Thought: Switch from canon 6D to olympus em1 ii

Hello everyone,

Like: Bird, soccer, indoor sports photography

My gear: - Canon 6D + tamron 70-300mm VC (soccer)

f/5.6, 1/200, iso 10000, 300mm

- Pana G7 + pana 100-400mm (bird)

Recently I want to sell my canon 6D and buy olympus em1 ii with 40-150mm f2.8 lens for better bird and sport photography.

Is it a good and wise investment?

Can new oly-combo produce better soccer photo than the above shown?

Or I just need to purchase pana 35-100mm f2.8 is enough?

Thank you for your advice and comment.

Faing22 wrote:

Hello everyone,

Like: Bird, soccer, indoor sports photography

My gear: - Canon 6D + tamron 70-300mm VC (soccer)

- Pana G7 + pana 100-400mm (bird)

Recently I want to sell my canon 6D and buy olympus em1 ii with 40-150mm f2.8 lens for better bird and sport photography.

Is it a good and wise investment?

If your reason is just a general "better bird and sport photography", then probably not.

You could better spend that money on something like Sigma 120-300 mm f/2.8 (maybe with a teleconverter). Or one of 70-200/2.8 (and a TC as well). That would give you significant boost in image quality compared to your current Tamron.

If you prefer reach over speed, there's bunch of xxx-600mm zoom for Canon.

Can new oly-combo produce better soccer photo than the above shown?

You would get about the same quality, I would say. Probably a bit sharper results due to better optics. But I would not count on breathtaking improvement.

Or I just need to purchase pana 35-100mm f2.8 is enough?

Probably not enough reach for those uses. E-M1 II would give you better image quality than G7, but it would not be a huge difference.

Faing22 wrote:

I just wonder if olympus em1 ii has better continuous AF than canon 6D for better soccer photo……

And I am really tired of carrying huge and heavy gear so having thought switch to olym-combo......

I owned 6D and 6Dii before deciding to sell a lot of my Canon gear.  I find the M1ii a much better performer than either of the 6s for sports... I shoot soccer and rugby.

However, I do still own a 7Dii with 100-400ii. That is my primary setup for sports as I find i get a much higher hit rate than the Oly. And, of course, the lens gives me further reach.

The 6s, much like an 80D I also owned, are okay for sports, but having experienced the performance of the 7Dii, they paled in comparison. The M1ii has taken more effort to understand its performance, and I’m not proficient yet, but it does work very well.

Olky will do fine in almost all circmstances, but indoor sports can be serious limiting when the hall is not very well lit. A FF sensor will allow you to go to ISO16000 where you get the same IQ as ISO6400 on the Oly. F2.8 and ISO6400 for action in a low light situation simply hampers you. You will need to go to ISO12800 at least in my experience or ISO16000. The Canon i will have usable IQ then, the Oly won't in my opinion.

toyak wrote:

I have both the 6d and em1m2 and shot a lot of soccer games’. For outdoor soccer the Olympus is my go to. It has a faster focusing system, pro-capture mode with Olympus lenses, better then twice the frame rate and moderately decent continuous tracking (however Inthink Iam better at it then the camera).

You make a very interesting comment......"I think I am better......" Does one really need top CAF?

Best

The one caveat to this is low light situations. Indoor soccer I use the canon because I am. using iso 6400 or more and the Olympus photo quality is lacking in my opinion once you start to climb that high. I use a canon 50-200 2.8 for indoor soccer and a 4/3’s 50-200 plus a cheap refurbished Olympus 50-150 micro 4/3’s lens that does much better then I expected.

ms960 wrote:

Faing22 wrote:

Any other similar experience and comment? Thank you

I sold my 7DII once I realized my E-M1II could do just as good a job shooting soccer, which I do a lot of. I actually like the photos out of my Olympus better than I ever did out of the Canon. I shoot with the Olympus 40-150 f/2.8.

This is my personal experience only and not suggesting all 7DII owners ditch theirs for the Olympus. I do obviously struggle with games at night, but also have a 6D plus an EF 70-200 if I really want to shoot any games at night. Granted, the autofocus of the 6D is nowhere near the Olympus, so I have to be selected

YMMV.

That was a goal for me when I bought the M1ii, but just haven’t got to the point where I can give up my 7Dii yet... partly because of the reach of the 100-400ii.

Can I ask how you’ve set up your M1ii for soccer... AF points, AF sensitivity and so on.

Thanks!