contentious territory, but for working with macro, this is the relevant information that you need to get an idea of how the LENSES behave, comparatively, on the formats' bodies.)
Second: There are LOT of options for macro work on M43. I've owned most of the M43 macro lenses over the years, and all of them are good. I have found that I prefer to shoot at longer focal lengths, though, so for some time I have been using the PL 100-400mm for a lot of flower work, and using extension tubes some of the time, or occasionally a high quality diopter. This works quite well, but it's not a "true" macro.
Recently, I was able to buy the OM 90mm macro. This gives you a full frame equivalent focal length of 180mm, which is in the range of where I prefer to shoot, and it is a fantastic lens. I think this is the single best M43 macro lens that anyone has made, and it is optically just exceptional. To its credit, it also has very effective in-lens stabilization, which means it can be used not just on IBIS bodies, but also on bodies that do not have IBIS, which opens up options that the other Oly/OM macro lenses do not have. And, even at that long focal length, it's small, certainly compared to any FF macro setup, esp with that long a focal length.
Interestingly enough, I use primarily Panasonic bodies. I don't care for the OM/Oly user interface, and I vastly prefer the Panasonic native color rendition (it tends to be a bit cooler, the OM a bit warmer). To its credit, the OM 90mm works utterly flawlessly on even the diminutive G100D, which is a small camera body with no IBIS. I would gain a little more stabilization if I used an OM body, but the OIS in the lens is so good that it's great even without the sync IS, and that means I can use it with the bodies I prefer and get great results.
So, my suggestions?
- Absolutely M43 is great for macro.
- Get the 90mm lens.
- Whatever body you get, make sure it has at least one of the 20MP or 25MP sensors. There are a fair number of 16MP bodies still out there currently for sale, and these are NOT good enough for critical macro work. The 20MP and 25MP bodies, of either manufacturer, are.
- Lots of macro shooters use mostly manual focus, but I do prefer AF. However, I don't use either continuous or tracking AF for my macro work. Single point S-AF is so fast and accurate that I have great results with that for my AF macro method of choice. However, if you prefer tracking C-AF, the OM 1mk II or the Panasonic G9 mk II would be the bodies of choice,
If you do work with S-AF primarily, ANY of the 20MP bodies will do great.
I have attached a bunch of shots with the 90mm lens and either the G100D or the G95 camera bodies, and a couple with the PL 100-400mm.
Macro with M43 is really a lot of fun!
-J
The ones below were taken with the PL 100-400mm:
