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 ...
14
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
Have you seen a gallery showing decades old photographs from 35mm film? All mirrorless cameras do better, much better. Do you think those pictures would get rejected today on the grounds of being to grainy, unsharp or lacking contrast?
Gallery quality has much more to do with with content of photographs than anything else. Light, color, gesture says Jay ...
11
I'm not sure if you are asking about the micro four thirds standard or the 4:3 aspect ratio, so I'll answer both:
Why do mirrorless cameras use micro four thirds?
They don't, only Panasonic and Olympus build micro four thirds cameras, there are a lot of other companies making mirrorless cameras (for example: Sony, Fujifilm, Samsung, etc.) that have other ...
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
Since this question was originally asked, the Micro Four-Thirds system has advanced and some of the earlier answers have become outdated. The latest generation of cameras has fast auto-focus although they still lag behind DSLRs for low-light and continuous tracking (eg birds in flight and sports) due to lack of phase-contrast autofocus. The lens selection is ...
10
I have an Olympus body (E-PL1) and a Panasonic lens (100-300mm zoom), and haven't noticed any special problems. It feels kind of silly to have 'paid' for in-lens stabilization that I keep turned off, but even when I've accidentally knocked the switch into the on position, it doesn't ruin the average shot (it makes for odd effects during long exposures on a ...
10
Ignoring for the moment aspect ratio, from a theoretical viewpoint there is will be no visual difference, provided you maintain
the same subject & camera position / orientation
the same angle of view
the same resolution (number of megapixels)
the same size entrance pupil (focal length divided by f-number)
the same lens characteristics
The first two are ...
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
No.*
The micro four thirds to four thirds adaptor is basically a tube which mounts the four thirds lens further from the sensor.
In order to do the reverse you would have to mount the micro four thirds lens closer to the sensor, which is not possible as there is stuff in the way!
*at least whilst preserving the ability to focus at moderate distances.
9
My advice goes for no, don't switch.
You always have the backup camera in your phone; do you currently even try capturing pictures with that when your big DSLR is away? If not, I suspect the real reason why you're not taking pictures now is not the size of your camera. It's probably either lacking time or dismissing opportunities to actually take some ...
9
Our very own Itai runs Neocamera, which has such a list.
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
All SLDs, other than the Nikon 1 J1, have a mechanical shutter. This is most likely what you hear each time a shot is taken.
Most of them use the mechanical shutter at the beginning of the shot and all of them use one at the end. The latest models omit the front curtain to improve shutter-lag but that is because they found a way to reliable discharge the ...
8
Breaking down your question:
Is it worth the effort?
If you already own lenses and don't want to spend money on digital lenses, you could say it is worth it.
If you don't want to fiddle with the manual focus, it's not worth it.
If you have to use this in an environment where fast focusing is critical, then no, it's not worth it.
This is a bit subjective.
...
8
You can use a Micro Four-Thirds lens on a Micro Four-Thirds camera and they are compatible between manufacturers, so Zuiko, Olympus, Panasonic, Leica, Sigma and Samyang lens are all compatible with cameras from Olympus and Panasonic as long as the mounts are Micro Four-Thirds.
You can use a Four-Thirds lens on a Micro Four-Thirds camera with an adapter ...
8
Sorry, no; the magnification designation of a macro lens is the ratio of the physical size of the object to the size it appears on the sensor, meaning at 1:2 magnification, the image of the object would be half life size on the sensor (so e.g. a 2cm diameter coin would have an image 1cm wide on the sensor).
Of course being a smaller sensor, the image would ...
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
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 ...
7
So let me get this straight.
You have a small, light weight camera that can use a good selection of lenses, and you are thinking of changing systems. You like the camera, it weighs less with a lens on than a Nikon DSLR does without. If you are travelling, the weight is not going to dig into you back.
My questions are why change?
Have you reached the ...
7
I will present the "quick and dirty" version of my answer, because I could talk on this topic for pages and pages. Essentially the 14mm f/2.5 "pancake" is a prime lens, which means it does not zoom, it has one fixed focal length. So instead of zooming in and out to frame your subject, you have to move your feet along with the camera! The fixed focal length ...
7
The Four Thirds standard for digital SLRs was designed by Olympus and Kodak to be the first system specifically made for digital, with high standards for telecentric lenses and other design choices for a modern era, rather than adapting a film lens mount. At the time, full-frame sensors were really out of reach in terms of cost, and the smaller sensor ...
7
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
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 ...
6
Rather than calculating the crop factor from the diagonal regardless of format, this chart is based on the largest-possible cropped print from the respective sensor. For example, for 3:2 aspect ratio (as in 4×6 prints), the Four Thirds image is cropped along the long edges, while for 4:3 aspect ratio, Four Thirds is uncropped but APS-C or "full-frame" 35mm ...
6
I think fundamentally you are looking at it a bit wrong. In theory, the aperture equivalence is exactly canceled out by the decrease in sensor area. When viewed at the same final size, the perception of noise should be about equal between your full-frame F/5.6 @ ISO 1600 and micro-four-thirds F/2.8 @ ISO 400.
But you note
I have rented the EM5 and ...
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
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 ...
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