Phone Photography, Mirorrless Happiness And The OM-D EM-6

Say hello to my new phone. I have been a faithful Samsung Galaxy S owner since the series was first introduced more than three years ago, I owned the original Galaxy S, the Galaxy S II, the Galaxy S III, and now the latest Galaxy S4 (yes, Samsung ditched the Roman numerals). You see, here in Egypt we don't have the concept of carrier locked phones and 2 year contracts, phones are usually (97%) sold unlocked, and you have zero obligation to stay with a single carrier, that's why there is a huge market for buying and selling used phones, and that's what I do, once a new model is announced, I make a deal with someone to buy my phone, and the exchange date is once I have the new phone in my hands. People like to buy from me because I treat my phones really well, and they rarely have a scratch on them, despite never using any screen protectors or covers.

But we're not going to talk about phones all day now, are we? Hit the jump to go back to photography.


PHONE PHOTOGRAPHY
 

So why am I talking about phones? The fact is that phones are available within an arm's reach 99% of the time, and nowadays they have good enough cameras for casual snaps in good light, and even in less than good light in some cases. I have used all sorts of famous camera phones in the past (Nokia N95, N86, N73, Sony Ericsson K750i, K810i, W910i, K850i, C905, etc...) and I used to blog about them, but they rarely produced pictures that impressed me.

Even by today's standards, the previous generation of 8MP phones (Galaxy S3, iPhone 4 & 5, etc...) didn't impress me on a pixel level, they didn't respond well to exposure adjustments in lightroom, and they didn't provide me with enough resolution to crop a tighter composition given their fixed 28mm equivalent lenses. But come see my S4 here, when they announced that it will feature a 13 MP sensor, I thought "ok, here's one more victim of the megapixel race". I didn't think I'd see good quality pixels, and that noise (or noise reduction smearing, depends on the manufacturer's JPEG engine tweaking) would be astronomical.

But when I used my phone's camera on a recent sea-side trip, I was quite impressed, see that picture above? A casual snap of a fish restaurant setup inside a man-made lake. Now look below to see a 100% crop.

What do you think? I am indeed very impressed with the image quality in good light, especially given that this is a 13 MP teeny weeny sensor, and I finally have enough room to get a useful crop when needed. What impressed me even more is the shadow recovery, it is no where near comparable to a RAW file from the RX100 or the OMD, but is quite good compared to all the phones I used before.

One more useful feature is the panorama mode, I tested both the RX100 which has it's own panoramic mode and my phone, and the phone came on top each time, it was way easier to follow up the required movement, and the phone stitched the images much better, click on the picture below to see the full 10,000 x 1,600 pixel wide panorama (it's a 6 MB file).

And on a final note, here's a quick comparison between the dynamic range of my phone and a RAW file shot using the famous sensor of the Sony RX100. The first image is taken with the phone, and was given my best efforts on lightroom, the fake tilt-shift effect was done with the gradient tool.

Now here's the same location, same timing, but shot with the incredibly versatile RX100, it has proven to be a very powerful tool as long as you're not shooting a lot of portraits.

PANALEICA 25MM F/1.4, AGAIN

Remember that shot? You saw it in my "Tale of 7 Cameras, And One Subject" post.

I got a lot of positive feedback on this picture, it was taken using the 5D Mark III, the 50mm f/1.4 and the Canon 600EX flash, to me, a great deal of the appeal of this picture is a result of the colored out of focus areas, the lighting direction of the bounced flash, and the mix ratio between the available light and the bounced flash.

So I went there again with my 50mm equivalent MFT lens, the Panaleica 25mm f/1.4, and decided to try and see if I will get similar looking shots, but unfortunately I forgot to take my flash with me, so I shot available light only (i.e. not that good).

What do you think? All three pictures were shot wide-open, and I quite admire the rendering of that lens, no regrets there, it deserves each of it's 499 dollars.

By the way, see that last picture with the two eggs? My brother took this picture himself, he got some eggs, drew the faces, and then killed one of the eggs as you can see, needless to say, it was a mess.

Before I skip this topic, here's one more Panaleica shot, don't ask me why, but I like it, a lot.

