Are people leaving micro four thirds?

If the sony A6000/6300 had decent lenses and ports I would not be wasting my time with MFT for sure

If the sony A6000/6300 had decent lenses and ports I would not be wasting my time with MFT for sure

Can you elaborate on that ? There are several good e-mount lenses available now and adapters open up the choices to Canon and Nikon mounts.

Several points and a few photos. First Olympus involvement in the 4/3 systems goes all the way back to the Olympus E-1 which was a DSLR as were the E-3 E-5 and a bunch of E-400 to 600 cameras. Olympus M/43 Mirrorless cameras and open platform allowed this format to begin to gain traction and evolve into what it is today. At the beginning no one gave the 4/3 system much of a chance for success but now everyone has mirrorless cameras and several new players have become involved. The system has had many growing pains including when Olympus dropped the 4/3 DSLR line completely. To the issue of people leaving M4/3 I think the answer is that their are simply many more systems to chose from and many manufacturers have found a niche within an ever growing market. Panasonic for instance became the go to for video. Now you can find a lot of excellent video choices beyond Panasonic.

I think a more accurate topic may be are people leaving DSLR for mirrorless camera systems. With the introduction of the Sony A7 lineup you now have a full lineup of mirrorless cameras that can compete at the very highest level of both image quality and video performance.

Regarding the size factor M4/3 and APS-C mirrorless bodies like EM-1 and Sony A6300 will always allow for a smaller and often cheaper overall system V. most DSLR's. Lens size however is a simple matter of physics and full frame lenses regardless of mirrorless or DSLR by their nature will always remain larger and more expensive.

I have included the front page from my review for uwpmag.com on the Sony A7R II and Ikelite housing, for the full review go to uwpmag.com for this FREE PDF download.

I have also included photos of the Nauticam NA-EM-1, NA-A7 and popular DSLR housings for size comparison. The Sony housing is clearly a "tweener" sitting between the M4/3 and DSLR. I also included a photo of the Sony NA-A7R II housing with the port configuration for the Sony FE 16-35mm F/4 zoom, while the lens is about as big as a 16-35 for DSLR housings it can be used with a much smaller 180mm port with results as acceptable as the 16-35 on DSLR with a 230mm port. This is a result of the shorter distance between lens and sensor in mirrorless cameras like A7R II. I also included a photo of the Sony A6300 with Zeiss 12mm and A7R II with Rokinon 12mm for a size comparison.

Regarding lens choices M43/ has a excellent set of lenses for U/W photography in verity of price ranges. Sony is catching up with both FF and APS-C lenses but at present M4/3 is still ahead in that area. The ability to adapt lenses to mirrorless cameras has also improved with excellent adapters like the Metabones.

Great summary and nothing like pictures to see the size differences with your own eyes.

Seems like it is a good time to be a consumer since we have many quality choices.

I was shooting a compact camera for UW video. Canon 7d DSLR APS-C topside for photo & video. I wanted something better for UW and I wanted full frame for topside. I considered a GH4 and a Canon FF DSLR, but that meant 2 new cameras. Along comes the Sony A7s ii. Wow, I achieve both goals with 1 camera.

I think you are right that DSLR will take a hit. People like to keep their lenses and upgrade their camera bodies. DSLR owners now have the option of doing that with mirrorless.

Full frame sensors not only need physically larger/heavier lenses. They also need longer actual focal length for the same FOV as a smaller sensor. In turn, minimum focus distance tends to increase with longer actual focal length. So m43 lenses tend to focus closer than their equivalent-FOV full frame lenses. In many cases that helps UW use by allowing you to get closer to your subject.

Bart

 

 

...Sony FE 16-35mm F/4 zoom, while the lens is about as big as a 16-35 for DSLR housings it can be used with a much smaller 180mm port with results as acceptable as the 16-35 on DSLR with a 230mm port. This is a result of the shorter distance between lens and sensor in mirrorless cameras like A7R II.

"This is a result of the shorter distance between lens and sensor"

Can you explain why this is so? I remain skeptical.

