Thread: Has m43 finally lived up to the promise?

It has definitely lived up to its promise of a smaller camera system that produces high quality images. Although it was never designed to nor will it ever replace the larger chip cameras for what advantages they offer.
But I do see the M4/3 users are a little confused or maybe it is just a divide in where consumer think the direction of the cameras should go. I for one am very happy to see the launch of the new higher quality lenses, but I find it interesting that many who protest at the cost of these lenses, sort of limiting the growth of M4/3s to a fancy P&S. I think there is room for both in the M4/3 world, high-end bodies and lenses and more inexpensive happy snap versions as well

Originally Posted by Ray

Until you consider that the VAST majority of all of the great photographs taken through history were taken with gear far less technically advanced than today's amazing cameras. To me , if "the only conversation worth having is on image quality" that's a really boring conversation to have and one that rejects about 99% of the great photographs taken through photography's still relatively short history. To me, image quality beyond a certain point of "good enough" is all marketing bullshit. I'm usually too polite to say that and figure to each their own, but if you're gonna call my camera choices "toys" I'll be happy to call your oversize behemoths sorry substitutes for size..... oh, never mind.

But I actually do feel "to each his own" so maybe we can stop calling each other names and just talk. To ME the key ingredient in EVERY great photograph is getting the shot and having it communicate a vision. There are a lot of technical advances that make this easier today than ever before in most cases, but the difference in image quality between the best DSLR and the best APS and the best m43 is getting down to a level of meaninglessness in all but the most extreme circumstances. There are things you can do with a top DSLR that you can't do with an m43 camera and if those matter to you you should use one. But the reverse is also true - there are shots I'm faaar likelier to get with an m43 than a big DSLR and so it becomes the better tool for those. For that matter some of my favorite photographs were taken with the much smaller sensor GRD3 and even a few withcell phones. The image quality is so good in all of these cameras today that it's frankly about the last consideration I'd worry about. If its the most important thing to you, by all means knock yourself out. Just remember that just because it's your key criteria doesn't make it the only one that matters.

-Ray

Ok. I only JUST realized that my comment followed your post. My post wasn't in response to anything you'd written, but rather the 'general concept' of the post itself, and wasn't directed at anyone in particular. I did read the comment you had initially posted just now, and can see how my rather "general" comment has been misconstrued as a personal attack on your camera choices.

Hell, I love your NY street pics, so you're obviously using the right equipment, and probably house more knowledge about photography in your little finger than I in my entire cranial cavity. So perish the thought that I harbour any negative thoughts about you personally, or your photography gear, or that I would even think of commenting on it. Far far from it. I hadn't even read your comment, when I posted mine and I apologize profusely if I caused any offence whatsoever. That was not the intent of my post at all.

My observation, which in hindsight obviously stressed rather heavily on my distaste for the m4/3rd system, is that it's premise is built around the size of the sensor and touts it's greatest limitation as a virtue.

Originally Posted by Boid

My observation, which in hindsight obviously stressed rather heavily on my distaste for the m4/3rd system, is that it's premise is built around the size of the sensor and touts it's greatest limitation as a virtue.

This is where people can argue about the system until they're blue in the face. You see the smaller sensor as a limitation because of pure IQ, but those who embrace it for the size of the sensor do it because the IQ is "good enough" and it enables the entire system to be smaller and easier to carry around.

Originally Posted by Ray

Depends on what you see as its promise. The small size and convenience of the system is an obvious part that they've lived up to from day one. If it also includes the ultimate in performance too, they basically started living up to that in late 2010 with the GH2 and then more fully last year with the newest Oly Pens and the the G3, GX1, etc, only really lacking for great tracking in AFC with faster live view refresh. If yor definition includes IQ that will be as good as full frame and the best of APS cameras, it's not there and likely never will be, but it's gotten a lot closer - the differences are smaller than ever and won't matter to many but will to some.

For me, it lived up to its promise very VERY early, maybe from day one - every camera/system is about compromises and m43 has always been a set of compromises I could be happy with and there are fewer and fewer of them as it improves - in fact, for how and what I generally shoot, I'd say it makes no compromises in its current iteration. For people who demand the absolute best posssible IQ or AF reflexes capable of shooting an NFL game as a pro photo-journalist it may well never live up to that.

So, define its promise however you like and then judge from there... For me, yeah, waaaaay.

-Ray

I agree...the number one reason I picked up m43 was because it was smaller than the DSLRs I was hauling around and it was easy to adapt legacy lenses to. I honestly have never looked at my photos and thought "Damn, I sure wish i was using a DSLR". It's not that a DSLR doesn't have advantages but I like to take pictures of things that aren't moving so I rarely (if ever) come up against something that I just can't figure out a way to deal with. But what my kit(s) do give me is small, easy to carry around and now with the addition of a NEX a better (IMHO) way to use my legacy glass. In the end however I don't see this stuff as much different than any of the tools that I use to fix my engine or fix the garbage disposal. They allow me to make images. Sometimes I think we all think too much and ask too many questions. I remember years ago I was doing some martial arts training and one of the folks that I was training with started to ask why a movement we were practicing (monkey) looked a lot like another one we were doing (crane). After a bit of back and forth the Sifu got a little exasperated and blurted out..."you want do monkey, you want do crane, do crane". My longtime friend and teacher put it even better..."no talk...do". Many years later with my own students I know exactly what that means. Sometimes the point is just to do and the talking really gets in the way of things.