LUMIQUEST GEL HOLDERS

I have been using the LumiQuest gel holders for a long time now, I have one for each of my flashes. I don't take them off even when I'm not using gels. I was taking flash lit photos in full daylight @ 1/2000 sync speed using the RX100, I had one YN-560II flash inside the LumiQuest Softbox III triggered optically using the RX100 popup flash, the flash power was set to full power, since I wanted to kill most of the daylight, and when I finished I saw those burning marks on the gel holder, nothing melted on the gel holder, but now it permanently features those ugly burn marks.


THE OM-D EM-6

Remember my EP-5 announcement post? I said that the EP-5 gave me a very good glimpse on some of the features that will be included in the next OMD iteration, according to 43rumors.com there is more:

• The new OMD will have the same viewfinder quality as the just announced VF-4.
• It will have phase detection on sensor.
• It will probably be announced between August and September.
• More surprises are coming regarding the EM-6.

Here are the three links I used to get this information, here, here and here. If those rumors are true, I suspect we will have another great hit in our hands soon. I already love my EM-5 and I consider it one of the best cameras I have ever owned, but I am still bugged by some missing stuff, so in the next update I hope/expect to see the following:

• At least the same sensor quality as the existing OMD.
• More dynamic range, especially the highlights recovery.
• Sharper & larger EVF, but that's almost certain.
• Higher resolution rear LCD.
• True focus tracking that works, hopefully this will happen with the built-in phase detection.
• Better video features: touch to focus, 14x magnification, manual audio control, 24p and 60 fps.
• Higher max. shutter speed 1/8000, almost certain similar to the EP-5.
• Lower base ISO.
• WiFi & GPS.

Will they do it? I certainly hope so, we will know in a few months, if not before.

This brings us to the end of this post, I am sorry if it is a long one, but I don't have enough time to sit down in front of my PC, and post regularly, that's why I gathered lots of topics in this post, maybe when the new iPad is announced, I will get one and post more frequently using the brilliant Blogsy client, but you have to ask Apple to hurry up and release it already. :-)

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Review: Sony RX100

The RX100

So, you've seen my teaser and wanted to know more, here comes my first impressions review on the hot Sony RX100, why did I get one? How does it perform? And is it really the best P&S out there? Hit the jump.

THE "WHY"

Before I start talking about the "what" or the "how", I'd like to talk about the "why" for a little, let's start by going back a little bit, to the time when I had my Sony T10, this was my first P&S that I bought with my own money, I took it almost everywhere with me since it was very small.

Fast forward to the Canon G11, my first true photography camera, I also took that one everywhere, I remember taking it with me to work everyday, and I used to shoot lots of things during lunch breaks, or whenever needed, it was great fun.

Fast forward again to the Canon 550D, hmm, large, not practical to take to work everyday, doesn't fit in the laptop bag, and I get caught every time I use it because of the chee-chkeeeen shutter sound it produced every time I took a picture, same with the 60D, the 5D2 and the 5D3, which I was even lazy to take with me on regular family visits where there are kids; which by just being kids creates several interesting photo opportunities.

So, ever since the DSLR move, I only took the camera when I knew I'd need it and use it, otherwise, home sweet home; it stayed at. I have long since wanted a small take-every-where camera, my initial requirements were a viewfinder, a relatively large sensor, fast focusing, fast lens, and of course it had to be small and quite cheap, my eyes were always set on the MFT (Micro Four Thirds) since they started becoming popular, but they were never cheap enough, nor small enough to satisfy me, and I would have to buy an external viewfinder like Kirk Tuck to be able to use it, one more thing is that MFT is a system, and I didn't want to open a new expenditure channel for photography, so I never really thought about it, besides, I was quite scared that I'd get a small camera and I would take everywhere and leave my big DSLR and fancy lenses back at home collecting dust. I was not attracted to the newer 1/1.7" sensor cameras, having owned the G11 before. So what happened?
 

Rain and Gloom!

Having sold the mighty 5D Mark III and all that, I decided I had enough spare money beside my Olympus OM-D EM-5 system to buy a fancy little camera, all of that with just the price of selling the 5D3 body alone, at least I'd be able to shoot pictures of each camera with the other one to post on this blog (see? I am paying money for your entertainment :-p). They say the best camera is the one that you have with you, and the one I always have with me is in my Galaxy S3 phone, which I don't like, it produces noisy little pictures in all situations, and with that 28mm equivalent wide angle fixed lens, composition is a hateful experience, I mostly shoot people and I don't like doing it with such a wide lens, and if I were to crop, 8 megapixels are not enough. So I went hunting for a little powerful camera.

