With my storage cabinets emptied of Canon equipment, it seemed appropriate to check what was left. In addition, Leica owning Claus asked if I had a photo of all my Micro Four Thirds gear, and I didn’t.
But now I have:
Rather more than I expected, they must have been breeding. Here’s a brief description of each item together with excuses why I have it where appropriate.
Bottom shelf Olympus E-M5 - my current body of choice. Olympus EP1 - She who must be obeyed’s original camera. Now she tends to use one of the following two. Panasonic GF1 - the body that started it all. Lettering and paint has worn off but it still works, will never sell it. Panasonic GX1 - Not far behind the E-M5 and prices are now so low it is not worth selling. Keep as back-up or wifely duties. Second Shelf These are the lenses that I will take in my bag if I am going out for a shoot (100-300 only if I expect to need that focal length).
Panasonic 7-14mm. Wide goodness, better than the Olympus 9-18mm it replaces (see top shelf). Panasonic Summilux 24mm F1.4. My walkaround lens. Leica looks and a very useful F1.4; just that much better than the 20mm F1.7 it replaces (see top shelf). Olympus 45mm F1.8. Cheap-ish and very competent, but no match for the 75mm. Olympus 75mm F1.8. Best lens I own. Gorgeous output, cold dead hands etc. Panasonic 100-300mm. Had the 45-300mm, sold it and got this. Stay away from tele extremes and it is very good indeed.
Third shelf Special occasion lenses, from the left: Panasonic 14-45mm. Came with the GF1 and outshines all the 14-42mm kit lenses that followed it. Never fails to impress. Olympus 9-18mm. Bought it before the Panasonic 7-14mm which is much better; but she who must be obeyed likes it and won’t let me sell it. Says it belongs to her, what a strange concept. Panasonic 20mm F1.7. Every home should have one (new version released last week). Came with the GF1 and makes the classic combination. Not as divine as the Summilux 25mm, but a great lens. Schneider-Kreuznach 25mm F1.9. Teeny tiny C-mount lens with lovely rendering. Present from The Son and nice to stick on a body and just go take some shots. Voigtlander 25mm F0.95. Metal and glass monster with manual everything and crispy output. Oh, and F0.95! If you see “studio shots” of products, cameras etc on this blog, I will have used this lens. Olympus 60mm Macro. For macro. It’s good.
In the back row we have: Lensbaby Sweet 35 - Fun lens with weird effects; I should go and do more with it. Adapter for Kiev lenses with Helios 103 attached (which is a reminder I must do a similar shot for all my film cameras at some point).
So there we are, four bodies and thirteen lenses; hardly enough to justify as a collection.
The good news is that there is no additional gear I feel a need for at the moment. The further good news is that I have a shitload of cash in my gear kitty following my Canon sale. The bad news is that there will be a Panasonic 150mm F2.8 at some point, I am definitely going to need that.
Comments 🔗
2013-07-02| robin saysI have a nice white E-P1 as well. It will always be the “classic” PEN.
As to the rest… you have a disposable income and I don’t. ;-)
2013-07-02| dude saysWoooow. Awesome “collection”! I guess 1/3 of the actual value is present in the Olympus lens-hoods! =D (I still didn’t buy a hood for my 45mm Oly) I would really love to have an ultra wide lens. What are your thoughts on the 9-18mm? You didn’t sound too positive. Is it any good at the 18mm-end? The Walimex 7,5mm F3,5 fisheye is quite a bit cheaper than the 9-18… it’s a tough decision. If I end up only using the zoom at the wide end I might as well save some money and get the fisheye. But than again… a fisheye isn’t versatile at all… What’s your experience with ultra wide lenses?
2013-07-02| Kevin Moore saysBe warned, this cleansing feeling is contagious. I first met up with Spike in February of this year, we shared a few coffee’s ( bought by the kindly Spike a favor I won’t have to return as he’s also bodily cleansed now ) and we played show me yours and I’ll show you mine.
At the time we met, I was lugging around two Nikon D700’s, 16-35 f4, 24-70 f2.8, 70-200 f2.8 and a trusty 50mm f1.4. The total combined weight really was a pain to lug around in the heat. Left at home, were a couple of Nikon D3’s and three or four more lenses. The reason for all this gear is that I earn a crust here in the UK shooting weddings. I’ve also spent a fair bit of time in Kenya and Tanzania shooting wildlife images for stock and spent some 1,500 hours underwater normally with a camera in hand.
Later in my trip, I had the pleasure of spending a day with Spike at the ancient city just south of Bangkok ( once we found it that is as my navigation apparently is crap ). There were several shots where we’d taken fairly similar images and on my return home Spike sent me a few to compare.
Talking now purely on image quality, I was really surprised to find that in most cases, the images produced by Spikes OM D EM5 were better. They were sharper without doubt, and rendered the colors at least as accurately as my Nikon gear.