So has m43 lived up to my expectations? I can make images and it's small...so yes.

Originally Posted by Luke

This is where people can argue about the system until they're blue in the face. You see the smaller sensor as a limitation because of pure IQ, but those who embrace it for the size of the sensor do it because the IQ is "good enough" and it enables the entire system to be smaller and easier to carry around.

The Sony NEX system, GRX systems, the DPX (foveon) all with APSCs are not that much bigger. And if portability is a main concern, the 4/3rd lenses apart from the pancakes, make the camera un-pocketable anyways.

[QUOTE=Boid;84449And if portability is a main concern, the 4/3rd lenses apart from the pancakes, make the camera un-pocketable anyways.[/QUOTE]

On THIS much, we can certainly agree. People who refer to ANY of the CSC cameras as pocketable seem a bit delusional to me (or have MUCH bigger pockets than you and I). For me the savings in size don't really kick in until you get into telephoto range. One of the only reasons I stick with the m4/3 system is because I can't replace the reach of the Panasonic 100-300 (200-600 effective) in ANY other system in anything approaching a reasonable size.

Originally Posted by Boid

Ok. I only JUST realized that my comment followed your post. My post wasn't in response to anything you'd written, but rather the 'general concept' of the post itself, and wasn't directed at anyone in particular. I did read the comment you had initially posted just now, and can see how my rather "general" comment has been misconstrued as a personal attack on your camera choices.

Hell, I love your NY street pics, so you're obviously using the right equipment, and probably house more knowledge about photography in your little finger than I in my entire cranial cavity. So perish the thought that I harbour any negative thoughts about you personally, or your photography gear, or that I would even think of commenting on it. Far far from it. I hadn't even read your comment, when I posted mine and I apologize profusely if I caused any offence whatsoever. That was not the intent of my post at all.

My observation, which in hindsight obviously stressed rather heavily on my distaste for the m4/3rd system, is that it's premise is built around the size of the sensor and touts it's greatest limitation as a virtue.

I didn't take it personally, but I took it as a direct shot at essentially anyone who'd choose m43 because IQ was the only conversation worth having. THAT'S the part I strongly disagree with. I'm not one of those people claiming that m43 has IQ equal to anything out there, but it does have IQ equal to or better than anything that HAD ever been out there until very few years ago. So if all of those great photographers of the past century got by with less, this should be "good enough" for the vast majority of modern shooters. So to me, "good enough" is the crux of the matter, rather than a weak argument and the obsession with megapixels seems like the "marketing BS" to me. So, we differ, perhaps strongly. But I'm not taking it personally. And I do still see a strong case to be made for full frame DSLRs, but it has more to do with the remaining superiority of PDAF for certain specific uses and with narrow DOF for them that likes it than with IQ.

Nonetheless, I'm happy that there are so many fine choices out there today and feel everyone should shoot whatever floats their boat. So maybe let's agree that there plenty of marketing BS to go around with the selling of EVERY type of camera and that everything from full frame to cell phone cameras are the best approach for some specific users.

You evidently didn't see m43 as having any promise to live up to, I clearly did, so in both cases it's lived up to the promise we saw for it. So, maybe the short answer to the thread title for both of us would be "yes". and we can move on from there...

-Ray

Originally Posted by Luke

On THIS much, we can certainly agree. People who refer to ANY of the CSC cameras as pocketable seem a bit delusional to me (or have MUCH bigger pockets than you and I). For me the savings in size don't really kick in until you get into telephoto range. One of the only reasons I stick with the m4/3 system is because I can't replace the reach of the Panasonic 100-300 (200-600 effective) in ANY other system in anything approaching a reasonable size.

Which I think makes a great case for the K5, which I handled at a photography workshop recently. The body is not all that big for a DSLR, and it has these gorgeous tiny primes that I wouldn't mind carrying in a bag at all. The flexibility that your 100-300 gives will be difficult to circumvent though.

Image content over image quality, for me, wins any day whatever camera you choose to tote around. I have no allegiance to any particular brand or sensor size but its fair to say that my dslr has never seen the light of day since I got my first pen. The extra bulk of the dslr, I found, got in the way of my photography. The micro four thirds camera does not get in the way. I, for one, cannot dismiss the importance of this fact. It enables me to get out there and take photographs, and dare to try somethings new. I experiment with other cameras but I still come back to my pens ( i have three).

With cameras and lenses I start at the output and work back in order to decide what I need.

For me prints are the main output; I don't put much online (another entertaining discussion...)

When M43 first arrived I was intrigued because of the promise of IQ good enough for some of my shooting, and able to produce 11 x 17 or so prints.

I have a collection of M43 photographs that would not exist were it not for my GF1 and lenses. I simply would not have had my FF camera with me at all.

For my landscape work in particular (but also work involving lots of shadow) I found M43 more limited than FF. While M43 has evolved since then, so have FF sensors. I don't think the performance is nearly as close as some seem to indicate.

But, that doesn't really matter. As Ray has noted, M43 outperforms other sensors from only a few years ago. It's beyond 'good enough' for a huge range of photographers. So what matters is answering the question "is M43 good enough for your output, and subject matter?".

I think the case for other sensors, especially FF, remains strong. But that's not a criticism of M43. I am now choosing between an OMD and an X-Pro1. While I feel the latter has a better sensor, my choice will be because of the camera, not the sensor.