I learned all this and more by reading The Photographer's Eye by Michael Freeman. And I bought the book used, so it cost me only $3!

Can't recommend it highly enough. Gestalt theory is only a small part of what goes into making and interpreting photographs.

There is a world of difference between the Vaio and OM-D. The Vaio had nothing special about it, no cutting-edge technology. It was just another laptop in a laptop world dominated by other makers. Simply put, there was nothing about Vaio that made the investment worthwhile.

Not so with the OM-D cameras, which has top-notch technology that resulted in cameras with many excellent features, none of which were included in Nikon, Sony, or Canon unless you spent a helluva lot of money. Now The Big Three are now scrambling to include these features in their new mirrorless lines and marketing them as if they are brand-new. Those of us with MFTs (especially the OM-Ds) are laughing out loud, because we've had things like IBIS and superb color technology for years -- and all of it built into sturdy, lightweight bodies and lenses. It will take years for the Bit Three to catch up -- IF they survive the diminishing stand-alone camera market.

In any event, this is the technology that JIP bought when they bought Olympus. They are wise to keep on the employees and give a small amount of ownership to Olympus, just so they can pick their brains.

Yeah, I will likely upgrade to an EM1 but not right now. I've been looking at the EM1ii, and it seems to do very well.

I also have Canon gear -- a 77d and the L series 100-400 with the 1.4 teleconverter. But it's awful heavy.

I don't find myself changing lenses much. Long lens for birding and wildlife, short lens for landscapes and street. The two don't often intersect.

My Panaleica is f5.6 at 300mm. I can live with that one-stop difference (and save a whole lotta money)!

I do it with 2 lenses, a Panaleica 100-300 on my EM5iii and an Oly 12-60 on my EM10iii. I bought used (from B&H) and spent about $1.5K, which is the current price (on sale!) at B&H for the RX10iv. Plus I ended up with an extra camera, a Panasonic GX9, that came with the long lens. :-)

So, tell me. Does the RX10iv have a crop factor of 2 -- oh, wait, it's actually 2.7 because it has a tiny 1" sensor. Maybe that's not fair because crop factors don't matter to some people. . . but, does the RX10 give you 5-axis IBIS? Can you hand-hold the Rx10iv at silky-water shutter speeds? Are those 315 focus points all cross-type? Do you have the capability to postprocess right in the camera? Is the RX10iv freeze-proof, dust-proof, or waterproof? Anti-keystoning built right into the camera? In-camera HDR, focus bracketing, and/or focus stacking?

I know that the M43 market is smaller than Sony's, and the argument of which is better is likely to go on forever, but for me the choice was clear, even though I didn't come to this decision lightly. I owned a range of bridge cameras before I discovered M43, including the RX10iii (the iv hadn't come out yet), and the focus lag on the EVF was so great that by the time it caught a BIF I got only its feet. Haven't had that problem with Olympus, although I did upgrade from the contrast-only EM10 to the phase detect on the EM5.

Reason 867.5 why you should avoid bridge cameras! Cheaply, expensive to buy, and needs to be babied like a newborn.

IIRC, the RX10 series gets you a 600mm zoom. Easy enough to get that on an Olympus with a 300mm telephoto. You spend about the same money but you get a bigger sensor, a full range of shutter speed and aperture, many more features, and superb function. Just sayin.

I had a terrible problem with Sony when my a6000 needed repair. I had to send it in 4 times (!) during the one-year warranty period. I had to get rather insistent before they would replace it, which they eventually did (with an a6300). That camera, too, had problems, and I sent it back and told them to keep it.

Needless to say, I don't waste my time or money with Sony products anymore.

My EM5iii wearing a Panaleica 100-300 lens weighs slightly less than half (2.05 lbs) of what my Canon 77d with the L series 100-400 lens weighs (4.25 lb)

Agreed!

Just try looking something up in a search engine. Within 2 minutes, you will receive related marketing in your email and on your social media accounts.

No matter how "private" you make your accounts, you just can't hide from corporate America.

The jpg vs raw question is one that I've been stuck on ever since switching to Olympus and Panasonic. These cameras, especially the Olympus, have marvelous color capabilities, and it's very easy to tweak the jpg production to your own liking. I don't feel a need to shoot raw with the jpgs these cameras produce.

Now, my Canon gear is a different story. . .

Maybe not, but you can always just scroll on to the next topic. No need to be miserable about it.

I liked the questions, very motivating! And a great way to get a good conversation going, too. Happy to say I've done most of them and have plans to do even more in 2021.

yet another reason to go M43!

Image quality notwithstanding, all bridge cameras have limited ranges of shutter speed and aperture. And a 1" sensor has a crop factor of 2.73. I've had better results from M43. Crop sensor on these cameras is 2.0, and you get a full range of apertures and shutter speeds as well as some excellent lenses.

Two hundred is pocket change for him, the cheap bum. Tell him to cough up the money to get a good camera to do what he needs to have it do. He can deduct it from his taxes as a business expense.

Absolutely!