Go BIG Or Go Home! No Way! (Praise for M4/3)

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Go BIG or Go Home!  How many times have I heard that phrase?  Well, photographically speaking, I don't buy that philosophy.  I've proven to myself that Go Big or Go Home is no longer necessary to create wonderful photographs.  Take a look at some of my M4/3 images here and judge for yourself.

For the past three and a half years, I have primarily gone small and traveled around the U.S. extensively.  I wanted to see for myself if I could be happy with smaller, lighter and less expensive gear that would meet my photographic demand of maintaining high quality as well as giving me the versatility to photograph in about any situation I may encounter.

My tool of choice for most of my travels has been first, the Olympus E-M5, then the E-M1. The cameras are not too expensive, have a plethora of features, mate with great lenses from a variety of manufacturers, have superb image stabilization, and of course, produce excellent image quality.

For the types of photography I normally practice, the Olympus cameras have really fit the bill nicely.  They have allowed me to travel light, carry my gear longer (I'm almost 64 years of age and gear weight has kind of become an issue as I have grown older) and capture everything I have wanted to photograph.

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My travel, landscape, nature and street photography can easily be accomplished with my E-M1.  It has been for the past two years and continues to be my "go to" camera.  I can photograph where the land meets the water, the mountains, in the city, in marginal light, really just about everything I normally photograph.  Again, take a look at these photos from my website as examples of what one can accomplish with a small camera.  They have all the resolution, depth, texture, color, contrast and dynamic range that most of us will ever need.

The problem I have with APS-C or full frame sensored mirrorless cameras is, even though the camera bodies are small, the lenses have to be larger.  Some manufacturers have mitigated this fact with making smaller, but slower f/4 lenses, instead of much faster lenses.  Still, the laws of physics apply and if you have a larger sensor, you need more square millimeters of coverage with the lens' image circle, thus larger lenses.  You just can't match the size of M4/3 lenses on a one-on-one basis.

Now, I still have my Nikon D810 and several lenses.  Why?  Well, there are a few situations where M4/3 isn't quite "there" yet—but I think will be soon.  There still are a few circumstances where my big, bulky, expensive Nikons do a better job so I reserve them for just those circumstances.  When I need sophisticated flash, tracking focus for fast flying birds, really high ISO (over 6400) or the scene has a very wide dynamic range (more than 12 stops, which is rare) and HDR isn't what I really want, I go with my Nikons. Other than these particular situations, I use my smaller gear. 

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That being said, M4/3 with their phase detection autofocus on chip along with the contrast detection has really improved focus speed and tracking ability, the innovativeness of the E-M5 II and its 40mp capability, the incredible PRO lenses from Olympus, 4K video  and a new 20mp sensor from Panasonic, 10 or more frames per second shooting ability, sophisticated auto bracketing as well as all of the configurability you could ever want shows me the M4/3 manufacturers are continually stepping up their game.  I think in the next few years, there will no longer be much of a difference between larger sensor cameras and M4/3 for 95% of what we all need and do.

Another bonus now is Olympus seems to now be taking a cue from Fujifilm.  They have released several new firmware upgrades for the E-M1 that has expanded the capabilities of that camera quite a bit.  Even better, another will be released next month (v 4.0) which will give several new and useful functions, such as focus bracketing, focus stacking and a new silent mode.  Way to go Olympus!  Let's keep that philosophy for future as well as current cameras.

Go BIG or go home?  No way.  Go small and get out there!

Thanks for looking. Enjoy! 

Dennis A. Mook 

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