Fredrick Loc: Former NYC, now San Francisco Bay Area

I have the Fuji X-T2, and X100F, and absolutely love these cameras. This past summer I spent a month in Europe and only took the X100F, with ZERO regrets!

There was only 1 shot I couldn’t take because the fixed 23mm (35mm FFE) lens wasn’t wide enough, so I took it with my iPhone 8+ (attached.)

Mirrorless and smartphones are the future.

Retired CPO Loc: Travel full time in an RV

HaHaHaHaHa I don't think so.

Fredrick Loc: Former NYC, now San Francisco Bay Area

As the saying goes, “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

That's what Steve Balmer of Microsoft infamy said about the iPhone...

AndyGarcia

I bought a Fuji Xe2 back in 2015 with a Fuji plastic fantastic 16-50 lens. I have an Xt1 as well. I also now have a Fuji 18-135 and a Fuji 14/2.8. Plus 12 or so vintage/classic manual focus lenses from Nikon, Konica, Helios etc all of which work great on the Fujis.

I sold my D7000 Nikon recently. My D300 is hardly ever used. With an old Sigma 18-250 attached it's almost twice the weight of my Fujis. The Nikon still takes great photos, has a very low shutter count and I'm emotionally attached to it. I also use it for real estate photography with a Sigma 10-20mm.

An Xt2 will arrive this year to replace the Xt1. I'm very happy with the results from the Fujis. The Xt1 reminds me of my Nikon FM2 which is, in my opinion, a great compliment.

Toment Loc: FL, IL

A6500 has image stabilization...good for old, shaky folks😀

AndyGarcia

I agree totally. Great shot of the sub. I use my iPhone 8 when I have a prime on my Fujis and need wider. I never thought I'd say that!

Soul Dr. Loc: Beautiful Shenandoah Valley

You might not think so, but it IS happening as mirrorless cameras continue to get better and better.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

There is no *viewfinder blackout* at the moment of exposure. You have a choice of what happens at the moment of exposure —€” continuous live view, or image review.

The camera requires *no noisy mirror* that gets out of focus alignment. Fewer moving parts mean better reliability and less vibration/sharper images.

There is *no fan-like mirror to knock dust and goo onto your sensor.* (There is less air movement in a mirrorless camera during exposure. Mirrors blow bits of metal and lubricant and mirror-dampener foam dust all over the place. The sensor may be exposed when the lens is off, but a quick lens change is less likely to spot the sensor than the dSLR camera's own deteriorating mechanisms.)

There is *no flippy-floppy mirror to make noise.* Because there is no mirror, the shutter can be, but does not have to be, "electronic" —€” essentially, the camera makes a COMPLETELY SILENT video frame grab.

The removal of the mirror allows engineering a shorter lens flange to sensor distance. This improves wide angle lens designs and performance, and allows mirrorless bodies to mount lots of different dSLR and cine lenses, via adapters.

The EVF, lack of a mirror, and silent electronic shutter allow low light stills and video work in a theatre by not distracting others with noise or a dSLR's rear-of-camera live view LCD.

The EVF can show you the effects of manual exposure changes. It displays what a processed JPEG image will look like, so you can make menu adjustments on the fly and generate files for truly immediate use.

The EVF can be used for most or all of the tasks that the separate OLED or LCD screen on the camera is used for. It can display several different sets of information, including a live histogram, audio meters for video, full exposure data, a level, and much more than a dSLR can include.

You can see an image in the EVF in far dimmer light than with an optical viewfinder. The EVF is always clear and bright.

You can focus and meter with smaller maximum aperture lenses than are possible to focus and meter through with a dSLR. The EVF can compensate for the smaller aperture during composition.

"Pixel shift" schemes allow still life compositions with four times the resolution, by recording four images sequentially and combining them. 80MP raw from Micro 4/3?!?!

The camera can *buffer a stream of continuous frame grabs,* so that when you press the button, it saves the last 15 frames or so before the button press, plus a lot of frames after you press it. Then you may scroll through the buffered images and pick the one(s) you want to save to the memory card. That lets you pick peak action or peak expression.

