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Is it time to change to 4/3 (1 Viewer)

Pauhana

Pauhana

Well-known member
United States
So is it time to change from DSLR to 4/3 for birding? Would like to shave a few pounds off my kit. Currently 7D MKii & 100-400 Mk ii.
My other concern is the bet's are on no 7d MKiii coming from Canon

My thoughts are moving to Olympus Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II with 300 mm lens. Or to Fujifilm XT-3.

Interested in where others are a this time either having made the change or considering to switch

Considering renting to give either a try

Thoughts and comments welcome

Randy
 
Pauhana said:
So is it time to change from DSLR to 4/3 for birding? Would like to shave a few pounds off my kit. Currently 7D MKii & 100-400 Mk ii.
My other concern is the bet's are on no 7d MKiii coming from Canon

My thoughts are moving to Olympus Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II with 300 mm lens. Or to Fujifilm XT-3.

Interested in where others are a this time either having made the change or considering to switch

Considering renting to give either a try

Thoughts and comments welcome

Randy
Click to expand...


If weight is your focus, the Oly EM-1 mk ii and the Pana-Leica 100-400 make an excellent combo, the lightest for top of the line m4/3 equipment. (It's my primary combo; see sample photos in my link). The fuji won't give you the 2x crop factor of micro 4/3, so you'd need longer lenses. The Oly 300mm f4 prime is noticeably heavier than the 100-400, esp. if you add the TC which is desirable for bird photography. (Also note that 4/3 is different from micro 4/3; the former is an older system).
 
Some impressive photos. Be interested in your thoughts on the IQ difference (if any) between the 300mm prime and the Leica zoom. The nature of my photography nowadays is such that I wouldn’t be using a TC with either lens.
 
It would lighten the load, i would not be doing any now if i still had to carry a DSLR and long lens.

You would have a very steep learning curve using one for action photography but with practice it does fall into place.

There are two ways to lighten your load one is m4/3 the other is the Nikon Z6 and PF lenses, i decided the crop factor of m4/3 was more use to me than the larger DX sensor.

If you have a link to the sort of bird photography you do it would be easier to tell if m4/3 would work for you.
 
Nice pics by all..........

How do this cameras work for BIF pics?


Yes I need to reduce the weight. Am using a cotton carrier now which has helped a lot spread the weight. Carrying this camera almost everyday doesn’t help. Since retiring I spend much more time in the field. Think my wife is glad to get me out of house. Think I will rent some gear for a week to give it a try. Might try to find an online manual to study so I have idea what I’m doing when I rent the gear
 
Pauhana said:
Nice pics by all..........

How do this cameras work for BIF pics?


Yes I need to reduce the weight. Am using a cotton carrier now which has helped a lot spread the weight. Carrying this camera almost everyday doesn’t help. Since retiring I spend much more time in the field. Think my wife is glad to get me out of house. Think I will rent some gear for a week to give it a try. Might try to find an online manual to study so I have idea what I’m doing when I rent the gear
Click to expand...

If you go through this thread you will find three sets of test shots of birds coming towards me, ok boring birds but was only testing the cameras ability.
You would possibly find it a steep learning curve and its easy to think the camera cant do it, it can though.

https://www.mu-43.com/threads/ok-how-good-is-the-caf-on-the-em1mk11-firmware-3-1.104829/
 
Chosun Juan said:
Anyone have any mail on what the Olympus Digital ED 150-400 f4.5 TC 1.25× IS PRO will weigh ??
https://m.dpreview.com/products/olympus/lenses/olympus_150-400_4p5_is_pro





Chosun :gh:
Click to expand...

According to the 4/3 rumurs website, the price of the lens 'could' be announced at the same time as the news of the new E-M5 III is released, which they're predicting will be October 17th.

Presumably, if Olympus are at the stage of saying how much it'll cost, they will have all the other specs available as well - whether they're reluctant to publicise the weight or not is another matter!
 
njlarsen said:
I have not seen anything firm. However, look at the second image here where it is compared to the PL100-400: https://www.43rumors.com/ft3-olympu...e-unveiled-with-the-e-miii-launch-in-october/

Niels
Click to expand...
Thanks Niels,

Looking at the two it seems the Oly is about 1.5x longer than the Panny, and it's 400/f4.5 objective would have an area about twice the size of the 400/f6.3 Panny. If I guesstimate about 1/3 of the Panny's weight in the objective group then:

Crunching some very rough numbers we might hope for a weight around the ~1.8kg or maybe just a little more. I certainly hope it comes in under 2kg.