THE "WHAT"

That was a tricky part, as is any camera purchase, which one to choose, I was quite attracted to the Nikon V1 with its one inch 10 MP sensor, I found it on Amazon for $500 with the 10-30 kit lens, it had superb focusing, a good viewfinder, respectable noise performance, but it was large and I never really warmed up to it, I wanted small. And for smaller I had to choose between the 1/1.7" and the 2/3" sensor cameras, mainly represented by the Canon S110, G15, Fuji X10, XF1, Nikon P7700 and Panasonic LX7, of course there was always the larger sensor Sony RX100.

To cut the story short, after scanning the whole internet, I narrowed it down to the Canon G15 and the Sony RX100, I knew I had to let go of my viewfinder dream, so I was choosing between the G15 because of its very fast lens (1.8 - 2.8), familiarity, external controls, unlimited 1/4000 sync speed and a hot shoe, and on the other hand the much raved about P&S of the year with its larger and better sensor, but not-so-fast lens, 1/2000 maximum shutter speed and lack of hot shoe. It was a tie for me and I almost bought the G15, but the RX100 won my heart mainly because of size.

More Rain, Wind & Gloom!

THE "HOW"

So how did the Sony RX100 perform? Splendid, I have to say. It has passed the most important test, portability, it goes with me everywhere, same as my phone, wallet and keys. As for performance, it has certainly exceeded my expectations, I didn't think putting 20 MP in a 1" sensor was a good idea when my 60D struggled with noise with it's 18 MP APS-C sensor, but I was pleasantly surprised, it actually does very well, and it's a point and shoot, so I can just give it to anyone and they will be able to take pictures of me. It zooms like normal P&S cameras with a lever around the shutter button, and it can auto-detect faces and focus on them on its own without special face-detection modes, although it's not as accurate as the OMD. Here is a picture of me taken during waiting for lunch by one of my casual non-photographer friends.

Me, me & me!

As you can see, the camera nailed the focus, exposure and colors quite perfectly, I did notice that it usually preferred a cooler white balance when in AWB mode, but I was happy to discover that I can adjust the auto white balance setting, so I added 2 clicks to the warm side (might reduce it to one) and now I like the AWB. Focus is quite quick in good light, and acceptably quick in very dim light (I turn off the AF illumination on all of my cameras, "ZAP, sorry, I'm trying to take a picture, ZAP, sorry, can't focus, ZAP, oh well, I won't take a picture").

Noise performance is exceptionally well for such a densely packed sensor, if you look carefully you'll find noise even at low ISO 400 images, but it is very fine and not intrusive, it keeps increasing until it becomes quite apparent at ISO 1600 and 3200 (it goes to ISO 6400 by the way). What do you think the ISO of this picture is?

Water Glass, Very Dim Restaurant, 1/20 sec, f/1.8, ISO ??

100% Crop, Default NR in Lightroom, did you guess the ISO yet?

And here is the noise cleaned up in an Topaz DeNoise

That was ISO 3200! Unbelievable. Another strong point is the dynamic range, it is simply brilliant at low ISO figures, up there with the larger sensors.

Now let's talk about DOF for a second, don't even think it can produce any sort of shallow DOF at normal shooting distances, it just won't happen unless you're shooting very close objects like the example below, I think if it had a faster lens, it might have got a slightly shallower DOF at the long end, but that's not why I bought the RX100, I have the OMD for that. And that is one advantage for this camera, you can never complain from not-deep-enough DOF, even at f/1.8 on the wide end, you get lots of stuff in focus. The Carl Zeiss lens is very sharp, with nice colors, I wish it would have been faster, but it would have been bigger (if you don't know, it starts from f/1.8 on the wide end and goes to f/4.9 on the long end). Zooming with the lever is ok but not very fast, and optical zoom works in video as well.

A Leaf! Notice the creamy bokeh.