Many of these things can be done *after exposure*€ on a dSLR, but the EVF allows feedback before, during, and after exposure.


Why Micro 4/3:

On a purely practical level, you need to make tests to determine whether any given piece of gear, and/or a given *system*, will meet your needs.

For most of what I do, Micro 4/3 absolutely suits me best. I record lots of video with important, single-system, onboard audio, and I record lots of stills. The results are most likely to wind up on smartphones, tablets, computer screens, projection screens, TVs, and video monitors. The results may also be viewed as PDF files, or printed to letter-size documents. I rarely print larger than 20x16 inches.

So I don't use a full frame or APS-C dSLR, because there are not enough AV options available at a reasonable price. I could use a few other mirrorless cameras. Sony could work well, but it would mean spending twice as much and carrying a much heavier and bulkier kit that would yield an insignificant difference in the work I do. And I HATE Sony’s menus.

But... for LANDSCAPES, a full-frame or even a medium-format system would be much better than m4/3 or APS-C, especially for making large prints (30x20 or 60x40 inches). Even though the *€œstandard*€ viewing distance for any print is 1x to 1.5x its diagonal dimension, more pixels and more details allow closer inspection. Joe Public probably won't notice, or care. But the format nazis at your local camera club probably will!

Panasonic Lumix Micro 4/3 high end:

The G9, the GH4, GH5, and GH5s series, and the GX8 have a great "feel in hand."

The Leica lenses (8-18, 12-60, 50-200, 100-400, 12, 15, 25, 42.5, 45 macro, 200 f/2.8…) are spectacular. So are the 12-35mm f/2.8, and 35-100mm f/2.8 weather-sealed Panasonic Pro lenses, and the 30mm f/2.8 macro.

The menu and general working ergonomics are quite likable, especially among folks coming from Sony and Olympus models. They are most familiar to Canon users.

That said, it's hard to find a bad camera these days. Quality is a given. The manufacturers have carefully carved out their individual niches in the market, with varying blends of features catering to different users' needs. Study reviews carefully and compare feature sets with your needs and wants.

The MAJOR advantage of Micro 4/3 is that it is the ONLY camera format (other than Nikon's now defunct much smaller and electronically noisier 1 series) that saves you a lot of weight when you put a complete system together. You can save 2/3 to 3/4 the weight over an equivalent full frame system, and 1/3 to 1/2 the weight over an equivalent pure APS-C or DX system ("pure" means you don't buy full frame lenses for APS-C cameras).

The other MAJOR advantage, for me, is that Panasonic has spectacular video. I use a Lumix GH4 for filmmaking.

The Lumix G9 records even better video than my GH4, but because of its lesser audio features, it is aimed at still photographers. The G9 competes nicely with the Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II. Each has a few goodies the other doesn't have. Check out online reviews (http://www.dpreview.com and YouTube are great places to start). Menus and ergonomics are entirely different.

The GH5 (like the GH3 and GH4 before it) is made specifically to record the best balance of video plus stills. It is a Swiss Army Knife of hybrid photography.

The GH5s is the most filmmaker-centric. It disappointed bloggers, because it does not have IBIS, but leaving out IBIS was intentional, because IBIS won'€™t work in jarring run-and-gun situations (chase scenes, safari video from the back of a Jeep, etc.). It disappointed still photographers, too — The GH5s has HALF the MP count of the GH5. But that means it records much less noise in low light video… for performance comparable to full frame bodies. It also has Dual ISO (400 and 2500 are both considered '€œnative'€). It is meant to be a low-light complement to the GH5, primarily for videography.

My GH4 (and all the other models mentioned) can be COMPLETELY silent, when used in electronic shutter mode. I used it in a dark theater one night to make over 300 exposures without disturbing other patrons.

Over 100 native Micro 4/3 lenses are available —€” http://hazeghi.org/mft-lenses.html

On the downside, the best Micro 4/3 cameras (except for the GH5s) have about two f/stops less light-gathering ability than full frame cameras, and about one stop less light gathering ability than APS-C and DX cameras, when you compare cameras of the same age and similar megapixel counts. That's just the laws of physics.