I have been waffling for some time on this, probably because my current family situation doesn't allow me to dive much. I am experimenting with M43 on land, mostly because of the crazy deals on refurbished bodies and lenses lately direct from Oly (EM-1 body for $575 and an EM-10 body for $275). I really like size of the system and the lenses -- not sold on the cameras. Actually, I take that back -- the EM-10 with the 17mm F1.8 makes a pretty darn good point and shoot for pictures of the kids. By far the biggest concern is that I can't convince myself that the autofocus on either camera body is better than (or even equal to) my old Canon 50D, even with the pro series lenses. I may need to stick with the 50D as the underwater camera for a while longer anyway so maybe the whole thing is moot.

I find the biggest draw back of all mirror less cameras, especially Sony is the battery life. I still have my Canon 700D Nauticam rig but also Shoot Olympus OMD EM1 and EM10 (wife's camera) and on our local dives of up to 2.5 hours a single charge is just enough. However our last two overseas holidays with 3 long dives a day the battery would give up early on the third dive even when we are careful to conserve power. The options are to open up the housing, change batteries, clean seals, insert camera and re-vacuum. However on a boat or remote sandy beach this is not ideal. A DSLR will easily do 3 dives plus. Don't get me wrong I love the MFT especially shooting and reviewing your shots in the viewfinder, not on the screen. I find the focusing not as quick as my Canon with a macro lens as it always hunts when you refocus where the Canon will stay locked on. But the Canon viewfinder is a lot smaller and live view focus is terrible. All systems are a trade off and gave pluses and minuses but I don't think I am "wasting my time with MTF!!" I may build up my DSLR system again and take both systems with me as the camera, lens, housing and port is only 1.3kg heavier than the OMD system. With the strobes, arms, clamps, lights, diopters etc etc that extra 1.3kg is not a lot in comparison to the overall system weight! Then I can have the best of both worlds.

Hi Tom, I was skeptical also but had several chats with design teams from two major manufactures of dome ports and both confirmed that the flange distance, in this case about 22mm rear lens element to sensor for Sony full frame mirrorless and about 42/43mm for Can/Nik FF DSLR does in fact make a difference with lenses of like angles of view. The result is that smaller domes can be used with mirrorless cameras with the same sensor size as a DSLR and still achieve like results.

Generally I have found focus speed acceptable, as long as we aren't talking about continuous focus or tracking. On the other hand one thing I learned was that if you fail to turn face detection off, it does slow down focus. On several occasions on general photo forums and such, I have seen people complain about focus speed on an EM1 and when asked about face detection said it was on or they had no idea. If you have an EM1 or 5 or 10 (I guess?) you might want to check that.

Supposedly, and that is all it is, Oly has made claims that they intend to make the next gen EM1 more competitive to the "pro" market by improving dynamic range, focus tracking and some other issues. I doubt the sensor size will change much, but these other things could make a big difference. I am hoping to be suitably impressed when that camera comes out or I may consider moving to an APS camera if I can convince myself the size issues won't be too bad. I also like TTL flash through fiber optics in at least some situations, and that is not available for the A7, so that bothers me a little with that camera when I think about full frame.

Luckily, the thing that most needs improvement in my underwater photography is and always has been me, and not the equipment, so that makes it easier to control the lust for new gear.

I always turn face detection off, the focusing is not slow but will always do a small contrast detection hunt when refocusing but my Canon just stays focused. If the light is bad the Oly macro can lose focus and hunt more than the Canon macro lens and is a bit more reliant on a focus light.

I don't use TTL any more especially for macro as it eats your camera battery up and the amount of shots I lost waiting for the camera flash to recharge, up to 3 seconds on the Canon was frustrating. Now I set the camera flash to 1/64 the power and my strobes to manual and usually 1/2 to 1/4 power or less and everything recharges before you can lock focus again.

Can somebody show me a picture that proves that EM1 has worse dynamic range than the DSLRs? According to DxO Mark the EM1 has 12.7 stops while the mentioned by somebody Canon 7D has the awful 11.8! Even the latest EOS 5DS has worse dynamic range with 12.4 Evs. Of course we are talking about the native ISO setting, but still ... unless somebody shows me 1:1 example, I cannot take dynamic range as an argument.