For some reason the camera keeps auto-focusing all the time on the selected focus point, even when I'm not shooting, it doesn't bother me, but I guess it uses up the battery. Video mode is ok with the built-in image stabilization (called Steady Shot), it has 1080p @ 60 fps which is great for slow motion, however I have two major issues with the video mode, first, the sound, it is just too loud and very sensitive with no settings other than wind noise reduction, and the other one is the noise which is very apparent when shooting in semi-low light at higher ISOs. I can counter the first issue by using my relatively HUGE external mic (Zoom H1), but I wish it had better audio for casual family videos.

There are a few things that I don't like about the RX100, first and foremost is the external ring around the lens, I read in the reviews that people found it very useful, however I find it very stiff and hard to turn, I wish it were smoother, maybe it will break-in with more use, but I simply don't use it because of that, imagine using it for manual focus during video (camera has focus peaking by the way), it is very stiff that you would shake the whole thing to move the ring, I now have it assigned to ISO choice. My other issue is the rear dial, it is very good, and very easy to use, but many times when I'm just turning the dial I could click it to any of the four directions and end up selecting something I didn't want. I would also want to move the focus point directly using the arrows without having to press the center OK button first, and if I wanted to select any of the functions assigned to the four directions I'd have to press OK first.

Yet More Rain!

The menus on the RX100 needs better work, it's almost impossible to remember where to find functions, even if they are in front of your eyes. Despite the complaints from the OMD menu system, I find it much more logical and easier to use. A custom menu would have helped as well, a separate tab where you could add your most used settings like on the Canons. A select-and-delete several pictures at once would have been a nice addition as well, to delete several pictures you have to view it one by one, then press the weirdly labeled "?" button and then down to choose the "Yes" option, then the center button to confirm the deletion. At least with the OMD I can configure it to delete pictures by just pressing the delete button once.

The RX100 is a pleasurable camera to use, it has an excellent screen at the back, the sharpest one I have seen yet, and it has a nice feeling when holding it, quite solid, and it comes with a nice little wrist strap, finally someone who knows how I carry cameras, I have used wrist straps for all of my cameras without a single exception. One area that makes the camera feel sluggish is the image playback, it is quite slow, and when you zoom in on a picture, it takes a while to display the 100% magnification where it jumps too with one press on the zoom lever. I tried using 45 MB/s UHS-1 cards and it didn't make it any faster.

Backside

What makes the RX100 a very valuable addition to my kit, is that I have it with me everywhere, forcing me sometimes to stop and take a picture that I wouldn't think of taking otherwise, now that I know I have a powerful camera with me, take these rainy gloomy pictures for example, I drove last Friday 7 continuous hours from 7am till 2pm in some of the worst weather conditions seen in Egypt, with just 3 hours of sleep. We're not a country used to or prepared for rain, so when light rain hits it might cause traffic problems, but last Friday, it was all-taps-open, lots of heavy rain (at some stages it became little hard ice balls) and strong wind, it was quite an adventure for me, a risky one for sure, but I enjoyed it nevertheless, and I wanted to document some parts of the journey, so I used my phone mounted to the windshield on the car kit to capture some video, and I used the RX100 to take the rainy photos you see above, and I am very proud of it, they remind me of the adventure, and they are not crap, they look cool. When I reached home safely, I stopped for a few moments and took several photos of all the rainy surroundings from inside the car.

I wouldn't have done that if I only had my DSLR which would usually stay at home, and even if I had it, it would have been in the car trunk and I would never stop and try to get it out in such conditions, so there you go, here's one last picture that reminds me of the rainy day.

Running Water

When I ordered the RX100, Amazon suggested a kit that includes a genuine Sony case, a genuine Sony Class 10 SD card, a Zeikos hand grip (gifted to someone already), and a pack of screen protectors, all for the same price as the camera alone. The memory card and the case are of course very useful, and I am glad I ordered them. I also ordered a couple of spare batteries with a wall charger and a car plug, the batteries were no-name batteries, but they are a 100% imitation of a 3rd party battery brand called Wasabi, they work well, especially that the OEM battery can be only be charged from inside the camera with the provided USB cable.

I also ordered a Lowepro Apex 30AW case for the RX100, it is very well built, can carry a spare battery and memory card, and has a weather-protection cover, here's how they look like:

Lowepro Apex 30AW & Sony Genuine Case

One final thing I would like to tell you about the Sony is the unlimited flash sync speed, the camera has a tiny popup flash that could be bounced to the ceiling, I thought of using that flash on its own and bounce it to a near wall or something, but I found that it's not powerful enough on its own, but used with ambient it can create some very good results, but I'll keep that for another post.

