jonoslack
Active member
HI There
I'm using the OMD as an alternative to an SLR - and the results are as good (or nearly as good) as anything I'm going to get this side of a full frame behemoth. I like to use telephoto lenses, and you have to bear in mind that if you put a 900gm 80-200 f4 Leica zoom on the camera, for everything except dof purposes you're getting a 160-400 f4 image stabilised zoom . . . . a 200-400 Nikon f4 zoom weighs 3.1/2 kg and costs about 8 times as much as a decent secondhand R lens (and I bet it isn't any better quality). As for the depth of field, at those focal lengths more is usually an advantage.
An OMD with the panny 12-35 f2.8 weighs 750 gms. a D800 with the Nikon 24-70 weighs nearly 3 times as much.
So, for my purposes it's the long 'heavy' zooms which are often more relevant than the small light primes.
all the best
It depends entirely on where you're coming from. The small primes are lovely (I have some of them, but they don't get used too much)You should rather look at all the nice mft primes, like the Olympus 12mm, the Panasonic 20mm and 25mm, the Olympus 45mm and 75mm. They are light and sharp ande won't cost you as much as a Leica R lens, even second hand; for me these huge heavy zooms entirely defeat the purpose of getting a small and light mft camera. If one has that kind of legacy glas left orphan in a cupboard, then it makes sense and will be fun to get an adapter and try, but now that there are so many nice native lenses for the format they aren't worth buying, unless they are dirty cheap and you want some fun.
I'm using the OMD as an alternative to an SLR - and the results are as good (or nearly as good) as anything I'm going to get this side of a full frame behemoth. I like to use telephoto lenses, and you have to bear in mind that if you put a 900gm 80-200 f4 Leica zoom on the camera, for everything except dof purposes you're getting a 160-400 f4 image stabilised zoom . . . . a 200-400 Nikon f4 zoom weighs 3.1/2 kg and costs about 8 times as much as a decent secondhand R lens (and I bet it isn't any better quality). As for the depth of field, at those focal lengths more is usually an advantage.
An OMD with the panny 12-35 f2.8 weighs 750 gms. a D800 with the Nikon 24-70 weighs nearly 3 times as much.
Again - horses for courses - I have lots of M lenses . . .but no adapter for the OMD, because I'd rather use them on an M9. . . . and if I want to use fast primes on an OMD THEN I'll use the m4/3 lenses which are great and have AF as well.The small RF lenses of the M format makes more sense and there are some good small and light Voigtländer lenses around, or even M lenses. I had Contax G lenses left over from the film time and they are tack sharp and light too, but finicky to se. I don't have the same satisfaction out of my M lenses because they were faster and thus heavier, too heavy for the small mft bodies. I'll have to try them again on the OM-D to see how they will perform, but they were deceiving on the Pens and G3. They just produced ordinary results, without that wow factor they showed on film, to the point that I don't use them anymore, while I'm still using the Zeiss Contax G lenses (at least the two ones I can mount on the mft cameras) and love them.
So, for my purposes it's the long 'heavy' zooms which are often more relevant than the small light primes.
all the best