Luckily, the thing that most needs improvement in my underwater photography is and always has been me, and not the equipment, so that makes it easier to control the lust for new gear.

Amen to that my virtual friend! i am in the same camp. Doesn't mean I don't want new gear, but like you, I know the most important component is between the ears.

Dynamic range is a mute point if the photo is out of focus.

The Sony alpha 7R II is the current state of the art with mirrorless and it has great dynamic range, but still struggles in low contrast situations we underwater photographers have. Mirrorless cameras do focus in underwater situations, it is just that DSLR's focus better.

For me i need all the help I can get with auto focus, so a quick focus lock helps me get the photo I want.

I can the whole fish, not just it's tail as it swims past.

I was on a trip with a sony rx100 surrounded by monster rigs and some 43. As fsr ad dynamic range was concerned there was no gap between the sony compact and 4:3. Some of the canon dslr actually didnt have much more. The nikon cropped looked better and the d800 an infinite amount better. That led me to the conclusion full frame or stay on smaller. If the sony a6000 had better ports though i would consider it as autofocus is great. In terms of ergonomics and autofocus it takes much more skill to drive a smaller rig

What about the Gx80/85? It seems like the stabilization might be useful for 4k video. Price wise it's much more attractive than sony APSC/ Full frame too.
It only has 1/160 flash sync, but unlike sony flash it can be used on manual (low power), which should result in less recycling time?

Also there's no risk of overheating.

The only mirrorless options for one serious about video AND stills seem to be Sony APSC, FF or panasonic M4/3.

Sony APSC e-mount is limited to say the least. As long as Sony continues to focus on full frame lenses it's a no go for me (and my bank account in particular ).

Sony Full Frame is (personally) simply not an option for the pricing is 3 times as much compared to m43.

So wouldn't a m43 solution make more sense for me?

I think that mirrorless cameras have improved (and continue to improve) massively over the past 18 months or so.

However, the figures still show that they account for a relatively small proportion of the market. Significantly their sales volume is still growing, whereas SLR is static and compacts are in free fall.

Part of this sales growth can be accounted for because they are "relatively" new to market , so technological advances are quite rapid, encouraging users to trade up more regularly. There is also a perceived need for smaller, lighter systems for traveling photographers.

The key question perhaps is perhaps when will mirrorless and SLR performance converge? Many of the comparisons that suggest that a given mirrorless is as good as an SLR, ignore the fact that SLRs are also improving. The AF systems on the new Nikons and the DR and color rendition of the new Canon are another quantum leap forward. These top end design enhancements will continue to give SLRs an edge over mirrorless for the time being.

Of course, this will stop when companies cease to invest in SLR development. Currently SLR sales, although static, are the major source of revenue for camera companies (or departments). When (if) mirrorless sales replace these, there will no longer any point/need for driving SLR technology.

Returning to the OP's question "Are people leaving micro four thirds?", I think that this is not the case. M4/3s is a small part of a small market share. Sony's a7 series has actually encouraged SLR users to switch, but I am not convinced that many M4/3s users will have swapped over.

Adam

....Returning to the OP's question "Are people leaving micro four thirds?", I think that this is not the case. M4/3s is a small part of a small market share. Sony's a7 series has actually encouraged SLR users to switch, but I am not convinced that many M4/3s users will have swapped over.

Adam

I was briefly considering the swap to the a7rII from olympus, but adding up all factors, including my laziness I rather downscaled the camera towards the r100iv . If I am "finished" with the rx100iv, I'll most likely baptize my topside GX80 or its successor m43. I simply can't justify the added ~2kg weight and 2+k$ cost of a FF housing, I see the bulk and money costs better invested in strobes/lighting tech (I have 2 subtronic nova's waiting for optical conversion). True, this comes down to what am I shooting: mostly wide angle stuff, very little macro.

I am a EM 5 user since 2012 and and I still very happy with it.

 

I'm not leaving this format !!!!!

Yeah, me too. I will be looking at the new Oly M1 mark ii.

Yeah, me too. I will be looking at the new Oly M1 mark ii.

I know that there will be Olympus underwater case for that. Let's see what domes standard will it use.