Help choosing a budget MFT Camera

Hi guys,

I am looking to switch to MFT (Current camera is the 'ancient' and bulky Sony A100 and A-Mount) as it seems to offer the best balance of features and cost in a small package. However, I have been struggling to choose a camera and feel like I am going in circles researching. I hope people can give me some guidance here, maybe point out some bodies or combinations I am missing or give some user experiences.

Things I am looking for in a camera, with a maximum budget of £200 (Buying used):

- Compact enough that I can easily take out in a jacket pocket with a small lens or out in a single small shoulder bag with an all round travel lens and macro lens/fast prime.
- Extra physical dials and shortcuts - I have dyslexia (Its made working with cameras hard) so the more intuitive the control scheme the better. I love the function dial on my A100.
- Good WiFi/Bluetooth connectivity is a nice to have, ideally so I can easily backup and edit photos on my phone.                                                                                                                - Decent low light performance. I like shooting in overcast weather and cityscapes at night handheld.
- Decent Auto-Focus, I won't be using it for sports photography but I do enjoy some casual wildlife photography as well as street photography.                                                       - A viewfinder is a nice to have but not essential, anything will be an upgrade from the optical viewfinder of my A100 and its awful LCD.
- I don't care at all about video, in fact I would be completely happy if the camera came without video.

Based on the above, I have found these three cameras:

Olympus OM-D E-M10 II (£190) - This is the camera I am drawn to most, I rediscovered MFT as a option because of a search for small cameras with more physical dials. This model is the one that came up. It seems really great feature-wise with plenty of dials and nice to haves. I do worry about the apparently complicated menu system and contrast AF that is supposed to be a bit hit and miss. For reference, the main reason I got rid of a Sony A5000 and NEX 3 was because of their terrible C-AF.

Olympus Pen 9 (£210 with kit lens) - This has a newer image processor than the E-M10 Mark II, slightly better AF (But still C-AF) and has from what I have read, a slightly more streamlined menu system (Not sure by how much). It however lacks the customisability and additional controls of the E-M10 which is a shame.

Panasonic GX850 (£110) - This had me excited at first, it seems to avoid the Autofocus limitations of the other two cameras thanks to DFD (I think only when using Panasonic lenses though?) BUT it has a Low Light ISO of only 580 according to DXOMark. That is not much more than my Sony A100 that is painfully noisy at ISO 800 or above. The other big drawback similar to the Pen-9 is it lacks the additional dials of the E-M10 Mark II, but I hear Panasonic is supposed to have a more logical and reasonable menu system which could maybe compensate for that somewhat.

So what do you all think? Which camera would you recommend? I am open to all suggestions.

I still use EM10Mk1, it's a goog little camera that meets your criteria IMO.

Metaporic wrote:

Hi guys,

I am looking to switch to MFT (Current camera is the 'ancient' and bulky Sony A100 and A-Mount) as it seems to offer the best balance of features and cost in a small package. However, I have been struggling to choose a camera and feel like I am going in circles researching. I hope people can give me some guidance here, maybe point out some bodies or combinations I am missing or give some user experiences.

Things I am looking for in a camera, with a maximum budget of £200 (Buying used):

- Compact enough that I can easily take out in a jacket pocket with a small lens or out in a single small shoulder bag with an all round travel lens and macro lens/fast prime.
- Extra physical dials and shortcuts - I have dyslexia (Its made working with cameras hard) so the more intuitive the control scheme the better. I love the function dial on my A100.
- Good WiFi/Bluetooth connectivity is a nice to have, ideally so I can easily backup and edit photos on my phone. - Decent low light performance. I like shooting in overcast weather and cityscapes at night handheld.
- Decent Auto-Focus, I won't be using it for sports photography but I do enjoy some casual wildlife photography as well as street photography. - A viewfinder is a nice to have but not essential, anything will be an upgrade from the optical viewfinder of my A100 and its awful LCD.
- I don't care at all about video, in fact I would be completely happy if the camera came without video.

