DSLR to Micro 4/3. Anybody made the switch and been happy?

nonick wrote in post #14125928
One newbie question here... Is there any disadvantage if I get the panasonic 4/3s lenses to use on the Oly OMD instead of using the oly lenses?

I am interested in the 20/1.7 from panny. Also the leica 25mm 1.4 looks good. Can anyone share some insights on those two lenses? I am thinking I should pick one out of the two as my primary lens.

I am going all primes. Probably will buy 3 primes to cover the range up to around 90mm @35mm equip... like most people here, i will use this for travel, people, family, kid, walkaround, street. Any suggestion of lenses?

There's actually a big ADvantage: the Oly body will give the Pan 20mm stabilization. Can't beat that.
As far as the 20mm making any noise, that's the first I've heard of that. Maybe my hearing is just poor. BTW, I'm selling one at the M4/3 website (http://www.mu-43.com/). It's like POTN for 4/3. Much smaller, and still kind of cozy/friendly.

Mookalafalas wrote in post #14130383
There's actually a big ADvantage: the Oly body will give the Pan 20mm stabilization. Can't beat that.
As far as the 20mm making any noise, that's the first I've heard of that. Maybe my hearing is just poor. BTW, I'm selling one at the M4/3 website (http://www.mu-43.com/). It's like POTN for 4/3. Much smaller, and still kind of cozy/friendly.

ugh.... how much?? lol

oh man. i'm so glad i keep reading this thread. i had wanted to order the EM5 with the 12-50, simple cuz of weathersealing. but after seeing the reviews on Robin's blog.. that lens looks very weak.

how about the 14-42 lens? is that sharper on the EM5? i'd hate to carry 3 different primes around, even though it might still be lighter than my 24-70.. lol.

bedojo wrote in post #14130466
ugh.... how much?? lol

3 stops or so, I think. It's in all Olympus bodies, even the new dinky one, I believe.

EOS mE wrote in post #14130533
how about the 14-42 lens? is that sharper on the EM5? i'd hate to carry 3 different primes around, even though it might still be lighter than my 24-70.. lol.

There are several 14-42 lenses, and a 14-45. They are all good except...the new Panasonic Power O.I.S. X--it has some flaw that messes it up between certain (commonly used) shutter speeds. It would be a great lens if it weren't for that...the others are all quite good, and not too expensive. Here in Taiwan I can buy the regular Panasonic 14-42 for $100, and it's quite good. It has built in IS, though.

Mookalafalas wrote in post #14130716
There are several 14-42 lenses, and a 14-45. They are all good except...the new Panasonic Power O.I.S. X--it has some flaw that messes it up between certain (commonly used) shutter speeds. It would be a great lens if it weren't for that...the others are all quite good, and not too expensive. Here in Taiwan I can buy the regular Panasonic 14-42 for $100, and it's quite good. It has built in IS, though.

wow.. good to know. but if using other brands of lens on the EM5, would they still be able to focus fast - controlled through EM5?

I'm not sure, but I believe so. One problem is that the lenses have distortion and such instantly corrected in-camera when you take shots, and I think these correction parameters may not be embedded in the other companies software. Olympus and Panasonic agreed to jointly go into 4/3 together, so for the most part I think they want their lenses to be mutually compatible to make the system more attractive, so AF should be fine...

Oh, which reminds me: Olympus only do distortion correction while Panasonic do both distortion and chromatic aberration correction. Minor point since CA correction is a 1-click operation (or can be automatically applied during import I think) in Lightroom 4, but another thing to remember.

And yeah, in-body stabilization in the Olympus cameras is why I use Olympus over Panasonic. For my use it's good for about 2 stops, so if I can shoot the 20mm at 1/40 without IS I can do it at 1/10 with IS. Stabilized primes make the Olympus cameras more useful to me than Panasonic's.

E-M5 will focus non-Olympus lenses quickly too, although there might be a slight difference. I know that's the case the other way around with Olympus lenses on Panasonic bodies. User reports say fast focusing Olympus lenses like the 45mm f/1.8 focus slightly slower on Panasonic bodies. Still very fast, but a bit slower than full speed on Olympus bodies. It makes sense that it would work that way both ways when crossing bodies with lenses brand-wise. There's a lot of shared tech between the 2 companies, but some of it is proprietary.

