Back from µ4/3

After a year or two away from Canon EOS cameras and a total switch to µ4/3, I'm back. I bought an SL1, a 40mm pancake, a Tamron 17-50 and I'm occasionally borrowing a 15-85 and a 70-200 f/4 from daughter. Anyway, I'm happy to be back. It's just a start, but I'll build from here, maybe even get a 60D again and start building a new prime set. New acquisitions are always part of the fun.

There's a lot to like about µ4/3. I had both an Olympus EM-5 and a Panasonic G5 and went through a LOT of different lenses, most of which were really good, but what brought me back were primarily two things.

First off, I hated EVF's. Give me an optical viewfinder every time, even a pentaprism. EVF's just plain suck.

Second, photographing moving objects effectively was just about impossible. My daughter rides horses, competes and jumps, and I hardly ever got a decent shot. It drove me crazy. Now I'm happy again.

A couple of other things.... I missed the f/4 L zooms, the Canon menu system which has always made sense to me. The Olympus menus are insane as far as I'm concerned, and a bunch of other intangibles that's are just hard to pin down. I guess I'm just more comfortable with Canon. The µ4/3 format just never seemed to fit me correctly.

I loved the size and weight of the system for shooting most things with µ4/3, but in the end it just wasn't for me.

Anyway, I'm glad to be back.

Welcome back to the herd! {{{Hugs}}}

Size and weight are the ONLY advantage of m4/3(IMO).

Can't see myself ever owning one, but hey.. i'm getting older.

ahh the parodical son returns haha

Ha, could have told you as much...Matter of fact, I think that I did.

Welcome back.

Welcome back.
They're a nice bit of kit but can't easily replace a good DSLR.

dino8031 wrote in post #16887211
Second, photographing moving objects effectively was just about impossible. My daughter rides horses, competes and jumps, and I hardly ever got a decent shot. It drove me crazy. Now I'm happy again.



Anyway, I'm glad to be back.

welcome back. I'm still waiting until the mirrorless AF gets good

Welcome back

Ya I went m4/3rds after my 24-105mm failed on holidays. I had that and my 5d and realized it was a lot to carry. Got Lens repaired and sold all my Canon gear and got an Olympus EPL5. Great little camera for most. I had intended getting its bigger brother the EM5 but ended up buying a Nikon D7100. Dslrs definitely have some advantage, but I am glad to have the Olympus for times I don't need tracking or the system weight.

Thanks everybody!

I should add that my wife still has a Panasonic G5 and a few lenses so I still have access to the system if weight is a huge consideration, like on top of a Fourteener, eight miles from the trailhead, but I sure do like shooting with a 135L again, among other things.

I rented an EM5 for a weekend and thought it was insanely fun to use. I enjoyed taking it with me every time I left the house. I didn't use the EVF anywhere near as much as I thought I would. It was great at night because I could actually see in the dark, unlike an OVF where you can't see any better than you can with your own eyes.

The menus took a little getting used too but were fine. No where near dealing with Sony menus which are borderline sadistic sometimes.

Shooting anything moving was much less successful. But the tech in the camera was impressive. Face detection AF, eye AF (you can pick which eye to focus on), the speed of the AF were all impressive: practically instantaneous. You don't have to move around focus points or focus/recompose, just compose the shot and shoot. The LV means I know what the shot will look like when I take it so getting the shot was easier and faster than my DSLR. Oh, IBIS!! EVERY lens you put on it is stabilized! If only Canon decided to go that route...but they wouldn't like not being able to charge more for IS lenses. If Olympus made an APC-S EM-5 I would probably jump ship.

BUT, I couldn't come to love the pictures. They lacked something that APC-S and larger sensors have for some reason. The physical size between 4/3 and APC-S isn't huge, but for some reason the IQ was very different. The SL1 doesn't have outstanding build quality obviously, but it is fun to use, has the 2nd best LV AF in a Canon DSLR, and is surprisingly comfortable to hold and is crazy light weight. There is a lot of potential in the SL1, I hope Canon recognizes it and develops it (since they have no real interest in the mirrorless game).

welcome back! yeah, I can't really see phase detect AF being usurped for a while

I jumped ship to u4/3 three years ago and haven't look back although for some landscape video situations (e.g. Yosemite park) I really like Canon colors. So I just check back here a couple times a year to see if Canon has come out with a serious compact yet or is planning one. Ditto an affordable 4K video model to compete with the Panasonic GH4.

Why jump ship? I tried out a cheap Olympus Pen E-PL1 in 2011 and was blown away with the crisply sharp, richly colored, film like jpegs that little camera delivered as compared to the soft and mushy looking jpegs of my Rebel T3i. For video I now have a GH4 and enjoy shooting in 4K then downscaling to 1080 for Youtube. The resulting Youtube videos have amazing detail when played at just 720p small screen or 1080p full screen as you can see here: https://www.youtube.co​m/watch?v=UWzpaA2Ddlk

An E-PL1 with the 14-42mm f3.5-5.6 zoom is the most picture-taking power for the least money in all of photography, IMO.