"Why are Camera Lenses So Big and Heavy?" (Page 3): I am an Olympus micro 4/3 shooter and love the system. However, I agree that some of Olympus' professional lenses lose a lot of the...

adm

DaveyDitzer wrote:

I looked at the Oly 25mm f1.2 lens which weighs in at 410g. My Nikkor 50mm f1.4 D lens is 8 oz or about 225g. So weight savings my not be quite as expected. PS, my 35mm f1.8 Nikkor DX is about the same weight. So I have lighter lenses and in the case of my D5300 little to no weight penalty for a larger sensor.

I am an Olympus micro 4/3 shooter and love the system. However, I agree that some of Olympus' professional lenses lose a lot of the size and weight advantage of M4/3. However, if you stick with the standard and premium lenses, you will get the full benefit of the size and weight advantage of the M4/3 format (and save a lot of money). For example, my 45mm f1.8 premium M Zuiko lens weighs only 116 grams and is equivalent to 90mm in full frame. Interestingly, I recently watched a video by a Panasonic fan boy saying that no one would take seriously a photographer using this lens (on a Panasonic body) because it is so small. It seems that sometimes you can't win. The 45mm f.1.8 is also very reasonably priced at $400 and is sometimes discounted below that. Who can afford the 25mm f1.2 anyway? At about $1000, it costs four times as much as its f1.8 counterpart. The idea of bokeh is overrated and oversold (but this is a topic for another thread).

joer Loc: Colorado/Illinois

jerryc41 wrote:

My title is the title of a good article on How-To Geek. Google will help you find it. Just because a camera is smaller than a DSLR, that doesn't mean the brand's whole photo system will be small and light.

Choose the camera and lenses wisely and you can have an excellent kit that is lighter than the DSLR equivalent.

ledoux Loc: New Orleans

I watched the Tony Northrop podcast on the death of micro 4/3 cameras as well. One of his basic points is that sales of micro 4/3 cameras is down substantially. What's "in" and what's fashionable to buy has so much to do with the viability of more established competing systems. It's quite obvious that mirrorless cameras are what's "in" now. It's not always about what makes sense. Market tends can be brutal.

DaveyDitzer Loc: Western PA

adm wrote:

I am an Olympus micro 4/3 shooter and love the sys... (show quote)

Thank you for the specifics.

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

DaveyDitzer wrote:

I looked at the Oly 25mm f1.2 lens which weighs in at 410g. My Nikkor 50mm f1.4 D lens is 8 oz or about 225g. So weight savings my not be quite as expected. PS, my 35mm f1.8 Nikkor DX is about the same weight. So I have lighter lenses and in the case of my D5300 little to no weight penalty for a larger sensor.

1.4 vs 1.2, plastic vs metal.

JD750 Loc: SoCal

DaveyDitzer wrote:

I looked at the Oly 25mm f1.2 lens which weighs in at 410g. My Nikkor 50mm f1.4 D lens is 8 oz or about 225g. So weight savings my not be quite as expected. PS, my 35mm f1.8 Nikkor DX is about the same weight. So I have lighter lenses and in the case of my D5300 little to no weight penalty for a larger sensor.

But you are not comparing apples to apples.

The Nikkor 50mm f1.2 is 359g, 68mm dia x 47mm long, $650-$700 new.
The Olympus 25mm f1.2 is 410g, 87mm dis x 70mm long, $900-$1000 new
but it is a pro lens, built very solidly, the Nikkor is not pro quality.

A better comparison is to the Nikkor Noct AI-S 58mm f1.2 pro lens 465g, 74mm dia x 63mm long, $4000-$6000 used.

But that is still not the same because to get the same (shallow) DOF as the Nikkor in a M43 lens you would need a 25mm f0.6 Lens.

But the camera body weight is considerably less.
Nikon D850 body 1005g (inc battery)
Oly OM-D EM-1 497g (inc battery)

brontodon

CaptainBobBrown wrote:

The day has come when there is at least a partial replacement of traditional heavy glass in a lens system. Nikon some time ago came out with a 300mm lens with a fresnel lens component. Now they've just come out (released 9/13/2018) with a 500 mm. lens containing a fresnel component.

Canon introduced their first 400mm f/4 DO ("Diffractive Optics") lens in 2001. The Mark II version (currently in production) of that lens is very highly regarded!