Based on the above, I have found these three cameras:

Olympus OM-D E-M10 II (£190) - This is the camera I am drawn to most, I rediscovered MFT as a option because of a search for small cameras with more physical dials. This model is the one that came up. It seems really great feature-wise with plenty of dials and nice to haves. I do worry about the apparently complicated menu system and contrast AF that is supposed to be a bit hit and miss. For reference, the main reason I got rid of a Sony A5000 and NEX 3 was because of their terrible C-AF.

Olympus Pen 9 (£210 with kit lens) - This has a newer image processor than the E-M10 Mark II, slightly better AF (But still C-AF) and has from what I have read, a slightly more streamlined menu system (Not sure by how much). It however lacks the customisability and additional controls of the E-M10 which is a shame.

Panasonic GX850 (£110) - This had me excited at first, it seems to avoid the Autofocus limitations of the other two cameras thanks to DFD (I think only when using Panasonic lenses though?) BUT it has a Low Light ISO of only 580 according to DXOMark. That is not much more than my Sony A100 that is painfully noisy at ISO 800 or above. The other big drawback similar to the Pen-9 is it lacks the additional dials of the E-M10 Mark II, but I hear Panasonic is supposed to have a more logical and reasonable menu system which could maybe compensate for that somewhat.

So what do you all think? Which camera would you recommend? I am open to all suggestions.

OM menus are complex but allow a great number of things that can be customized. I think there's too much useless crap mixed in that could be removed. But, it can be learned, and once the camera is set, you'll rarely need to dive into the menus.

Low light performance. Your willingness to accept a kit lens is contrary to low light performance. An average kit stop aperture might be f4+, which is 2.3 stops slower than f1.7/1.8. Think about it. What you can get at f1.8 ISO 400 requires f4 ISO 2000.

AF. I am unfamiliar with DfD. Some like it, some don't. Reputedly, it is less reliable than PDAF (later OM bodies) for fast moving subjects. I have PDAF and rarely miss focus.

I don't know camera prices in UK nor the value of a quid (~$1.25-1.50 US?) but, honestly, I think you'll need to make sacrifices to fit that budget

Metaporic wrote:

Hi guys,

I am looking to switch to MFT (Current camera is the 'ancient' and bulky Sony A100 and A-Mount) as it seems to offer the best balance of features and cost in a small package. However, I have been struggling to choose a camera and feel like I am going in circles researching. I hope people can give me some guidance here, maybe point out some bodies or combinations I am missing or give some user experiences.

Things I am looking for in a camera, with a maximum budget of £200 (Buying used):

- Compact enough that I can easily take out in a jacket pocket with a small lens or out in a single small shoulder bag with an all round travel lens and macro lens/fast prime.
- Extra physical dials and shortcuts - I have dyslexia (Its made working with cameras hard) so the more intuitive the control scheme the better. I love the function dial on my A100.
- Good WiFi/Bluetooth connectivity is a nice to have, ideally so I can easily backup and edit photos on my phone. - Decent low light performance. I like shooting in overcast weather and cityscapes at night handheld.
- Decent Auto-Focus, I won't be using it for sports photography but I do enjoy some casual wildlife photography as well as street photography. - A viewfinder is a nice to have but not essential, anything will be an upgrade from the optical viewfinder of my A100 and its awful LCD.
- I don't care at all about video, in fact I would be completely happy if the camera came without video.

Based on the above, I have found these three cameras:

Olympus OM-D E-M10 II (£190) - This is the camera I am drawn to most, I rediscovered MFT as a option because of a search for small cameras with more physical dials. This model is the one that came up. It seems really great feature-wise with plenty of dials and nice to haves. I do worry about the apparently complicated menu system and contrast AF that is supposed to be a bit hit and miss. For reference, the main reason I got rid of a Sony A5000 and NEX 3 was because of their terrible C-AF.

Olympus Pen 9 (£210 with kit lens) - This has a newer image processor than the E-M10 Mark II, slightly better AF (But still C-AF) and has from what I have read, a slightly more streamlined menu system (Not sure by how much). It however lacks the customisability and additional controls of the E-M10 which is a shame.

