Need some camera recommendations...

[jev]

Okay, I finally took the decision to make the move to mirrorless. I sold the 5DII last week and am in the process of selling the Canon equipment that I never used that much anyway. I'll hold on to a basic system around an "old" 5D for studio work but the carry-around stuff will have to go.

I want to use the mirrorless mainly for travel and light documentary-style work. I will, however, also use it a lot on the golfcourse, which makes things tricky. For example, I originally set my visor on the Fuji X-T1. Nice little camera, APS-C size sensor which is good. Weather resistant. Good EVF. But.... no matching glass! There's a 50-140/2.8 announced (which would be the weapon of choice on the course) but I found out it weighs close to (or even exceeds) 1 kg. Why o why are there no fast (preferably weather resistant) long primes?

Sony than? Nope, no decent, long but fast lenses either that can be paid for by a normal human being.
Olympus? Same thing.
Pentax? Ehrm...

So, I'm kind'a lost. What would you recommend? And why?

[Arg]

Micro Four Thirds is the most complete mirrorless system at present. What is your size and weight goal?

[swifty]

How fast and how long do you need?
The about to be released Olympus 40-150mm/2.8 (80-300mm equiv FOV) gets you to 300mm at f2.8 but is starting to get a bit big. Its a bit under 1kg and about 16cm long. With the hood, its about the same length as a FF 70-200mm without the hood but the barrel is smaller. With the TC1.4 it gets you to 210mm (420mm equiv FOV) at f4.
The smallest 2.8 tele zoom in m43 is the Panasonic 35-100/f2.8. This one is quite small at around 10cm and 360g.
If you need faster there's only the Olympus 75/1.8 but 'only' gets you 150mm equiv FOV but more than a stop faster at f1.8.

[jev]

Micro Four Thirds is the most complete mirrorless system at present. What is your size and weight goal?
I thought the 4/3 system seemed to be on the way out? Sigma for example stopped producing 4/3rd earlier this year (unfortunately - they did provide some nice long tele's!). I must confess, I don't know much about 4/3. One of my friends used to own an Olympus E-30 or something, dunno exactly which one. His images always where noisy and IQ certainly was not good enough for publication. He changed to a Canon 7D which greatly improved his results. Maybe 4/3 has improved since than though? Will have a look at it again.

Size doesn't really matter, weight: as low as possible but would prefer to keep a "daily set" under 2 kg in total (body + lenses to cover 24 to at least 400 mm). IQ must be good enough for high-gloss publications at A3 format. On the long end, I do not need to cover everything, one or two fast long primes would be good. Image stabilization would be more than just nice to have on the long end (I hate using a monopod!).


How fast and how long do you need?
Most pro's I talked to while working on the PGA tour events use a 500/4 on an APS-H camera. Personally, my longest is a 100-400/4.5-5.6, not very fast but on a full-frame camera still adequate to throw objects in the background completely out of focus when shooting on the course. It's a bit on the short side though and when the competition-leaders get to the final green I switch it for my trusty 70-200/2.8 (often busy crowds in the background, low light but no need for length).

[swifty]

Size doesn't really matter, weight: as low as possible but would prefer to keep a "daily set" under 2 kg in total (body + lenses to cover 24 to at least 400 mm). IQ must be good enough for high-gloss publications at A3 format. On the long end, I do not need to cover everything, one or two fast long primes would be good. Image stabilization would be more than just nice to have on the long end (I hate using a monopod!).


Don't confuse 4/3 and micro 4/3. The sensor sizes are the same but there hasn't been an updated 4/3 DSLR with a modern sensor. On the other hand, virtually every micro 4/3 camera these days are using the latest generation sensor. Much better than before but you have to be realistic. It is still 1/4 the size of a full frame sensor after all.
Anyways, An E-M1 with 12-40/2.8 and 40-150/2.8 + TC will get you 24-300mm equivalent FOV at 2.8 (light gathering) and 300-420mm @f4 (light gathering). This kit should be roughly 2kg if I remember my figures correctly.



