Stick with what I have, or move on

hooneeawr

hooneeawr

hooneeawr

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Joined
25 Mar 2004
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626
Location
Aberdeen
I'm looking for some advice. I'm not great at photography, but I like taking pictures.

I currently have a Nikon D40. It's a bit dented, and the sensor is a bit dirty these days. I have a nikon 35mm 1.8, tamron 17-55 2.8 and a nikon 55-20mm. Usually I just stick with the tamron on most of the time.

The camera is really only used on holidays, so outdoor landscapes, or for indoor shots of people, preferably without a flash.

Anyway, I'm off to Iceland next week. I'm travelling light and it's got me thinking that DSLRs are quite big for me. While I feel I have lots of bits, I don't really compared to other folks.

I was eyeing up a Sony A5000, as I can get it for about £234 at the moment. As far as I can see, despite the slower lens (3.5-5.6 vs my 2.8) the upgrade to the camera as a whole would balance that out. Plus also be considerably smaller and lighter.

Thinking further out too, I think I'd fancy a 50mm instead of my current 35mm, so I could just get the Sony one rather than the Nikon.
 
The Sony certainly would be an upgrade overall but I don't think the size and weight difference will really be that much of a gain, the lenses will be much the same size and weight.

Personally I would be looking at something like Olympus E-PL5, smaller camera and much smaller lenses. Furthermore, one of the large sensor compacts like Sony RX100 (there are other choices) might be even more up your street - it will give better IQ than your current DSLR in something that fits in your pockets.
 
I see what you mean about the lenses being much the same weight. In fact the Sony one is heavier than the Nikon AF-S one. Still, the reduced body and kit lens would be tiny alongside my current setup.

The large sensor compacts feel like they could be more limiting, plus the nice ones are a lot more than the £234 I'm thinking of at the moment for the a5000. Even that Olympus is at least £50 more just now, and they didn't seem much different in size when I saw them in Jessops earlier.
 
hooneeawr said:
I see what you mean about the lenses being much the same weight. In fact the Sony one is heavier than the Nikon AF-S one. Still, the reduced body and kit lens would be tiny alongside my current setup.

The large sensor compacts feel like they could be more limiting, plus the nice ones are a lot more than the £234 I'm thinking of at the moment for the a5000. Even that Olympus is at least £50 more just now, and they didn't seem much different in size when I saw them in Jessops earlier.
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The advantage with the oly stuff is it has a smaller sensor so the lenses can be smaller. I'd second DP's advice unless you willing to shoot with a pancake prime as your main lens then APS-C sized mirrorless cameras don't offer a whole lot of size/weight reduction over a small DSLR.

I have an EOS m and it's great with the 22mm pancake on a really compact piece of it for the image quality but the kit lens makes it bulky so I might as well take my 5D mkii and have better glass and better pictures!
 
I've got a Sony A6000 which I think is absolutely superb. Coupled with the 16-50MM PZ lens (yes, it distorts a bit but its nothing 2 clicks in Lightroom wont fix) and its a portable powerhouse you can just about fit in your pocket.
 
Hmm, made the mistake of looking in the 4/3rds thread. Might have to have a closer look at that Olympus. I've spotted a decent deal on it with the 14-42 mm and a 40-150 mm lens.

Are these somewhat similar to 18-55 and 55-200 on the larger Nikon sensor?
 
hooneeawr said:
Are these somewhat similar to 18-55 and 55-200 on the larger Nikon sensor?
Click to expand...

Yes.

In 35mm focal length equivalences -

Nikon 18-55 = ~27-83
Nikon 55-200 = ~84-304

Oly 14-42 = 28-84
Oly 40-150 = 80-300

Note that depth of field for a given aperture will be slightly greater on m43 than APS-C due to the smaller sensor.

PS this is a very useful site if you don't know it - http://camerasize.com/compact/#491.397,508.360,382.92,189.312,ga,t
Have a play with various lens combos to see how they stack up.
 
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hooneeawr said:
I see what you mean about the lenses being much the same weight. In fact the Sony one is heavier than the Nikon AF-S one. Still, the reduced body and kit lens would be tiny alongside my current setup.