Panasonic GX850 (£110) - This had me excited at first, it seems to avoid the Autofocus limitations of the other two cameras thanks to DFD (I think only when using Panasonic lenses though?) BUT it has a Low Light ISO of only 580 according to DXOMark. That is not much more than my Sony A100 that is painfully noisy at ISO 800 or above. The other big drawback similar to the Pen-9 is it lacks the additional dials of the E-M10 Mark II, but I hear Panasonic is supposed to have a more logical and reasonable menu system which could maybe compensate for that somewhat.

So what do you all think? Which camera would you recommend? I am open to all suggestions.

the gx80 is a tiny bit over you budget but please have a look at reviews on youtube etc and see for yourself, imo an excellent small (without being tiny) camera. The 'poor' evf imo is overblown, its never gotten in the way of me getting the shot, but trying one first I would recommend.

MPB has some used from £214 in good condition

https://www.mpb.com/en-uk/used-equipment/used-photo-and-video/used-mirrorless-cameras/used-panasonic-mirrorless-cameras/panasonic-lumix-dmc-gx80/

its where I bought mine, its been great.

A thread I posted last april https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4567727

Its my favorite camera so far that I've owned, out of the 6-7 cameras from nikon/canon/panasonic that I've had.

Panasonic GX850 (£110) - This had me excited at first, it seems to avoid the Autofocus limitations of the other two cameras thanks to DFD (I think only when using Panasonic lenses though?) BUT it has a Low Light ISO of only 580 according to DXOMark.

I have no idea what dxomark is measuring, but I very highly doubt that the gx850 sensor performs similiarily to the A100.

The A100 was a sort of low water mark of high iso performance at the time of it's production. The gx850 sensor is competitive (ie in the ballpark ) with current sensor performance.

Look at the DPRreview test photos for a good comparison.

Personally i'd go with an em10-1 or em5-2 or later model of those, due to physical controls.

I agree the GX80/85 (two digits not three) is a great camera that even supports dual IS. Coupled with the 12-33 pancake zoom it's very compact.

Metaporic wrote:

contrast AF that is supposed to be a bit hit and miss.

...that's not true: Contrast AF is very, very accurate, it just isn't as fast as PDAF (or DFD for that matter). If Contrast AF fails, it is because the subject moves too fast and/or there's too litte contrast/detail in the subject (often due to low light).
That's why all (MFT) camera's use Contrast Focus in S-AF mode, only in C-AF mode they solely rely on PDF (DFD) [when available].

That said - when you're into low light photography, you'll know that's not MFT's strongest point... you'll want a fast lens - and a fast lens also gives a higher success rate with Contrast AF.

As to the choice of a camera model - you can't really go wrong quality-wise, it depends on what kind of photography you do, and what you prefer...

Photongraphy wrote:

Metaporic wrote:

contrast AF that is supposed to be a bit hit and miss.

Its not in stills unless trying to track fast subjects, even then its alright, CDAF in video is when mostly the AF is hit and miss.

...that's not true: Contrast AF is very, very accurate, it just isn't as fast as PDAF (or DFD for that matter). If Contrast AF fails, it is because the subject moves too fast and/or there's too litte contrast/detail in the subject (often due to low light).
That's why all (MFT) camera's use Contrast Focus in S-AF mode, only in C-AF mode they solely rely on PDF (DFD) [when available].

CDAF is accurate and fast, its tracking that PDAF excels at.

See panasonics claims on AF speed vs sony, very similar with panasonic claiming faster.

DFD is a still CDAF, its just the best version (imo) that performs closest to PDAF in terms of tracking, the G9 onwards show this well.

That said - when you're into low light photography, you'll know that's not MFT's strongest point... you'll want a fast lens - and a fast lens also gives a higher success rate with Contrast AF.

As to the choice of a camera model - you can't really go wrong quality-wise, it depends on what kind of photography you do, and what you prefer...

Metaporic wrote:

Hi guys,

I am looking to switch to MFT (Current camera is the 'ancient' and bulky Sony A100 and A-Mount) as it seems to offer the best balance of features and cost in a small package. However, I have been struggling to choose a camera and feel like I am going in circles researching. I hope people can give me some guidance here, maybe point out some bodies or combinations I am missing or give some user experiences.

