I’ve had several comments and questions from friends and family about the format change from a full frame DSLR to the Micro Four Thirds. My previous gear included a Canon 5D Mark II and a compliment of fast “L” primes and “L” zooms. It was a lens selection that I had been working towards for many years and they served me quite well. I was never a professional by the dictionary’s terms, as it wasn’t my main source of income. However, shooting with this gear did help offset the cost of most of it. Money came in from a variety of ways including portrait work, stock work and the dreaded event shoots (corporate dinners, awards ceremonies…) I was never a fan of event shooting, but it did help me thoroughly learn my gear inside and out since there’s NO down time.
I recently sold my entire DSLR system in favor of a Panasonic Lumix GH1 and Olympus E-P2. There were several months of overlap to make sure I was making the right choice. The selling of all my gear raised many questions from family, friends and an assortment of curious friends from various photography forums.
The history leading up to this format change had been several years in the making. I had been a Canon shooter for no other reason than my Dad was a Canon shooter. I could have just as easily been a Nikon or Olympus shooter. I had no particular allegiance to a system, except economics. Once you’re invested in a certain lens mount, then that pretty much dictates your camera bodies. Digitally speaking I started with the now ancient Canon D30, no that’s not a typo I didn’t mean the 30D. The Canon D30 was a 3.1MP, APS-C, DSLR introduced in 2000. It was a revolutionary body because it finally brought acceptable image quality to a digital format and was reasonably priced. It also accepted Canon’s huge inventory of EF mount lenses. Additionally, it came in the familiar SLR format that so many film shooters were already familiar with.
I plugged along shooting happily for several years, eventually upgrading to the 20D, 5D ‘classic’ and finally the 5D Mark II. Along side all of those DSLRs were a wide assortment of point and shoots, from Olympus, Canon, Panasonic, Ricoh, Fuji… All of these compacts play an important role in my decision to make the format change. The big gear was always available. I used it for all my paid work and most of my travel photography. I wouldn’t say that it was a burden to carry all that gear but it was a lot of work. My typical bag might include the 5D, 16-35 f/2.8L II, 85mm f/1.2L II, 135mm f/2L and the wonderful little 50mm f/1.4. In between all this gear would be a small point and shoot, but it never delivered the image quality that I wanted, namely high ISO capability.
A few months ago I gave up paid work and wanted to only shoot for personal satisfaction and the occasional stock work. Although I was never a full-time photographer I started to see weekends filling up. I couldn’t see any reason to grab the 5D over the GH1 or E-P2 anymore. All those compacts I mentioned earlier were nearly perfect in form factor, but didn’t give me the IQ I wanted. The DSLRs had the IQ, but didn’t have the form factor going for it. When the mirrorless Micro Four Thirds systems were introduced by Panasonic and Olympus I was interested. I shrugged it off for a while, but then started seeing more examples of it popping up around the Internet. I eventually saw that it offered the potential to meet the form factor AND IQ requirements I had. I ended up purchasing the GH1, used it for about a month and knew that there was a lot of potential for the m4/3 format. I quickly added the Olympus E-P2 and have never looked back.
If there were a drawback to the m4/3 format it would be in the lack of fast primes and zooms. With one exception, the outstanding Panasonic 20mm f/1.7, there are few other choices at this time for a fast prime. This can be overlooked if you have some patience since the system is still in its infancy. Already, Panasonic has at least one other fast prime in the pipeline, a 14mm f/2.8.
In the end it came down to a combination of size and image quality. Even though they are just slightly larger than most compacts these m4/3 bodies are delivering nearly the same results as many APS-C sensor cameras. These two factors led me to the sale of all my DSLR equipment in favor of a new format, the Micro Four Thirds format.
My shelf of large DSLR gear and lenses is now empty; my large camera bags that carried all that gear is next to go. I’ve whittled down my system to a small selection of m4/3 bodies and lenses that fit my shooting style and meets my image quality requirements. Now, I actually find myself bringing out my gear much more often, because they are not much bigger than the point and shoots I used to carry when I didn’t want the big gear.
Image quality and compact size…a perfect combination.