Teen Weenie Little Flash

One more thing is to use the popup flash to trigger external flashes, hmm, can it sync at 1/2000 sec? I used my YN-560 II flashes in S2 slave mode, and I was able to sync them successfully all the way up to 1/2000 sec, how cool is that? Have a look at my previous teaser post to see a picture (and a 100% crop) taken with external flashes and no ambient at 1/2000 sec. But what about the exposure coming from the popup flash itself? Easy, despite not having manual power control, I decreased the flash exposure compensation down to -2, and I blocked the direct flash and bounced it behind me using a white card, you can hold that card in your hand (shaky shaky, no viewfinder) or simply cut something simple from a thick white like I did:

Front View

Side View

The mshafik Bouncer TM

I used gorilla tape to make sure no light goes through the white paper, and to give it more structural integrity. I am still not used to the stinky-baby-diaper hold (TM Kirk Tuck) with the camera in front of me, especially with low shutter speeds, but the built-in image stabilization works nicely (I'd give it a maximum of two stops of stabilization), and it's a no problem at all in good light.

OM-D EM-5 (45mm f/1.8) vs Sony RX100

Despite my huge love for the OMD, and it being a significantly quicker and more fun camera to operate, I have to admit that the Sony has taken a special place in my heart very slowly and without me noticing until I reached this paragraph (really!), mainly because it's the camera that I always have when I need one, it is by no means the fastest camera to operate, nor does it have the best quality or the fastest focus, but it is the most versatile one I have ever had, and for that I give it my recommended seal of approval, not that I have ever recommended a camera on this blog before. I fully understand now why this is the best P&S camera produced in 2012 and perhaps in all time, well done Sony.

Lights

Deserted

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The Truth Behind The Migration

I didn't expect the comments I got on my previous post, it seems there a lot of people interested in the change, some people thought full frame was a bust, that it doesn't differ from crop sensors, some thought that I finally saw the light and will move to Nikon, and others are interested in learning from my experience in order to avoid my mistakes.

To all, here I tell the full details of the story, the morals, and my advice to recent camera owners, it will be long, I will try to ingest some pictures to make it less painful, and for the impatient, please jump for the summary at the end of the post.

A FEW IMPORTANT DISCLAIMERS FIRST

• I am not a working photographer, I don't earn any money from photography or this blog, I learned photography first and foremost to capture the beautiful moments in the lifes of my family, so the majority of my photography are portraits and candids, I am certainly interested in other types of photography, but they carry less importance. I like to describe myself as a pretty advanced amateur or hobbyist.
• I am brand-neutral, I believe all cameras can do wonders in the hands of professional users, be it Canon, Fuji, Nikon, Olympus, Sony, etc...
• I appreciate every single bit of Canon equipment I have ever used, I have not sold my equipment because of any issues with my equipment, they all performed exceptionally well, and sometimes even exceeded my expectations. If I was a working photographer, I would not hesitate to buy a similar system again.
• Because someone asked, full frame is indeed different, the look and the DoF control are unmatched by smaller sensor cameras, and the noise performance is just brilliant. So anyone thinking I have realized that full frame is a mirage, please don't, I know I'm going to miss it.
• Finally, I am not going to tell you what camera to buy, or what to do with your DSLR, I am just telling my story so that others can learn from my mistakes and avoid them, all the cameras, lenses and accessories are bought by my hard earned money, I am not advertising for any brand or any certain camera system, you'll have to find out what works for you.

THE STORY

Now that that's out of the way, here's what happened, as regular readers already know, my first digital camera I have bought from my own money was a Sony T10 P&S, I used it solely to capture the first 15 months or so while my older daughter was growing-up. Up until now, looking back at these pictures makes me regret not getting into photography earlier, everytime I look, I see ugly colors & white balance, lots of wide-angle close-up portraits, lots of direct flash pictures, the whole nine yards of pure P&S mistakes. Back then I remember Gizmodo's article and high praise of the revolutionary Canon S90, finally a pocketable point and shoot for the more quality-conscious photographers, I did a lot of research and ended up buying the same-sensored Canon G11 and getting started for the first time into the world of aperture, shutter speed, ISO, off camera lighting, tutorials, blogs, everything, that was mid 2009.

