19
A great deal here depends on when you (generally) take pictures.
In particular, with bright light, a smaller sensor makes little or no difference in quality. As the light level drops, however, a large sensor (generally) gains a greater advantage.
So, if you're mostly taking pictures of the view from a mountain top in broad daylight, chances are that the ...
16
The basic answer is that Canon's 50mm f/1.8 is an exception even within Canon's lineup. It's an old, simple design with nothing fancy, and made to be mass-produced cheaply. Compare the Canon 85mm f/1.8, at AU$360.
Basically, almost no lenses are as cheap as the one you're using as your reference point, so your perception is skewed. The Olympus lenses aren't ...
15
In practice this is not a concern unless you have very demanding needs.
Now I would preface this by saying that my view of "image quality" is that many people, particularly beginners, tend to make the mistake of thinking of that in terms of pixel level quality or technical tests of particular parameters (like ISO performance).
In practice an "image of ...
13
Crop factor has nothing to do with T-stop. T-stop is strictly about light transmission which affects exposure. If a lens could be 100% transmissive the T-stop and f-number of the lens would be the same number, but they would still be measures of different things. T-stop measures how much light is passed through the lens, f-stop measures the size of the ...
12
It's not so much that manual is better, but that manual is more controlled.
Shooting all the time on full manual will teach you what to do & what not to do. It will take longer & you will probably have far fewer keepers to start with, but you will learn as you go.
If you are shooting full manual, you have to balance up the depth of field you need - ...
11
All other things being equal, yes.
There are two primary reasons why this is so.
To maintain the same amount of field intensity of light over a larger area, a lens used with a larger sensor has to be able to collect more total light than a lens used with a smaller sensor. This means a larger entrance pupil, which usually works out to require a larger front ...
10
Camera and lens designs are full of compromises and certain decisions have knock on effect throughout the system.
Olympus decided on a particularly thick filter stack when specifying the micro four thirds system. This and the short backfocus distance of a mirrorless lens mount necessitate a telecentric or near telecentric lens design where rays exit the ...
9
Our very own Itai runs Neocamera, which has such a list.
9
You can mix & match lenses from different manufacturers, with just a few caveats.
Autofocus will work for all MFT lenses on all MFT bodies (that I am aware of).
Image stabilization: Olympus does in-body image stabilization (IBIS), whereas Panasonic bodies prior the GX7 and GX8 placed the image stabilization in the lens.† This means that Olympus lenses ...
9
I'm sure you've heard the old saying, "The best camera is the one you have with you."
Some of my favorite photos are shots I've taken with my three-year-old Samsung Galaxy Note 4, a phone with a decent camera but not a spectacular one. But it's in my pocket all the time, and when there is only a moment to grab a shot, there it is.
You can certainly get ...
8
You will crop away the outer edge of the image and this will cause you to lose the highly distorted edges of the photo.
this is particularly obvious when you are dealing with a very very wide angle where normally a circular image would be seen but due to the crop you see a square image.
This review of the Canon 8-15mm fisheye contains a picture how the ...
8
There is without a doubt a noticeable difference. The smaller sensor size, as you mentioned, gives a Micro Four-Thirds camera a disadvantage when it comes to low-light performance. The real question is: How much is this difference?
Let me preface this by saying that I have seen and reviewed nearly every Micro-Four Thirds cameras on the market, as well as ...
7
As someone who occasionally indulges in bird photography, shoots micro four-thirds, and has adapted manual lenses to her Canon dSLRs, I'd say don't do it. The lens will be disproportionately big and heavy compared to your G5, and the lack of autofocus (and EXIF, and aperture control from the body unless the lens has an aperture ring) will probably be more ...
7
No. Micro Four Thirds is not an open standard. The specification is available to member companies, which are listed here. It's not a tiny list, but it's not large, either.
Your best bet is found on the contact page, which says (sic):
To Manufacturers considering developing or selling the Four Thirds compliance product.
For inquiries on Four Thirds ...
7
Given the ratio of the Canon APS-C crop factor (1.6) to the MFT (2.0) sensors, the equivalent of a 300mm on your camera is 300*1.6/2=240mm so a bit longer than your intended lens (200mm).
The zoom capability you mention is really a zoom range, but since your lens starts at 12mm which is a wide angle, the zoom factor from "normal" is smaller, more ...
7
Assuming all other things are equal:
Your Canon 80D has a crop factor of 1.6. This means that your 300mm lens has an effective focal length of 300mm × 1.6 = 480mm.