The large sensor compacts feel like they could be more limiting, plus the nice ones are a lot more than the £234 I'm thinking of at the moment for the a5000. Even that Olympus is at least £50 more just now, and they didn't seem much different in size when I saw them in Jessops earlier.
Click to expand...

Depends a lot on the lens but certainly as you go longer the the m43 lenses get substantially smaller relative to an APS-C camera like the Sony A5000.

The default kit lens on the EPL-5 is not the smallest but it is much smaller than DSLR kit lenses, the Panasonic 12-32 is much smaller.
http://camerasize.com/compact/#382.95,508.90,189.321,ga,t
 
D.P. said:
Personally I would be looking at something like Olympus E-PL5, smaller camera and much smaller lenses.
Click to expand...

Well I hope you're happy. I now own an Olympus E-PL5! :p

£314 with the twin zoom kit.

Missing having a 2.8 zoom, and a 1.8 prime for indoor shots, but might replace them later. Off to Iceland this week so we'll see how it performs. Could probably do with a prime for Northern lights shots, but I'll just have to make do with the 14-42 set at 14 and f3.5. However I do love the size, and the controls work well (with a few minor adjustments).
 
hooneeawr said:
Missing having a 2.8 zoom, and a 1.8 prime for indoor shots, but might replace them later. Off to Iceland this week so we'll see how it performs. Could probably do with a prime for Northern lights shots, but I'll just have to make do with the 14-42 set at 14 and f3.5. However I do love the size, and the controls work well (with a few minor adjustments).
Click to expand...

The great thing about the m4/3 system is it has one of the largest lens ranges available of all the systems; certainly among mirrorless cameras it's unbeatable for its lens range.

For indoor primes, you have the 8mm f3.5, 12mm f2.0, 14mm f2.5, 15mm f1.7, 17mm f2.8 and 1.8, 20mm f1.7, 25mm f1.4, 25mm f1.8...and there's a bunch of Sigma and Samyang lenses too. Insane amount of choice.
 
hooneeawr said:
Well I hope you're happy. I now own an Olympus E-PL5! :p

£314 with the twin zoom kit.

Missing having a 2.8 zoom, and a 1.8 prime for indoor shots, but might replace them later. Off to Iceland this week so we'll see how it performs. Could probably do with a prime for Northern lights shots, but I'll just have to make do with the 14-42 set at 14 and f3.5. However I do love the size, and the controls work well (with a few minor adjustments).
Click to expand...


Sorry!

Fast primes are very useful for m43 cameras, luckily as smeghead says there is a huge choice that puts nikon and canon to shamwin many ways. No other mirrorless system comes at all close
 
hooneeawr said:
Well I hope you're happy. I now own an Olympus E-PL5! :p

£314 with the twin zoom kit.

Missing having a 2.8 zoom, and a 1.8 prime for indoor shots, but might replace them later. Off to Iceland this week so we'll see how it performs. Could probably do with a prime for Northern lights shots, but I'll just have to make do with the 14-42 set at 14 and f3.5. However I do love the size, and the controls work well (with a few minor adjustments).
Click to expand...

A really good choice I feel, I've often been tempted by the oly stuff the om5 is gorgeous and I have a soft spot for Olympus jpegs as they have always just looked right to me so I'd probably save loads of processing!
 
hooneeawr said:
Well I hope you're happy. I now own an Olympus E-PL5! :p

£314 with the twin zoom kit.

Missing having a 2.8 zoom, and a 1.8 prime for indoor shots, but might replace them later. Off to Iceland this week so we'll see how it performs. Could probably do with a prime for Northern lights shots, but I'll just have to make do with the 14-42 set at 14 and f3.5. However I do love the size, and the controls work well (with a few minor adjustments).
Click to expand...

Where did you get the bundle from ?

Looking to downsizing my kit if the right camera is in my budget.
 
£314 is a great price. Now you just have the incredibly difficult job of deciding which of the many awesome primes to go for. Replacing the 17-50 2.8 will be harder... m43 is missing affordable fast zooms due to lesser third party support.
 
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