Pasukun wrote in post #14130348
I have completely switched to m43 system about an year ago, and what I gained from the trade off is so much bigger than what I lost.My current setup is Pana Lumix G3 withPana 14mm f/2.5, Pana(Leica) 25mm f/1.4 and Oly 45mm f/1.8 prime lenses. (these are fantastic little lenses!)
Now get this, all those equipment mentioned above weights about 700g (1.5 lbs) total.
For a comparison, Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8 L weights 950g (2.1 lbs).
I could get another m43 body like GF3 (264g) and closely break even.

The thought has crossed my mind to completely dump Canon and go with the new Oly OMD... I am sick of carrying 35lb of crap. Off camera flash is something I do a fair amount of. That is a bridge I'd need to cross with an M4/3 system, so more research will be needed on my part.

A mellower approach would be to move to M4/3 slowly and keep the Canon kit for times I am working out of the truck.

District_History_Fan wrote in post #14132584
The thought has crossed my mind to completely dump Canon and go with the new Oly OMD... I am sick of carrying 35lb of crap. Off camera flash is something I do a fair amount of. That is a bridge I'd need to cross with an M4/3 system, so more research will be needed on my part.

A mellower approach would be to move to M4/3 slowly and keep the Canon kit for times I am working out of the truck.

I like off camera flashing as well, so I had to find a solution and I did.
It takes just a little bit of soldering to make it happen.

Here is a video I took while testing the wireless flashing. (Very poor recording..)

http://vimeo.com/31214​178

Olympus have a wireless TTL flash system. Not all Olympus flashes can be used off camera this way, so make sure you find the right ones. Also the system is proprietary Olympus and can't be used on Panasonics.

Or you could use manual flash off camera and use a wireless trigger in your camera hotshoe. Just depends what you want to do.

Does anyone know if my RF-602s will work with a Panasonic or Oly M4/3 camera? If they would, I could use the Canon Speedlites for manual mode flash.

District_History_Fan wrote in post #14132858
Does anyone know if my RF-602s will work with a Panasonic or Oly M4/3 camera? If they would, I could use the Canon Speedlites for manual mode flash.

Haven't used that trigger, but I don't see why not. It's just a manual flash wireless transmitter and receiver, right? These guys talk about using a Cactus v4 on an E-P3 with no problems which should be a similar deal:
http://www.flickr.com …iscuss/72157628​214235817/

Yohan Pamudji wrote in post #14132980
Haven't used that trigger, but I don't see why not. It's just a manual flash wireless transmitter and receiver, right? These guys talk about using a Cactus v4 on an E-P3 with no problems which should be a similar deal:
http://www.flickr.com …iscuss/72157628​214235817/

Thanks.

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-G3 looks like a nice set up. Anyone using it? It would save some $$$ over the OMD-E5...

I've recently made up my mind that I'm going to stay with m43 mirror less cameras and probably won't get a dslr anymore. Since photography is just a hobby for me, I don't need to carry around a large camera and lens combo. I always leave it at home anyways so it hardly gets used =/

I sold my 50D few years back and got my first m43 camera, the GF1. It was nice and compact and performed fairly well. After a while I missed the performance and IQ of a dslr. Ended up selling the GF1 and some lenses and got a Nikon D7000 this time. Had it for less than a year before I sold it too and went back to m43. Again, the D7000 just sat at home as I didn't want to carry it with me. This time I got the Panasonic G3 and Olympus E-P3 which was quite good, quick AF and high ISO performance was pretty good (on the G3, not E-P3). But then I heard about these small mirrorless cameras with APS-C size sensors, so I looked more into it. First I tried the Fuji X100, but was disappointed with the sluggish performance compared to the m43. Then I read about the Sony NEX-7 and was lucky to have bought one late December last year. Used it for a little over two months and just couldn't get over the poor low light performance on the NEX-7 (with the Zeiss 24mm 1.8 lens). My E-P3 performed better in the same low light place whereas the NEX-7 could not lock focus at all. Also the lack of lenses from Sony made me started looking at the m43 again. Then comes the E-M5 which seems to perform quite good from what I've seen read online and it also has features that I want where the NEX7 lacks. Sold the NEX7 and now waiting for the E-M5.

I figured now the newer m43 cameras has gotten a lot better and IQ is pretty close to what I've been missing before, I'm going to stay with m43. Also now there are quite a few quality lenses available for them which makes it even better. While I have owned those previous mirrorless cameras, I've taken them with me almost everywhere I went. Don't think I'll regret it at all lol

The more I read this thread the more I realize bigger really is better :-} In all seriousness I did try out the GF2 (similar to GF3) and its pretty good but just know your not getting a DSLR. I would also be interested to hear what others think who have more experience with the GF3. Considering its priced way below a G1x and right there with high end point and shoots it seems like a good choice as a small option.