Thursday, 22 November 2012

From DSLR to CSC

I am a long-time user of digital Olympus cameras, both compact and DSLRs. In some areas Olympus has certain advantage over other camera makers. For example, the dust was never an issue with my E500 and E30, and I do change the lenses. Compare this with the current situation around Nikon D600, "the dust gatherer".  The mid-range ZUIKO 4/3 lenses are also good and reasonably priced. I have two :-)

I thought about changing the system and switching to either Canon (long time ago) or Nikon (current favorite DSLR system after release of D7000). Now I would rather go D600 route, mainly because of the viewfinder. Image-wise I probably would be more than happy with pictures from D5100  or D7000. D5200 can be a better camera but with the current discounts the old models are very attractive. But I do like big viewfinders, so cameras with APC-S sensors are not really attractive to me. But both D600 and D800 are big and quite expensive as a system. Size is one of the factors why I do not use Olympus E-30, and it is not big or have camera compared to let say D800. Why I planned to switch? Olympus DSLRs were slightly behind in term of dynamic range and noise compared to rival APC-S cameras. It is hard to recover highlights or lift the shadows from RAW files in my E-30. Nikon has very good OOC JPEGs on their DSLR while Olympus tend to warm the picture. The lens selection is better with both Canon and Nikon.  

I also use Fujifilm X10 and while I am very happy with close-up pictures, the low contrast area in landscapes are not really great on any compact cameras. Granted, the pictures look fine if downsized but I want to have a better quality. I wish either Canon or Nikon would have mirrorless camera equal to  Fuji X-E1 / Sony NEX6 / Olympus OM-D E-M5 / Samsung NX20. I probably will be happy with images from Canon EOS-M but do not like  controls (user interface) and luck of proprietary lenses for the M mount. The price is high, too. The latest Olympus PEN E-PL5 will give me more for less, with available external viewfinder and good lenses. I don't have Canon or Nikon lenses that can be used on their mirrorless cameras with adapters, and I don't see any point to get a heavy lens for small camera. So, going with one of the two giants is still just a dream for me.



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