It seems this lens might become a reality before Niki PF 600/f5.6 ... maybe it could be a contender - maybe it could be somebody ... !
:)

[EDIT] [Performing a similar bodgy analysis against the 300/f4 PRO gives a similar result, so maybe that ~1.8kg is a pretty good guess. Anything under that would be a very nice bonus] :t:


Chosun :gh:
 
Last edited:
Chosun Juan said:
Thanks Niels,

Looking at the two it seems the Oly is about 1.5x longer than the Panny, and it's 400/f4.5 objective would have an area about twice the size of the 400/f6.3 Panny. If I guesstimate about 1/3 of the Panny's weight in the objective group then:

Crunching some very rough numbers we might hope for a weight around the ~1.8kg or maybe just a little more. I certainly hope it comes in under 2kg.

It seems this lens might become a reality before Niki PF 600/f5.6 ... maybe it could be a contender - maybe it could be somebody ... !
:)

[EDIT] [Performing a similar bodgy analysis against the 300/f4 PRO gives a similar result, so maybe that ~1.8kg is a pretty good guess. Anything under that would be a very nice bonus] :t:


Chosun :gh:
Click to expand...

1.8kgs would be nice but I think it might be quite a bit heavier than that. It all depends on how much glass is in there. The 300mm F4 weighs 1475g with tripod foot and contains 17 elements. The Canon and Nikon lenses with a similar spec to the new Olympus lens - 200-400mm F4 and 180-400mm F4 have 33 and 35 elements, respectively.

Because of the smaller sensor size, Olympus doesn't seem to be compromising on the specifications of their top-range lenses - the 300mm is a good case in point.
 

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nikonmike said:
It would lighten the load, i would not be doing any now if i still had to carry a DSLR and long lens.

You would have a very steep learning curve using one for action photography but with practice it does fall into place.

There are two ways to lighten your load one is m4/3 the other is the Nikon Z6 and PF lenses, i decided the crop factor of m4/3 was more use to me than the larger DX sensor.

If you have a link to the sort of bird photography you do it would be easier to tell if m4/3 would work for you.
Click to expand...


following is my flckr page

https://www.flickr.com/photos/limpkin/

Randy
 
The setup you mention is quite a heavy DSLR with not the lightest lens either, so there is plenty of room to save weight while staying with a DSLR. After all a 200D weights less than 500 grams, how much difference an even lighter body makes then?

The key issue, that needs constant repeating, is that if your primary purpose is birding, that is, getting shots of very distant birds, which you are gonna crop a lot to see ID details, then the overall size of the chip is rather irrelevant. This on one hand means that you can go to a smaller chip without losing anything, on the other hand it means that you should always consider the physical not crop-equivalent or whatever people like to call it focal length of the lens, so the idea that "with 4/3 you can do with shorter lenses" doesn't hold much water for birding purposes. The commonly sized pixels of today are usually small enough that the resolution of detail is limited by the lens no matter what chip you give and you can't easily make the lens smaller, because diffraction becomes an important factor and that is simply inversely proportional to the diameter of the front element of the lens.

These considerations are completely different if you are a "wildlife photographer", that is, you stay in hidden, wait for wildlife to come to you and shoot high-definition shots using the whole chip with little cropping. But if you mentioned "for the purpose of birding", then this is how it is.
 
I have used m4/3 for about 18 months now. Its advantage is light weight but there are penalties down to there will be more noise. I would say that if you can bear carrying the weight full frame or DX and the associated lenses will usually be better, hover if like me what you can carry is limited then it is worth a try.
 
I have Canon 60d with Tamron 150-600 g2 lens. This combo started annoying my back. Thinking of buying 7d mk2 for higher quality and speed or switching to m4/3 with Panasonic 100-400 lens and Panasonic g9 or Olympus om-d e1 mk2 body for less weight. My preferance is birding - the ability to take photo of every bird I can't ID to be able ID it by photo. So birds in flight also. But the quality of the photos is important for me too. What would you recommend - 7d mk2 or switch to m4/3?
 
andrewins said:
I have Canon 60d with Tamron 150-600 g2 lens. This combo started annoying my back. Thinking of buying 7d mk2 for higher quality and speed or switching to m4/3 with Panasonic 100-400 lens and Panasonic g9 or Olympus om-d e1 mk2 body for less weight. My preferance is birding - the ability to take photo of every bird I can't ID to be able ID it by photo. So birds in flight also. But the quality of the photos is important for me too. What would you recommend - 7d mk2 or switch to m4/3?
Click to expand...

After having Panasonic and Olympus the Olympus has the edge for BIF and works well with the 100-400.

The Panasonic G9 possibly has the edge for other subjects
 
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