Things I am looking for in a camera, with a maximum budget of £200 (Buying used):

- Compact enough that I can easily take out in a jacket pocket with a small lens or out in a single small shoulder bag with an all round travel lens and macro lens/fast prime.
- Extra physical dials and shortcuts - I have dyslexia (Its made working with cameras hard) so the more intuitive the control scheme the better. I love the function dial on my A100.
- Good WiFi/Bluetooth connectivity is a nice to have, ideally so I can easily backup and edit photos on my phone. - Decent low light performance. I like shooting in overcast weather and cityscapes at night handheld.
- Decent Auto-Focus, I won't be using it for sports photography but I do enjoy some casual wildlife photography as well as street photography. - A viewfinder is a nice to have but not essential, anything will be an upgrade from the optical viewfinder of my A100 and its awful LCD.
- I don't care at all about video, in fact I would be completely happy if the camera came without video.

Based on the above, I have found these three cameras:

Olympus OM-D E-M10 II (£190) - This is the camera I am drawn to most, I rediscovered MFT as a option because of a search for small cameras with more physical dials. This model is the one that came up. It seems really great feature-wise with plenty of dials and nice to haves. I do worry about the apparently complicated menu system and contrast AF that is supposed to be a bit hit and miss. For reference, the main reason I got rid of a Sony A5000 and NEX 3 was because of their terrible C-AF.

Olympus Pen 9 (£210 with kit lens) - This has a newer image processor than the E-M10 Mark II, slightly better AF (But still C-AF) and has from what I have read, a slightly more streamlined menu system (Not sure by how much). It however lacks the customisability and additional controls of the E-M10 which is a shame.

Panasonic GX850 (£110) - This had me excited at first, it seems to avoid the Autofocus limitations of the other two cameras thanks to DFD (I think only when using Panasonic lenses though?) BUT it has a Low Light ISO of only 580 according to DXOMark. That is not much more than my Sony A100 that is painfully noisy at ISO 800 or above. The other big drawback similar to the Pen-9 is it lacks the additional dials of the E-M10 Mark II, but I hear Panasonic is supposed to have a more logical and reasonable menu system which could maybe compensate for that somewhat.

So what do you all think? Which camera would you recommend? I am open to all suggestions.

I can't comment on your shortlisted cameras, but I was in the same boat as you. I also have Sony A100 with 3 Minolta AF lenses. They've served me well, but I felt limited in this age after I started photographing with an iPhone. The only difference was the budget, which I started low but stretched to some extent and pulled the trigger on E-M1.2.
If you want, you can go through the discussion in these two threads:

• https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4637877
• https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4645631

For the camera choices, I agree with the input of others. Panasonic GX80/85 can serve you very well. I also contemplated this when I started searching for an m43 camera. I tried one in a local used camera store, but it was too small for my hands. For you it seems, the size can be positive.

On Olympus side, I would suggest you should stretch your budget a little and go with a used E-M5 II if you can find a good deal. This camera can serve you very well in the coming years.

The GX850 is a fun camera, but I don’t know if I’d choose it if I were using it as my primary camera. I have one that I used as a secondary camera with my G85–usually I’d attach a wide zoom to the G85 and a short telephoto prime to the GX850 and was good to go for most situations. IQ-wise, the two offer very similar performance. But the problem with the GX850 as a primary cam is that it lacks a lot of useful features, including IBIS.

I use a combo of Panasonic and Olympus, and in terms of AF, for the most part I’d say the two are pretty close. Shooting air shows last summer, I didn’t notice any difference between my GX9 and my E-M5 III. The same was true with my previous 16-mp bodies the E-M1 and G85. And I’m sure it will be similar among the bodies you’ve identified.

I think you can’t go wrong with an E-M10 II. I also second the recommendation of the GX80/GX85. I’d probably skip the E-PL9 (I assume that’s the PEN 9) and instead try to find the more fully featured E-P5. If you can find a good deal on one in good condition, I’d recommend it over any of the choices you identified. It’s gem of a camera, and it’s the only 16-mp body that I use regularly since moving on to 20-mp.