I started advancing really quickly, my daughter started crawling and walking, and I got frustrated with the slow, hit & miss AF of the G11, and after around 10 months of ownership, the G11 was sold, and bought a Canon 550D along with the holy cheap-but-rather-excellent trinity (18-55 IS, 50 f/1.8 & 55-250 IS). A few more months, and I was addicted to the sharpness of the 50 prime that I didn't really want to use the 18-55 anymore, and I also wanted a wider (50mm equivalent) prime, so I bought the 15-85, the 35mm f/2 and the 60mm macro. I sold the 50 f/1.8. Around that time I already had a 430EX and 580EX speedlites and a few light modifiers.

Fast forward 10 months after buying the 550D. I wanted a body with a better grip and remote flash control, the 60D prices were falling down, and the earthquake that hit Japan increased the request on used Canon bodies in Egypt, I was travelling to Malaysia, and I decided to shop from there, I sold my Canon 550D along with the 18-55 kit lens for almost what I bought it for, and bought the 60D and a new 580EX II speedlite from Malaysia. I was very happy with the 60D and my current crop of excellent performing lenses, the 15-85 for wide and all-round shooting, the 35 f/2 for most of my shooting, the 60mm macro for portraits and close-ups, and the 55-250 for telephoto work and compressed portraits. Later I added the 85 f/1.8 which became my background-eraser lens, and favorite portrait lens.

So good so far, here is when things starts drifting away slowly without me noticing, I started looking at the incremental upgrade costs, and pretending I didn't see the total equipment costs. Up until that point, I could justify the equipment I had and not feel too much regret buying my gear, maybe I would lose either the 60 macro or the 85 1.8. However, if you look at the main reason I started learning and investing in photography, it was to shoot my kids and different family moments, I don't sell photos or prints, I don't do commercial work, I don't even print the photos, I usually share them on the iPad (more convinent and cheaper than prints), but I enjoy the process of photography itself, some say that the camera one uses should be transparent, it should allow him to do art and get the vision in his head without interrupting his art-making process, not me, I enjoy the process of taking photos just as well as I enjoy making good photos, but maybe that's because I'm an engineer.

So what went wrong? Mic Ty started talking about the full-frame dream, I did my best to convince him it's not worth the hassle and that he can already get what he wants with his D300s, but the damage was done, the seed has been planted, and we never got rid of the idea from our heads, add to that i was following around 60 photography blogs and sites, and seeing everyone touting how great full frame is, and looking at pictures with amazingly shallow depth of field (compared to the crop sensor I had), suddenly I decided to switch to full frame, call it gear acquisition syndrome, call it haste, call it irrational, call it competition and not wanting to be left behind (Mic told me he'd sell his own crop Nikon and buy a full frame, and I wanted to do the same), and I won't blame you, it was really not well thought, and I followed my desires and the new gear lust. How bad was it?

I have already owned the 60D for 10 months when I took that decision, I sold all my crop sensor equipment, and only kept the 35 f/2 and the 85 f/1.8 to try them out on the new full frame camera, I bought a 5D Mark II reluctantly because I knew it was a step backwards from the 60D regarding some features like focusing, wireless flash control and tilting screen, and more importantly I have been waiting for the new 5D replacement, but when it was announced, I knew I wouldn't be able to afford it. Anyway, I ended up selling the 35 and 85 lenses and bought a really nice setup, 24-105L, 50 f/1.4, 100L Macro and 200L f/2.8. I also replaced the 430EX with a YN-560II flash, and the 580EX with the very expensive 600EX-RT (another stupid move).

I was really happy with my equipment, it was a really different world depth of field and noise-performance wise, but for some reason I couldn't get the 5D Mark III out of my head, all those amazing reviews and high praises for it never made it any easier for me. See a pattern? I was too engrossed in equipment lust, that I only looked at the incremental upgrade costs, I never really stood back and look at the complete picture, I was not willing to give up the quality and the DoF control I had with the full frame, I always wanted more, better, faster. I'd read a review or see a shot and then lust after this lens or that whatever, just to get a similar shot, but will this shot make my life better? Does it deserve this amount of expenditure? Will I ever want to take that shot again?

