I enjoy portrait photography, especially with Nikon 85mm and 105mm lenses on full-frame cameras.
My gear is old and needs an upgrade. I'm considering M4/3 systems because of their size.
I read that M4/3 lenses don't generate a shallow DOF, something which is useful for portraits.
Why exactly is this
because the sensor is smaller (e.g. phone sensors are smaller still and struggle to achieve any background blur in portraits without additional computational changes)
and is it really a problem for portraits?
depends how much OOF blur you want, and whether you're prepared to adapt
in general, assuming nothing else changes, your m43 lens will need to be 1/2 the focal length and twice as bright to achieve the same (equivalent) image as your FF gear
so taking your 85mm lens as an example, you need a 42.5mm m43 lens (a 45mm will achieve a FOV similar to a 90mm FF lens)
the aperture also needs to be halved to achieve similar background blur (again assuming everything else is equal - cameras, subjects, backgrounds all in the same position)
so if your FF lens has a max aperture of 1.8, and you shoot wide open, you would need a m43 lens with an aperture of 0.9 approx
and therein lies the "problem"
you'll likely get a bunch of unnecessarily long and complicated responses, or workarounds, but this is what it boils down to
️ on original thread.