A micro-4/3s camera has a crop factor of 2.0. This means that a 200mm lens has an effective focal length of 200mm × 2.0 = 400mm, a bit less than the 300mm lens on the Canon.
Working backwards, ...
6
Edit - One More Try (original below the rule)
The noise level for a given photograph is specifically a consequence of one or more of:
the ISO, with higher ISOs having more noise
the size of the sensor wells, bigger wells tend to be less noisy for the same generation of sensors because they get more light for the same pixel
the heat level in the camera, as ...
6
The size of a lens is governed by the complexity of the design and the amount of light that needs to pass through it. For a given focal length with a cropped sensor, the amount of information that has to be brought in to the lens to produce the image circle can be much smaller because the entire full frame image circle doesn't have to be filled. If you are ...
6
No, larger sensor cameras are not more likely to mis-focus - if you take the Canon 1DX (with a modern lens) for example, it's a full-frame camera that's about as far away from "likely to mis-focus" as possible.
But when a large sensor camera mis-focuses it's more noticeable, especially when most tiny sensor cameras (cellphones) have wide angle lenses.
The ...
6
No. As far as exposure value goes, an f-stop is an f-stop. It's only where depth of field is concerned (and noise calculations derived from "total light captured", if you're the type who has to go there) that you need to think about equivalent f-stops.
So if you are reading 1/250 at f/4, set your camera to 1/250 at f/4. That will give you a correctly-...
6
The f-stop is a simple ratio. It is the focal length divided by the working diameter. We use this value to compare the image brightness of one lens vs. another. The f-stop is often in error because it does not take into account light loss due to reflections from the polished surfaces and the lack of perfect transparency of the glass. The "T" -top is ...
6
I would suggest looking into a shift or tilt-shift adapter, to mount say a wide-angle Canon EF or Nikon AF-S lens. This way, you have a much wider selection of regular lenses to choose from than just looking at tilt-shift only lenses. And you will likely be able to achieve what you want much cheaper as well.
Edit: I specifically recommended full frame ...
6
I don't think it's a great idea to be shooting in full manual. The same kind of people will tell you that auto focus is cheating...
The semi auto modes allow you to control what you're interested in at that point. Aperture priority mode is a fantastic middle ground that gives you control of the depth of field, and the camera makes sure you get well exposed ...
5
The most comprehensive listing of Micro Four-thirds lens I am aware of is at this posting on the Micro 4/3rds Photography blog: http://m43photo.blogspot.com/2010/01/micro-four-thirds-lens-lineup.html. Despite the misleading dateline from when this blog post was originally published, the post is regularly updated as new lenses become available.
5
As it happens Stack Exchange gave me a chance to try it out, with the (no longer active) Gear Grant Program. I rented an OM-D EM-5 body and the lens for a couple of weeks, and took it with me everywhere.
My first impression was slight disappointment — although it's a mix of metal and plastic construction, it feels much more plasticky than Pentax's "Limited" ...
5
I've been a professional long-lens bird/nature shooter since the 80's. I used to use very big and pricey dedicated video cameras/lenses, but now have found the wonderful micro-4/3 world and love it. I've gotten some amazing shots, both video and stills, by adapting older long telephoto lenses to my Panasonic G6 and GH3, as well as my Olympus E-PL5 and E-M5 ...
5
You can use any filters on any lens if they are the same size, with some caveats.
Very few lenses have male filter threads instead of the usual female filter threads. I think the Fuji X100 series of cameras are like this, but don't quote me on that. In this case you either need special filters or an adapter.
Some wide angle lenses will vignette with the ...
5
Since most of the answers here are kind of the general "trade-offs related to sensor area" type, I'm going to add something that I haven't seen mentioned: the difference in the aspect ratio might not be an insignificant consideration, depending on what you want to shoot. If you like the native 3:2 ratio of APS-C, because you shoot a lot of landscape or just ...
5
Lens mount adapters increase the pool of available lenses we are able to mount on any particular camera body. Adapters are basically mechanical coupling devices; however, some also couple electrical communications as well. Unless the adapter incorporates optics, the optical properties of the adapted lens are not altered. In other words, the focal length of ...
4
I went through sorta the same thought process right when the RX100 came out. What I found was that the 4/3s cameras are not as small as the RX100. I bring my RX100 with me pretty much everywhere, I would not do this with a 4/3s.
Of course the 4/3s have the advantage of interchangable lenses etc... but that doesn't help you much when it is at home.
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