One thing that started bugging me was the size, the Lowepro Toploader 55AW that used to carry my 60D with two lenses and a 580EX flash was only able to take the the 5D2 and the 100 macro. Look at the picture above, that's a 550D with my 60mm Macro and lens hood, versus the 5D2 and the 100L Macro with the lens hood. I had to buy better and more expensive bags. Weight was another issue, with all the incremental increases over time, I was shocked at how heavy my equipment weighed when I compared it to the smaller crop sensor bodies. The logical decision is to downsize, yes? No!

This time I'd call it stupidity, one day I decided that I was fed up with the 5D2's focusing system, and that I deserved a 5D3, there was a good offer for the 5D3 selling for slightly less than $3000, so I hastily sold the 5D2 and got the 5D3 in the same day, the 5D2 spent around 6 months with me, and I thought it would be the odd duck with the least ownership period, and that the 5D3 would live forever.

I was thrilled with the 5D3, it was brilliant, and that's even not enough praise, it was completely transparent during the image making process, it took images so quick and wanted to move on to others, it did high ISO like a champ, it was (at minimum) one stop better than the 5D2 at ISOs above 1600, it was magical, but I lost some of the fun I had during the image making process, it was so good that getting a bad result or an out of focus shot a rare occurrence, but that was never the reason for selling it.


THE REALIZATION

One day during a team building trip a few weeks ago, I was sitting on the beach, phone in hand, and the Vanguard Heralder with the 5D3 and 24-105 on my lap, and I started to envy my colleagues running around and having all sorts of fun on the beach, while I sat there guarding my expensive camera gear, and not to mention the size and the weight I had to lug around. I didn't trust the room service, so I never left my camera bag at the hotel room, I had to lug it around everywhere. A few weeks earlier, I decided I'd buy a small compact camera for situations like this, but I didn't want to compromise image quality and wanted it to have a viewfinder, and of course it shouldn't be expensive since it would just be a complimentary camera.

Back to the beach, with all of these thoughts in my head, I opened an excel sheet on my phone, I wrote down the prices of the current camera gear I currently had, and the prices of a quite similar micro four thirds system based around the OM-D EM-5 (for some reason I couldn't take this camera out of my head, and Roger Cicala didn't make it any easier), don't really know why I decided to do that, maybe I imagined my self with a really small camera that I was able to take around everywhere with no fear, anyway that's what I did, and the result was a shocking eye-opener for me.

You can already see the full picture because I told the story in one-shot, but it took me years to reach this point, I was genuinely amazed at the savings I could achieve by switching to m4/3. The result was that I could sell my Canon gear (body, lenses, flashes, bags, accessories, etc...) for around $8000, and buy a new system that could do 80% of what my current system can do, while saving around $4500, gasp! Did I really go that far? The realization hit me so hard, I was quite upset for the rest of the trip, and I was more aware how much is at risk if I dropped my camera or if it was stolen from me (which happened to one of the friends earlier).

THE DECISION

From that moment, I kept checking the whole internet for OM-D system reviews, you name it, blog posts, equipment reviews, forums, flickr galleries, all weird sorts of sites. I spent a few weeks trying to measure how much image quality and camera performance I would lose, but this time I did factor in my initial and almost sole reason for taking photos at the first place, which is better family photos (touche), but that's the reality, and I also wanted to enjoy the process of taking photos again, I didn't want to buy something that made photography as easy as the 5D3 did, I wanted to be more involved, like thinking more about the backgrounds since I won't obliterate them OOF anyway, trying harder in lower light, since I won't be able to just bump the ISO and use a powerful flash. This makes getting good results more satisfying, but of course if I was a paid photographer, I'd want the best performing equipment that I can afford, that's why I am fortunate I am my un-paid family photographer.

After thorough research, and more re-evaluation, I decided to sell all my Canon gear (5D3 owned for less than 3 months), buy a m4/3 small system, and un-follow the thousand photography blogs in my RSS feed since they mostly ignite my gear lust. One benefit of my decision, is that there is no market in Egypt for the m4/3 cameras, so I wouldn't be able to buy new lenses easily, and I won't be able to sell my camera or lenses, I'd be stuck with them fo good, which I think is good for me.

