Tempted to enter MFT system for sports and action photography

Honestly unless you want to shoot clearly longer than 200mm FF focal range, I would rather get the RF glass that is much lighter than what you have now.

For me, M43 really gets unbeatable in the long end. But a R6 with the R70-200f4 is basically same size and weight as the OM-1 plus 40-150.

Skeeterbytes wrote:

ProDude wrote:

Skeeterbytes wrote:

Will just note that having places to be nagged already, I find nothing to be gained engaging with a nag in a community forum. This one harvested the ignore switch ages ago.

I have NO idea how you could possibly have an issue with my response to the fact that so many of us have no options for acquiring gear. And that the option of making certain gear you otherwise have no access to trying will work out is an issue. I hope you were responding to the guy that complained about those that utilize this ability that is a gift from the likes of a B&H.

Not you, the person you're being nagged by.

Yep.

Tedolph

ProDude wrote:

Get over it. Many of us have NO options for going to a store nor anything close to use to find out if a given product is right up your alley or not. I have on very rare occasion found a product did NOT live up to my expectations. In the case of the OM-1 it worked out gloriously well. B&H as an example, is set up to accommodate those just like me that live in the middle of nowhere but buy many thousands of dollars of gear over time.

There is no chance for me to rent OM-1. It is so unusual system, that I need to go to the capital to Olympus store to touch it before I can buy it. I can still rent D500 or older Sony's models, but forget about A9II/A1. I would also need to pay at least half of deposit, which makes the whole rental proces cumbersome.

Jamajuel wrote:

Honestly unless you want to shoot clearly longer than 200mm FF focal range, I would rather get the RF glass that is much lighter than what you have now.

For me, M43 really gets unbeatable in the long end. But a R6 with the R70-200f4 is basically same size and weight as the OM-1 plus 40-150.

According to statistics of my preferred FL I see the majority of my shots are between 35 and 150. It is no brainer that Sony A9II with Tamron 35-150 is a perfect combo for my statistical needs. I would have bought it long time ago and I still consider such a step to avoid carrying two bodies. I just do not like Sony's ergonomics.

david31 wrote:

I thought dpreview did a comparison of mft vs ff for sports. They didn't like mft due to it having too much depth of field so players separation from background really suffers.

Yes - I am aware MFT kills DoF.

The more I am thinking about it, the more the conclusion of buying A9II with Tammy 35-150 comes.

MEDISN wrote:

Tommy S wrote:

I would like to hear from you, what is your experience as far as sports / action photography, using OM-1.

Hi Tommy,

Sounds like we are a lot alike in what we use/have used. Nearly all of my sports and action work is on Olympus now. I came from 1DX II to A9 and eventually R5, all of which I liked, but several key features make Olympus better to work with.

• Packing / portability / bulk
• Weather resistance and durability (Sony failed me)
• Crazy fast burst rates + ProCapture
• Ergonomics and handling are top notch
• Performance does not decline with battery % (R5)
• No overheating!
• Stabilization so good I leave the gimbal home
• JPEG engine is among the best I have ever used
• OM-1 JPG up to ISO 25600 are usable
• Wireless connectivity at events is strong and reliable
• Overall cost is half of what I had invested with Canon/Sony

There is something to be said for peace of mind when I'm shooting on location. Olympus is compact, portable, inexpensive, if something gets lost or stolen it's easy to replace.

For lenses, I find myself using the 40-150/2.8 the most. Internal zoom and built to last. Wash it off between shoots. Manual focus clutch is awesome too.

Some examples of what/where I shoot:

https://www.mitropoulos.photography/Athletics/

https://www.mitropoulos.photography/1-FOX-RACEWAY-PALA-1/

https://www.mitropoulos.photography/Orange-County/

Let us know what you choose and how you like it. Plenty of good options out there.

I went through your impressive gallery and I wonder which pics are taken with OM-1. As I started another thread @Sony forum, I learnt that Tammy 35-150 even with A1 does not seem much reliable in terms of AF. Moreover, the FPS drops to 8-10 (Sony's bodies and 3rd party lenses)

My only gripe as far as OM-1 is DoF. I can walk around it with fast primes and some leg zoom for short distances. However if the action is around 5-10 meters away leg zoom fails. And F2.8 in MFT is F5.6 FF. Background separation becomes challenging then.

MEDISN wrote:

Great input.

I would love to try OM-1 with both of these Panasonic's lenses. Having 2 bodies of OM-1 with such lenses is still cheaper than A1 with 24-70 with some huge amount of pixels to crop and achieving a mock longer focal length.

Jappie52 wrote:

tedolf wrote:

Seems like you already have a lot of cameras.

Do you really need another one?

Most of us get along fine with just one.

Tedolph

Such a nice way to welcome someone to this forum. Are you jealous or what?

JP (getting along fine with 3 cameras)

It's not about how many cameras you have, it's how much money each is worth.

tedolf wrote:

I hate it when people "buy" things just to try them out and then send them back if they don't like them. This drives up the cost of everything for everybody.

Your assumptions don't make it in the field of reality unless you made a study about this and care to share it with us. Otherwise you can also blame Santa Claus for charging exorbitant fees, which also drives up camera prices.

"Santa, you are robbing me with this overnight shipping fee!"

If you want to try something, rent it or borrow it from a friend.

Even if someone else around me had a nice camera, do you really think they would let me have it?