ISO 3200 on Micro 4/3 is about as noisy as ISO 12,800 on an FX (full frame) Nikon, or ISO 6400 on a DX (APS-C) Nikon, which is to say all three are pretty useful up to those points.

For video, ISO 6400 is still usable on Micro 4/3, because motion hides some of the noise in most situations. (You can see this equivalence for yourself by comparing the test charts. Go to this review of a Nikon D5 (https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikon-d5-pro-dslr-review/6) and Compare raw at ISO 12,800, with raw at ISO 6400 on a Nikon D500, and raw at ISO 3200 on both a Lumix G9 and a Lumix GH5. (See screen shot below.)

If you are an extreme sports and wildlife photographer, I would *rent to try before you buy* (good advice for anyone in any situation, actually). But know that the Micro 4/3 system you build today will still be viable in the future. Each generation of camera body is more and more advanced, and brings with it a wave of new lenses to take advantage of it.

Panasonic is great about updating the computer firmware in its cameras and lenses, not just to fix bugs, but to add new features, improve performance, ensure compatibility, and match some of the features of its other new models. So the camera you buy today will get better over time, provided you download and install the new firmware updates.

There are two fisheyes at 8mm in the Micro 4/3 world, and one is by Panasonic, while the other is by Olympus.

Leica engineered an 8-18mm f/2.8-f/4 zoom for Micro 4/3. *It isn't a fisheye at the wide end.* If you need the rough equivalent of a Canon 16-35mm, that's it. Olympus has a 7-14mm f/2.8 zoom, and Panasonic has a 7-14mm f/4 zoom, too. None of the zooms is a fisheye.

So whether you come to Micro 4/3 from Canon or Nikon full frame gear, you can find an equivalent for most of your lenses. "€œ35mm equivalent field of view" focal lengths exist from 14 to 800mm (7-400mm actual focal lengths on m43).

About Audio:

The one area where dSLRs'€™ and some mirrorless cameras'€™ video features fall far short is AUDIO.

About 60% of what we perceive from most video is in the soundtrack. Yet most of these dSLR/MILC cameras have:

> truly awful microphones that pick up camera handling noises and aim upwards
> microphones that will almost never be close enough to the subject to yield a decent signal-to-noise ratio (i.e.; closer than three feet)
> no headphone jack
> automatic gain (record level) control that can'€™t be defeated
> no manual audio level controls
> no level meters
> no switchable peak limiters
> no line level input
> an unbalanced mic input that limits noise-free cabling to about six feet
> noisy mic preamps

Accordingly, to get around this, use an external digital recorder/mixer at 48KHz sample rate, along with external microphones. Then sync the sound in Final Cut Pro or Premiere (etc.), using (then muting) the reference track from the camera to match the good audio wave forms in the timeline.

What I DO, and how Video fits into it:

I am a training content developer. I use a Lumix GH4 for about equal amounts of still and video photography.

I used to have a Canon EOS 50D and a Canon GL2 SD video camcorder. Using both was sequential, confusing, and slow. Traveling with both was expensive and tiring! Excess baggage charges add up quickly. Security of the gear, and going through airport security, were always worrisome.

Now, everything I need is in one bag that fits under an airplane seat. And if I record 4K, I can extract very nice stills from the video to use in printed and PDF manuals. So now, much of what I do takes half the time.

Since I grew up with SLRs in my hands, I actually PREFER that form factor for video. I had six different video cameras or camcorders from 1982 to 2012. For the work I do, I don'€™t miss the features of any of them.

Maybe if I were making Hollywood movies, an ARRI Alexa, or a Red Epic, or even a Black Magic Cinema camera would make sense, but for simple storytelling, training, documentaries, and film festival entries, my GH4 is fine.

If you don'€™t think professionals can do good work with cheap cameras, look up the film, *Sriracha*, by Griffin Hammond, free on Amazon Prime. It'€™s won several awards. It was filmed with the older Lumix GH3.
 