Most pro's I talked to while working on the PGA tour events use a 500/4 on an APS-H camera. Personally, my longest is a 100-400/4.5-5.6, not very fast but on a full-frame camera still adequate to throw objects in the background completely out of focus when shooting on the course. It's a bit on the short side though and when the competition-leaders get to the final green I switch it for my trusty 70-200/2.8 (often busy crowds in the background, low light but no need for length).

You'' want to look into the upcoming Olympus 300/4 that gets you 600mm equivalent FOV. F4 light gathering capabilities but f8 like DOF on m43. But to honest, at these sort of focal lengths you really don't need a very large aperture to throw things out of focus in the background.
One advantage to mirrorless cameras are that, they are mirrorless. And hence no mirror slap. So you should be able to shoot quieter on the golf course. Of course you could use live view on DSLR to match this ability. But some mirrorless models eg. Nikon V3 can be completely silent using the electronic shutter so you don't disturb the golfer.

[I @ M]

Joost, I reckon swifty is right on the mark with the ideas of the Oly body + 40-150 + optional 1.4x converter to cover a lot of your needs.

Certainly from a recent review of that lens it delivers ----- http://robinwong.blogspot.be/2014/10/olympus-mzuiko-40-150mm-f28-pro-lens.html

[MattNQ]

Jev, my epl1 (older 12mp sensor) images have printed nicely on double page spreads in magazines, and I recently tried a gloss metal print at about a3 size. IQ is fine. The newer Oly's have a much better 16mp sensor now so should be even better . Em1 reportedly has the better AF than other Oly bodies so probably your preferred option.

[Arg]

You would probably be so surprised with e.g. a Lumix GH4 and say Lumix 35-100 f2.8 and 100-300 f/4-5.6 stabilized lenses. Total 1.4 kg.
(double those numbers for full frame focal length)

[jev]

One advantage to mirrorless cameras are that, they are mirrorless. And hence no mirror slap. So you should be able to shoot quieter on the golf course. Of course you could use live view on DSLR to match this ability. But some mirrorless models eg. Nikon V3 can be completely silent using the electronic shutter so you don't disturb the golfer.
True. However, I expect neither the X-T1 or the E-M1 to be 100% silent, there's still a shutter opening and closing on these things. OTOH, I've never had complaints about a loud shutter/mirror when using the 5D either.

I've been reading up on the oly this afternoon - it has a lot going for it. I'm going to try to get my hands on one this weekend, hopefully side by side with the X-T1. I read a couple of articles from Daniel K. Cheung who tried them both and the one thing that worries me is his complaints about the writing-speed to SDHC. He seems to be the only one talking about this though (the performance numbers on imaging-resource for example don't show this at all), so I'm wondering what is going on there? It wouldn't be a problem for shooting golf, but could get in the way on street- and documentary style shooting.

[I @ M]

:needs: so show us some images of the new gear ---- :)

[jev]

Yeah, I chose the X-T1 in the end. A couple of reasons led to that decision. Went to the local pro-shop to look at both. I liked the feel of the X-T1 over the Olympus and good a very good deal on my old equipment. I traded the old 5D, 17-40, 24-70, 70-200, 50 and 550EX for the X-T1 with 18-55 and 55-200 plus an additional battery and 32GB SD card.

Didn't have much time to play with it yet, but diner was a nice opportunity (all images shot in JPEG at 3200ISO):

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[Nick Cliff]

Very impressive performance Jev, my feeling was the Fuji system was very impressive and more for the advanced photographers re processing photos ,would be interested to learn from your experience, regards Nick.

[swifty]

Great choice in the Fuji X system. But it may take a little longer for the system to mature for you to get those long lenses you wanted.
But the good news is that pretty much all the Fuji X lenses released so far have been good to stellar so it bodes well for future releases. There's a super tele zoom on the roadmap for the latter part of 2015 if there are no delays.

