Camera Choice - Spec me a high end system please

Greebo

Greebo

Greebo

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Right, Olympus has ****** me off with the pricing of the new EM1.

I had hoped for £1300, would have spent £1500 at a push but £1850? no way!

I am pretty heavily invested in the M43 system lens wise but time for a change perhaps rather than pumping £1850 into the new body.

Current have

Olympus OMD EM5 mark II
12-40 f2.8 Pro
40-150 f2.8 Pro
1.4 Teleconverter
75mm F1.8
45mm f1.8
25mm f1.8
7.5 Samyang f3.5 fisheye
set of Macro extension tubes

I love the smallness and weatherproofing (has come in very handy when it rains unexpectedly and I dont have to worry about the camera and lens) and build of the Olympus and as a all round package its a great camera system.

Just wishing for better resolution,DR, DOF, CAF. SOme of these I hoped would be fixed by the new model which some are but some certainly arent.

So I am thinking I should look at a APS sized sensor or even a FF (but doubt it because of size and weight). Ideally I don't really want a body much bigger or heavier than what I have. I used to have a SLR system but it ended up hardly getting used as got fed up lugging around tens of kilos of lenses and bodies so got left at home more than taken out.

Selling all my gear I think I will have around £3k to spend. I am happy to put in another £1000.

So which bodies and lens should I be considering please? I love my primes and take a lot of landscapes but also wildlife. Was just about to buy a 7-14mm pro lens as well but have put that on hold until I decide where I am going body wise.

Can i get myself a better camera system than what I have which will give me better pictures? Max I get prints done is A0/A1 which shows up the olympus sometimes.

So suggestions please as before I put another £2k into my existing system, now is the time to jump ship if I am going to.
 
The M43 kit seems to suit all your requirements so I'd sit on it for 6 months while the price of the EM1 settles then sell your em5 and upgrade. Nothing can compete for size and weight with the M43 kit.
 
Really? A few people on here have said there are APS and FF bodies out there now which arent any bigger or heavier than the new EM1, just wondered what they were?

Also I am worried that if I wait, the price may come down but the dollar/pound may reach level and it might end up costing more than now.
 
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Seems like a hasty decision. The new EM1 is a top of the line product, compare it to the Nikon D5 at £5000 or Canon 1DXMK2 at £5200 and you can see it is a relative bargain. I would love a Nikon D5 for every day shooting but I don't complain that I don't have 5K lying around to buy it, I make do with what I can afford.

The price of the EM1 will come down, especially if it is overpriced, so I would just wait it out. At some point there will even be a replacement to this new EM1 and so you could pick up an older one dirt cheap. One has to accept the fact that camera gear is just going to get more and more expensive going forwards. Sales are dropping , especially of the low end products, so companies are forcing buyers into higher end products with higher prices and larger margins. R&D costs are increasing as well. All nikon, Canon, Sony, Fuji, Panasonic, Pentax cameras are going up in price. you can't c=avoid that by swapping systems. Going 2nd hand and buying previous gen equipment while ignoring trying to be on the bleeding edge is the way forward.





As for alternatives, you haven't really said what it is you shoot. A Nikon D500 would be a good shout if you want amazing autofocus. If you want to max out DR, DoF control and resolution for printing beyond A0 then you will want to go FF, something like the Nikon D810, the new 5DMKIV or the latest Sony A7 iteration.

However, you already said you used to have a SLR but didn't use because of weight. If that is still true then you are basally stuck with the M43 system. Yeah, you could get a Sony A7 but you quickly find that then lenses are often bigger and heavier than the Canon and Nikon equivalents.


You could also separate out you kit into different functionality. You Could buy a 2nd hand D800 for peanuts, that gives you mountains of resolution, DR, DoF control. Keep your M43 system for when you want to go smaller and lighter.
 
As i said its mainly landscapes/architectural with some wildlife/sports. Very little portrait (Probably should sell the 75mm as hardly use it)

But yeah weight is the issue. I suspect that although I could get bodies with bigger sensors which dont weigh anymore like the A7 but once I have 5 or 6 lenses which all weigh twice as much, thats when i wont like it.

My bag with everything in is at max weight now. More often than not I just take the body and one lens when treking etc.
 
The Sony 70-200mm f/2.8 weighs more than the Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 for example, so you aren't getting any weight savings.


For Landscape and architecture you could do as I said and buy something like a used Nikon D800, add a Nikon 18-35mm AF-S lens which is very light (385 g) or the 20mm f/1.8 Prime is only 350g. FOr architecture you really want a tilt-shift/PC lens, the nikon 24mm f/2.8 weighs 730g but PC lenses are always going to be big and heavy. 28,35,50, and 85m, f/1.8 primes are all excellent optically, will give minute DoF and are small, light and relatively cheap.


For wildlife you are probably best sticking to M43. However you can make a very strong case for getting an APS-C Nikon body and adding the new Nikon 300mm f/4.0 VR PF lens, which is absolutely insanely light at only 700g. No one else offers anything remotely close. Canon do have the technology but they have a 400mm f/4 DF lens which is also superb but much more expensive and heaver obviously.

The big thing downside to the Sony mirror-less system is there is simply no decent long lenses, full stop. The longest is a 70-300mm f/5.6 that weighs more than the Nikon 300mm f/4.0 and is pretty expensive for what it is. Fuji has a 10-400mm which is better but it comes back to the weight thing.
 
Thanks DP, food for thought.

Dont really want two systems but like the look of the 300 f4. Which APS-c nikon body would you get to go with it which could also double up for my main landscape photos? d500?
 
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Greebo said:
Thanks DP, food for thought.

Dont really want two systems but like the look of the 300 f4. Which APS-c nikon body would you get to go with it which could also double up for my main landscape photos? d500?
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The D500 has best in class Autofocus, it is lightning fast and professional weather sealed body. But that of course makes it bigger and more expensive. The D7200 is actually an amazing camera, AF is almost as good as the last Gen top of the line D4S. The big downside is you will run out of buffer sooner than the D500. Before the D500 came a long a lot of sports & wildlife pros were using the D7200 happily when they needed a higher pixel density than the D4. On the plus side, the D7200 is cheaper, smaller and the sensor will give a higher Dynamic range at base ISo and offers more resolution for landscape use.


The D7200 + 300mm f/4.0 PF (+ optional 1.4xTC) makes for a very small, light and powerful wildlife setup. There are lots of good 10-24mm type lenses for landscape.
 
OP the pound is over 20% weaker now since the previous version of that camera launched.

That alone adds £300 to the price of a £1500 photographic item.

I really want a Nikon 200-500MM myself but by the time I have saved up it will be a few hundred quid more I suspect.

Edit!!

Also comparing the price to older cameras is not really fair,as they were bought at pre-Brexit prices,and they will no doubt go up in prices as new stock is bought in from abroad.
 
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Columbo said:
Its also priced ridiculously in dollars so not all to do with the exchange rate.
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Olympus quoted the 23% drop in the value of the yen to the dollar as to most of the price increase but yeah I did notice that in the uk we got something like 10% off the list price compared to the us :D
 
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