On my Panasonic Lumix GH4, I tend to use 1/25 or 1/50 second shutter speed for 24 fps cinematic video. Outdoors, I use an ND64 for six f/stops of light reduction. For late in the day or cloudy days, my ND8 (minus three stops) is good.

The slow shutter speed allows some motion blur from frame to frame, which is what makes film action look smooth. The wide aperture allows better isolation of a subject from the background. 1/25 is very dreamy looking; 1/50 is more realistic.

Yes, you can use higher shutter speeds, but the video will look jerky at 23.98 or true 24 fps.

Three formats, six manufacturers:

Canon and Nikon are just now entering the professional and ADVANCED enthusiast full frame mirrorless world. They are about ten years later than pioneers, Panasonic and Olympus. The discontinued Nikon 1 System (1" class sensor) worked fine, but it was aimed at fashion-conscious travelers. The Canon M series (APS-C) got off to a rocky start. The current models are fine.

Fujifilm is known for its medium format (larger than full frame!) and APS-C cameras. If you want spectacular JPEGs from your camera, look at Fujifilm's XT-3 first. Fujifilm lenses are mostly spectacular. The cameras are solid and reliable. Their 50MP medium format sensor is cleaner than Canon's 50MP full frame sensor, so if you need that...

Sony makes APS-C and full frame mirrorless bodies. Their menus can be complex, but they have quickly become a top supplier of cameras, period. Sony makes the sensors in nearly all other cameras except for Canon and Fujifilm. Check out the A9, A7rIII, A7III, a6500...

Olympus is known for excellent lenses and clever engineering. The Pen FT is a rangefinder-like fashion statement that is a joy to use for street photography. The OM-D E-M1 Mark II is jam-packed with cool features that make it extremely useful in a wide variety of situations.

Panasonic is known for excellent lenses, great ergonomics, intelligible menus, and video-centric engineering. I've noted why I use them above.

I do think dSLRs will be with us for years to come. Their market share will fade, but they still have advantages for certain types of photography that, until matched by mirrorless bodies, will make them viable. At the current moment, only Sony makes a model (A9) that challenges the top Canons and Nikons for fast action, low light sports, and wildlife still photography.

(Download)

lamontcranston

Mr. Burke,

Yah, but do you really like mirrowless camera systems?

Excellent summation of all the advantages and features of the mirrorless systems. Well done.

sirlensalot Loc: Arizona

Have tried but found my a6000 too small to use for photos and will be switching use to video only. It is a brilliant little piece of technology. I cannot justify the expense at my age to move solely into MILC's.

AndyGarcia

What a fantastic response. As always you set things out so clearly. Brilliant! Thank you for taking the time.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Thanks. Pardon me while I keep my ego in check!

Bill_de Loc: US

What's really funny is if you read Bill Gates' first book (I believe it was The Road Ahead) he pretty much describes what became the iPhone.

In later years Bill said he never developed it because Microsoft was a software, not a hardware company. It's also been noted that he and Steve Jobs were good friends. I wonder whose idea the iPhone really was.

Of course, in time Microsoft made an effort with phones that didn't seem to serious.

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burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

I don't think you can give any modern technology a specific inventor. We're at a point, now, that every new product is an assimilation of so many fundamental building blocks and concepts. The things we are using now were conceived decades ago, as I discovered in college when writing a paper on the future of mass communications. It's just that the general public didn't know about them. But the visionary folks in Silicon Valley certainly did, as they learned from each other.

Jobs even mentioned a very iPad-like device in a lecture around 1982. It took almost two decades to get it out the door, but not before they took the ideas for it and stuffed them into a phone. He mentioned once that, "Good artists borrow. GREAT artists steal." That was in reference to the Xerox PARC visit, among others, where a lot of the concepts used in Mac technology were lifted.

If you were to map out the road from Edison to the present smartphones, you would have a pretty long list of concepts and technologies and companies and inventions, all piled on top of one another in countless iterations. What we worked so hard for, our kids just assume and take for granted.