Metaporic wrote:

Things I am looking for in a camera, with a maximum budget of £200 (Buying used):

- Compact enough that I can easily take out in a jacket pocket with a small lens or out in a single small shoulder bag with an all round travel lens and macro lens/fast prime.

There's 2 possible options here: do you want it to fit in a jacket pocket OR a small shoulder bag? Most m43 bodies that are not the G9 or EM1 series fit in a small shoulder bag. Only certain bodies are pocketable with certain lenses. GM series and EP-L series can be pocketable with pancake lenses like the Pany 14/2.5, 20/1.7, etc.

- Extra physical dials and shortcuts - I have dyslexia (Its made working with cameras hard) so the more intuitive the control scheme the better. I love the function dial on my A100.

This means going with an slr-style body for Oly (EM-10, EM-5). Pany has both rangefinder-style and slr-style bodies with lots of controls, but the slr bodies are still winners in this category.

- Good WiFi/Bluetooth connectivity is a nice to have, ideally so I can easily backup and edit photos on my phone.

Both Pany and Oly have comparable abilities here imo. It does the job, but things could be better.

- Decent low light performance. I like shooting in overcast weather and cityscapes at night handheld.

This means getting a fast prime. Most m43 bodies made in the last 5-7 years, excluding Pro-level bodies, have pretty good abilities here. Newer bodies with slightly-better IQ and 20-mp sensors should give a slight edge, but the f1.8 lens will make the real difference.

- Decent Auto-Focus, I won't be using it for sports photography but I do enjoy some casual wildlife photography as well as street photography. - A viewfinder is a nice to have but not essential, anything will be an upgrade from the optical viewfinder of my A100 and its awful LCD.

AF-S is great for all bodies. AF-C might be lacking in some ( Pen F) and better in others, but still fairly similar (excluding Pro bodies). Not caring about a vf definitely opens up your choices.

- I don't care at all about video, in fact I would be completely happy if the camera came without video.

Based on the above, I have found these three cameras:

Olympus OM-D E-M10 II (£190) -

AF-C and AF-S are great and more than usable. Lots of external controls. Fairly small body. This has everything. Don't listen to hype about Olympus menus. That is mostly from people who have gotten used to other menu systems. Oly has the Super Control Panel, a screen that shows/allows-access-to all settings at one touch of a button.

Olympus Pen 9 (£210 with kit lens) -

Yes, the EPL-9 is a dumbed-down EM series camera. IS is only 3-axis, no vf, less of the fancy shooting modes and long-exposure features that the EM bodies have, less external control. It's still a good camera tho, especially if a major goal is overall size.

Panasonic GX850 (£110) -

Just based on other users experiences with this camera, I'm not sure what you read about the ISO performance is accurate. This is on par with the EPL-9.

The only things that are a direct function of camera body and you've said that you're looking for are overall size and extra external controls. M43 is small, but "pocket-size" excludes extra external controls. The EM-10 is still pretty small and gives you everything else you want. Similar Pany options are G7 and G85.

A bit less external control (we're talking like 1 dial less) and we're into the Pany GX series and Oly EP and EPL series.

ThePalindrome wrote:

I agree the GX80/85 (two digits not three) is a great camera that even supports dual IS. Coupled with the 12-33 pancake zoom it's very compact.

This is the one I would recommend as well.

The em10 mk ii is kind of the sweet spot, they seem to go for around $250 in good shape. I just scored an em10 mk I on fleabay for $125, 5000 shutter count, so that’s even more of a bargain.  Add in the 20 mm limit at about another $125 and I have a near pocket sized little gem.

for the pen-9 option.

if you are shooting indoors in low light, then the pen 9 is a fine choice

want to shoot on a bright sunny day?, it is not as effective.  I would choose a viewfinder camera for that type of shooting.

I don't know about your other options, but the E-M10ii is definitely a little gem of a camera.  It's not really pocketable but fits nicely in a man-purse or fanny pack with room left over, makes a great travel combo with one or two of the kit lenses.