Might be useful to point something out here about my interest in getting the best image quality from my kit. Although Nikon generally produce good pro quality lenses ( just like Canon I’m sure ) there is still a degree of acceptable tolerance in any given lens body combination. I took the time with all my four bodies to calibrate every lens to them using LensAlign Pro. For those of you that have never seen one of these pieces of kit. it really does allow very accurate and repeatable fine AF adjustments to every lens and body combination via settings within the camera. Once this adjustment has been made, the camera then recognizes each individual lens and applies the stored adjustment. I would say that to 90% of my lenses really shone following this calibration and they were good.
I also love to travel an shoot stock photography but again, this has always involved lugging loads of heavy Nikon gear with me. For a lot of my trips, I’m normally accompanied by my wife who also shoots weddings with me so she can help spread the hand luggage weight. Recently though due to family commitments I’ve undertaken a few solo trips and then just how much kit to take really is an issue. I love to shoot with two bodies not only because it suits my style but also constant lens changes in dust bowls like Kenya really isn’t good for your kit.
On my return home after reviewing the images, I decided that I’d buy an OM D EM5 and a couple of lenses and this would be my travel kit. I bought one body with the beautiful Panasonic Summilux 25mm F1.4 and was really impressed. This was followed by several more lenses and my kit now contains
Panasonic 7-14mm Panasonic 25mm F1.4 Panasonic 12-35 F2.6 Panasonic 35-100 F2.8 Olympus 45mm F1.8 Olympus 60mm F2.8 Macro Olympus 75mm F1.8
My major decision to get rid of all my Nikon gear came about through a combination of factors. The OMD can without doubt produce excellent images and is just so much easier to travel with. Wedding work here in the UK has been severely hit by the current financial situation. So many brides are now either getting a relative with a camera to cover the big day or , going to one of the many new start very low budget operators. There seems to be no end to these new guys around and the majority of them are turning out with one low budget body and a single prosumer zoom lens. The reprints and albums they supply are done by the likes of Tesco, and the low quality, inncorrect colors seem to go unoticed by most of their clients.
In addition to the reasons I’ve already given, there are quite a few pro’s now shooting on mft kit and they’re more than happy with the results. More importantly the clients who are paying the bills are happy with the results. I also thought that with just a few bookings remaining, that for the remainder of this year all of my Nikon kit would sit unused. If I left it until this time next year then the camera bodies at least would depreciate noticably in value with so many new models around.
This weekend saw me donating over £600 to ebay alone in fees and their partners in crime paypal, will be taking another chunk too no doubt. Tomorrow see the arrival of a second OMD ( for the wife of course ) but this does have the added bonus of giving me a second body should I need it. We will now shoot our remaining weddings using only mft cameras. As for any future trips to the likes of Kenya I’m hoping to see the release of at least the promised 150mm F2.8 and one day hopefully something even longer still.
If I’m asked is the large DSLR dead yet then my answer is at the moment no but the writing is on the wall. Although I could really push the ISO limits with my D3 the OMD can’t be pushed that far but the situations I find myself in where it can’t cope will be far and few between. The other big area is follow focus where the mft systems lag behind. I’ve locked onto cheetah’s during a chase with D2x’s and D3’s and they’re very very good at staying locked on to the subject. The OMD just can’t keep up in that situation In several trips I’ve seen hundreds of cheetahs but photographed very few hunts so again occasions when I find my gear lacking will be few. If I just remind myself in a few months when I’m back in the heat of Thailand, just how bad I would feel being back to the Nikon donkey then I’m sure I won’t mind.
Moral of the story - Beware of coffee with Spike even he doesn’t drink it now.
2013-07-02| Clive saysKevin, reading your comment about your transition from Nikon DSLR to MFT put me in mind of my earliest days as an SLR owner with my Minolta Dynax 7000i… Which is pretty close in body size to my DMC-GX1, and probably closer still to your EM-5.
The weird thing is that in the circa 25 years since the Minolta, digital cameras have come along and then just bloated bigger and bigger. I also own a Canon 7D, and whilst I might be tempted by a successor, there is no way I’d buy anything bigger - it would be too heavy… But now at least comes MFT and a return to practical camera sizes.
Oh and Spike: why not take a look at waterproof housings for the GX1 and try for some shots of the tropical fish and corals in your neck of the woods? Might be worth a look if you are contemplating a new challenge…
2013-07-03| Spike saysI don’t either, I live on a rapidly shrinking pension thanks to the crap sterling exchange rate. Every item of camera equipment (and computers) purchased over the last six years has been funded by income from my photography. My deal with myself has been that I must fund my toys from income other than my pension (mainly because my pension allows me to eat and put a roof over my head and not much else).
2013-07-03| Spike saysGreat story Kevin, makes me proud to be just a little bit responsible for your conversion to the lighter side. But bad news, I still drink the occasional coffee….
2013-07-03| Spike saysI tested some of them here: 2012_08_wide-boys
2013-07-03| Spike saysI still have my PADI licence somewhere, but I think I have enough un-explored avenues without getting into the expense of diving again. I do have a plan to convert the GF1 to infra-red…
I share your puzzlement regarding DSLR sizes. Compare with a Sony RX1 or a Leica, or as you say any of the early film SLRs; so much more bulk in a modern Canikon.
2013-07-09| ChristianPFC saysThe picture is in very poor resolution, why is this?
2013-07-09| Spike saysBecause all the good cameras are having their photo taken.