[Kojihama]

Hey all,

Thought i'd use this post instead of creating a new one. I'm looking at the Sony A6000 to downgrade from a DSLR... reading all the reviews image quality and the autofocus are big pluses for me while the big neg is the exorbitant costs of the lenses. Looking at the Olympus M10 as well but concerned about the autofocus as I generally take photos of moving targets (my kids).

Thoughts?

[Analog6]

I have a Fuji X-M1 and 16-50 lens, very happy with it. IS there an adaptor for using Canon lenses on these cameras? I imagine it would them be manual focus?

[arthurking83]

Unless a manufacturer that makes the cameras or lenses being adapted creates the adapter, it would be highly unlikely that the adapter would ever offer AF.

That is, if Sony makes an adapter for Sony A mount lenses for their mirrorless cameras, you can be your last dollar it will have AF capability.
And this they already do.
It would be the same for Sigma, if they made an adapter for their lenses for one mount type being adapted to a different mount type.
They already have the AF knowledge of one mount type, if they had the knowledge of the adapted camera type too .. then the interface should be easy to achieve for them.
it would still involve a cost component and as such the adapter with AF ability would be more expensive than one with no AF ability.

I dare say that it's unlikely that any company will ever create an AF capable adapter for one mount type lens to fit another mount type camera body.
But this doesn't mean that it will never happen.

I reckon Yongnuo may one day do this. They have recently made a Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens similar to the Canon lens of the same type. Now that they have some AF capability, and if they ever produce an AF capable lens for say a Fuji X mount, or Sony E/FE mount(as examples) then they have the knowledge of the AF systems for the individual manufacturers products.
Translating those AF capabilities from one to another(within reason) should be possible too.

Of course there will be some lenses that just wouldn't be practical to adapt one AF type to another .. such as Nikon AF-D type lenses(which require a mechanical AF motor external to the lens). Such a lens would be difficult if not impossible to drive automatically by a camera with electrical AF drive.

FWIW tho, Sigma do offer a mount conversion service to a limited range of their lenses. I'm not 100% sure which lenses and which mount types can be converted tho.

As it stands tho .. yes you can get an adapter fo almost any lens of a particular mount type(eg, Canon) to fit almost any camera of a particular mount type(eg. Fuji).
There are limits tho due to the backfpcus distance of the lens tho. No adapter will allow AF as of yet.

[jev]

IS there an adaptor for using Canon lenses on these cameras? I imagine it would them be manual focus?
Yes, there are adapters for Canon to Fuji-X. Look for Metabone (pretty expensive though and as far as I know for Canon FD only), Kipon (Canon EOS to Fuji-X, manual focus but the EOS-FX A adapter provides aperture in the converter), Kiwi (EOS, manual focus, no aperture control), FotodioX (EOS, manual focus, incl. aperture) or Novoflex (Canon FD only). Be carefull though, EF-S most likely is not supported (full-frame lenses only).


No adapter will allow AF as of yet.
http://www.kipon.com/en/articledetail.asp?id=79

[arthurking83]

Well there 'ya go.
They look like brand spanking new models/designs too tho.

And roughly 8-10x the price of a non AF Kipon adapter! ;)

[Arg]

I'm looking at the Sony A6000 to downgrade from a DSLR... reading all the reviews image quality and the autofocus are big pluses for me while the big neg is the exorbitant costs of the lenses. Looking at the Olympus M10 as well but concerned about the autofocus as I generally take photos of moving targets (my kids).

Thoughts?

What DSLR? That might affect the recommendation of DSLM.

The modern DSLM generally grab (acquire) focus very, very quickly. With the possible exception of Fuji. If you require continuous AF, however, the A6000 is a good choice among DSLM cameras, as would be the Lumix GH4 if your budget goes that high.

This link (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up8K_xd_iwU)to an in-the-field practical comparison might help you decide, but does not include the E-M10, instead it has the E-M1, which I assume is superior.