Skeeterbytes wrote:

Tommy S wrote:

david31 wrote:

I thought dpreview did a comparison of mft vs ff for sports. They didn't like mft due to it having too much depth of field so players separation from background really suffers.

Yes - I am aware MFT kills DoF.

Need to counter this notion. One can get good separation with an m4/3 kit. e.g., A player taken with the 300/4 Pro does not look the same as taken with a 600/4 to be sure, but that does not mean there will be a ton of fore and background clutter in 300 Pro shots. Far from it.

In the meantime, there's the whole 3 kg and $13k to ponder.

Statistically speaking my preferred focal length is 35-180 depending on the venue and type event, but my rule of thumb is "the closer the better". I rarely go beyond 200mm as I lose the sense of control in my workflow.

Rambow wrote:

tedolf wrote:

I hate it when people "buy" things just to try them out and then send them back if they don't like them. This drives up the cost of everything for everybody.

Your assumptions don't make it in the field of reality unless you made a study about this and care to share it with us. Otherwise you can also blame Santa Claus for charging exorbitant fees, which also drives up camera prices.

"Santa, you are robbing me with this overnight shipping fee!"

Yes, it is all Santa's fault.  He has a good PR team though!

If you want to try something, rent it or borrow it from a friend.

Even if someone else around me had a nice camera, do you really think they would let me have it?

Maybe not you?

Tedolph

Tommy S wrote:

david31 wrote:

I thought dpreview did a comparison of mft vs ff for sports. They didn't like mft due to it having too much depth of field so players separation from background really suffers.

Yes - I am aware MFT kills DoF.

The more I am thinking about it, the more the conclusion of buying A9II with Tammy 35-150 comes.

M4/3 definitely does not "kill" DOF, it has greater DOF than the larger formats.  I think you mean it produces less OOF blur than than larger formats.  Whether that's good or bad is a matter of current fashion.

MEDISN wrote:

Tommy S wrote:

I would like to hear from you, what is your experience as far as sports / action photography, using OM-1.

Hi Tommy,

Sounds like we are a lot alike in what we use/have used. Nearly all of my sports and action work is on Olympus now. I came from 1DX II to A9 and eventually R5, all of which I liked, but several key features make Olympus better to work with.

• Packing / portability / bulk
• Weather resistance and durability (Sony failed me)
• Crazy fast burst rates + ProCapture
• Ergonomics and handling are top notch
• Performance does not decline with battery % (R5)
• No overheating!
• Stabilization so good I leave the gimbal home
• JPEG engine is among the best I have ever used
• OM-1 JPG up to ISO 25600 are usable
• Wireless connectivity at events is strong and reliable
• Overall cost is half of what I had invested with Canon/Sony

There is something to be said for peace of mind when I'm shooting on location. Olympus is compact, portable, inexpensive, if something gets lost or stolen it's easy to replace.

For lenses, I find myself using the 40-150/2.8 the most. Internal zoom and built to last. Wash it off between shoots. Manual focus clutch is awesome too.

Some examples of what/where I shoot:

https://www.mitropoulos.photography/Athletics/

https://www.mitropoulos.photography/1-FOX-RACEWAY-PALA-1/

https://www.mitropoulos.photography/Orange-County/

Let us know what you choose and how you like it. Plenty of good options out there.

I'm not a sports shooter but did it once at night in the rain.  Had to laugh at the other guys with their camera raincoats and monopods.

BobT3218 wrote:

Tommy S wrote:

david31 wrote:

I thought dpreview did a comparison of mft vs ff for sports. They didn't like mft due to it having too much depth of field so players separation from background really suffers.

Yes - I am aware MFT kills DoF.

The more I am thinking about it, the more the conclusion of buying A9II with Tammy 35-150 comes.

M4/3 definitely does not "kill" DOF, it has greater DOF than the larger formats. I think you mean it produces less OOF blur than than larger formats. Whether that's good or bad is a matter of current fashion.

My mistake OFC, with some shortcut of meaning. I know what benefits are of smaller sensor (distance vs DoF vs F-speed). For my needs it is counterproductive when I want to cut out the subject from the background.

ProDude wrote:

Tommy S wrote:

david31 wrote:

I thought dpreview did a comparison of mft vs ff for sports. They didn't like mft due to it having too much depth of field so players separation from background really suffers.

Yes - I am aware MFT kills DoF.

The more I am thinking about it, the more the conclusion of buying A9II with Tammy 35-150 comes.

Like ANY technology there are ways around the characteristics of any given product. In the case of MFT you simply have to purchase a wider aperture lens. So unlike it being easy to get results on a FF with a f2.8 lens, you need to dive into a f1.2 or f1.4 lens in Mft. I've owned them all and find that my Sigma 56mm f1.4 DC lens on my OM-1 is easily capable of the yummy bokeh of f2.8 lenses I owned with a Canon R5 FF camera. You simply need to adjust accordingly. So I take issue with your scathing "Kills DOF" comment as it can be gotten around with proper lenses and technique.

I had Sigma 56F1.4 with A6600 (112F2.8 equivalent). Great lens indeed. In my hobby I tried many primes but the idea of sort of legs zoom does not appeal to me.

I would try 10-25 and 25-50F1.7 with OM-1, but the range is 40-100 and I miss 100-150 (third body?) Even two bodies are cumbersome to juggle to capture fast action in the venue of 10.000 sf.

I was never interested in MFT system before, but now I fully understand the benefits of such a small sensor with FL and DoF for small birds. For human subjects it is counterproductive (even DPReview noticed that in their sports review of OM-1).