THE PURCHASE

Now that you've read all of the above (or so I hope), you have every right to know what camera gear I decided to buy, and why.

One thing that ignited my interest in m4/3 is the DoF, yes, you read that right, take a look at Kirk Tuck's post on TOP here, with a FF camera, when you want to get a reasonable DoF to get both eyes of your subject in focus or get enough of a product you're shooting in sharp focus, you have to stop-down a lot, at the expense of lower shutter speeds and/or higher ISO, while on the other hand a smaller sensor used with a similar fast lens wide-open would give a larger DoF and a better impression of sharpness without resorting to low shutter speeds or high ISO. The negative would be when you need really thin shallow DoF, but you can't get everything you want now, would you?

So here's what I bought and why I chose it:

• Olympus OM-D EM-5 (black) with the 12-50 kit lens, amazing camera, magnesium alloy body, EVF (think pre-chimping with histogram), wicked fast AF, in body IS, up to 9 fps, weather sealed, wireless flash control, small, tiltable LCD, better noise performance than the 7D and the D7000.
• 12-50 kit lens (24-100 equivalent), got it because it's a bargain, and it will give me wide angle, weather sealing and macro at the same time.
• Panasonic Leica 25mm f/1.4, for day-to-day use, fast aperture, excellent quality and my favorite 50mm equivalent focal length.
• Olympus 45mm f/1.8, for tight portraits with a bit of background separation, very fast AF and very sharp wide-open.
• Olympus 40-150mm telephoto (80-300 equivalent) this was an Amazon suggestion, for just $130 more than the camera kit price, I got this lens, a Transcend 32GB Class 10 SD card, Olympus messenger bag, travel tripod with bag, cleaning kit, wide and tele converters with cases, UV filters, filter holding bag, and I don't remember if there was something else, it was too good to pass.
• FL600R flash, tiny TTL flash with a GN36 @ ISO 100, will be used mainly for bounce indoors, and I already have a couple of powerful YN-560 II flashes for setup shots. It also can act as a slave to the OM-D's flash.
• Sony RX100, surprise, the best P&S in 2012 if not ever, amazing performance (thanks Sony for your amazing sensors in the OM-D and here) in a really tiny package, after much consideration and almost buying the Canon G15, I chose this one. There was a kit at Amazon (at no extra cost) that adds a Sony 32GB Class 10 SD card, a Sony carrying pouch, a cleaning kit and a few other useless items.
• Thinktank Retrospective 5 bag, a small bag that can carry most of the gear listed above, and doesn't look like a camera bag screaming "come and steal me".
• Lowepro Apex 100AW & 30AW, the first for carrying the OM-D with a single prime, and the other for the RX100.
• 3rd party battery cahrgers + 2 spare batteries for both cameras.

Would you take a guess at the price of all of the above? Almost the same as the price of my 5D3 body alone, can you imagine that? And much smaller in size that I would be able to always have a camera with me, something that I wasn't able to do with the DSLRs.


THE MORAL OF THE STORY

If you came here directly without reading any of the above, you're out of luck, you missed the party, there was a lot of fun. But anyway, here are the lessons I have learned from my experience:

• If you're not a working/paid photographer, you have to set your priorities and targets firmly, and you have to keep them in front of your eyes all the time.
• Don't buy a piece of equipment because you want to be able to take a certain photo like this photography blog showed, think hard, would you take this picture again? Will it deserve the money paid on new gear?
• Use what you already have and get the best out of it, until it dies.
• Did you already get the best out of it and want to move to the next level? Don't, keep using your gear, you've already been happy with your gear and making great pictures, the next upgrade might cost 2x, but only enhance your pictures by 0.1x.
• If you have the chance to buy well-used gear instead of brand new, please do, you'll save a lot of money when you decide to sell your equipment for whatever reason.
• Are you sitting on piles of money that you don't know what to spend it on? Ignore this whole post and go buy as many cameras and lenses as you can.
• The 5D Mark III is the best camera I have ever used, and I will really miss the FF and 200 f/2.8 look wide-open.

I hope I have answered all of the inquiries and questions I've got, and I hope this post helps other people to fall into the same mistakes I did.

Posted with Blogsy

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