On to the review…

I have been mumbling for more than 3 years (here, here) about my own frustrations of being caughtin an old and dying ecosystem, about how both the giants (Canon and Nikon) simply refuse to evolve, and basing themselves on the niche that is also caught in dubious dogmas. About how even back then mirrorless systems with capabilities way better than I could dream of started popping up like mushrooms after the rain. I moved to fullframe 8 years ago mostly because Canon innovated and brought cinema like capabilities into a photography body. Yes, the 5d mark 2 truly and honestly revolutionized and changed the world forever. But the same innovation it brought it also killed out of fear of cannibalizing their own high end camera sales. After the 5d mark 2 I moved to the 6d which was a bit better for photo but worse for video. It was a decent but I had a feeling that this, unless Canon changed, would be my last Canon camera. And the year passed, the 5d mark 3 and then mark 4 appeared. And even with the 5d mark 4 the 4k video was crippled by the crop and the codec. And I said no more.

So one night while in a photo vacation in northern Spain I returned tired to the hotel room and decided that this was the moment I would change systems. Something new, something fresh, something light and with many features.

Contrary to what people may think when looking at my portfolio I never ever adopted the tripod dogma. Very very few photos that I made were made with a tripod and only when I needed milky water or stars or when the ISO would have to go over 1600. Other than that I very much prefer a lower image quality but with the flexibility that to me is indispensable. For me the experimentation and mobility factor on the spot is more important than anything else.

So when I saw some articles of a camera that could shoot seconds long exposures handheld suddenly I became very very jealous and wished so much that I could have something like this. Yet at that point it did not cross my mind that the micro 4/3 format could ever be a substitute for fullframe for me. I never bothered to find out that the shallow DOF is not a property of the sensor size but one of the ration between the focal length, sensor size and lens aperture. Or the fact that sensor sensibility to light is meaningless without the light itself so I should only treat it in relation with the lens f-number and because the physics allows it the micro 4/3 format has smaller aperture lenses where 1.2 or 0.95 are not uncommon at all. And that the simple idea of “crop factor” is meaningless unless you base your photos on fullframe lenses. Other than that you can and MUST think in equivalence and nothing else. So if I want the exact effect of a 100mm 2.8 on a fullframe I use on micro 4/3 a 50mm 1.4. Yes, there is a downside to this at the point of writing, like the fact that if you want to simulate the full DOF of a full frame 1.4 lens you would need a 0.7 aperture on micro 4/3. And there are none. Not everyone shares this view however. While I did a lot of photos with my Sigma 35mm 1/4 at 1.4 on my 6d, some people feel that the DOF at that aperture is way too shallow. And they may be right but I mostly did it because of lowlight performance. On micro 4/3 you can use a 0.95 lens and get the effect of 1.8 on fullframe and still have much better light gathering capability.

But let us return to the main subject. Initially I set my eyes on Sony (a7r2, afs2). The 4k video and very good sensor were a winner. I played with it a couple of times and event mounted Metabones adapter so I could see how the existing Canon lenses would behave on it. I was impressed but not that impressed. The autofocus while it was fast, it was not fast enough like it was on Canon. And I also was not impressed with the camera battery and lack of weather proofing. Or the fact that the weight would be the same. Out of nowhere I started that night in Spain to research the E-m1 Mark 2 after someone posted some samples with it. After a few hours of reading articles and looking at samples I pretty much knew it was going to be my next camera. When I came back to Romania the next morning I went straight to the store, played with the camera for 2 hours and bought it. And after a week I decided to keep it and sold all my Canon gear. Even with the very few downsides I knew that I could never ever come back to my Canon and there is no point in keeping it. On Canon I had the 24-105mm 4.0 lens, the Samyang 14mm 2.8, the Tamron 150-600mm and the Sigma 35mm 1.4. Since I needed that main range of 14-600mm on this format also I got the following lenses on Olympus:

Olympus Zuiko 7-14mm f2.8 PRO : 534 grams

Olympus Zuiko 12-40mm f2.8 PRO 389 grams

Olympus Zuiko 75-300mm f4.8-6.7 II: 400 grams

I wrote the weight because it is essential. My landscape photo gear went from alsmost 6kg (including tripod) to less than 2 (no tripod).

Besides the 3 main lesnes I also got the Mitakon 25mm 0.95 to replace the sigma. While a manual lens it is a very good lens at almost 200grams that I can keep in the backpack without feeling it (the sigma was more than 800 grams).

The funny thing here is that the tele lens ended up being among the lightest lenses and this, combined with the very good optics was a huge surprise.

Pointless to add the new freedom I got was amazing.