µ4/3 - Shifting Formats

I've been lugging around Canon gear since forever. If I work backwards, I had my first Canon camera, the Canon A2e back somewhere around 1993 or so. Of course, that was a film camera. I also have an EOS 3 and a 5D mk II knocking about the camera storage shelves.

Back in February, I got a Panasonic G85 -- a µ4/3's camera. The sensor size is just about exactly 1/4 of the area of a full-frame camera. Along with the smaller sensor comes vastly smaller lenses as well. I originally got it for video, truth be told. It's also the camera I took with me on my trip last month.

As I'm shooting with it, I'm realizing that I don't need the Canon gear as much -- or perhaps at all. For the larger format stuff, I have the Leica, which I absolutely love to shoot and I don't think I'll ever give up. But for the normal run-of-the-mill work, the G85 was working great. So much that I've up- and down-graded from it.

This, shot with a Panasonic GH5, is of the Olympus Pen-F. All of these are µ4/3's cameras. The G85 is off getting a speck of dust out of the sensor (yes, under the cover glass...) before it goes on the Amazon for-sale list. ($800 with the kit 12-60mm lens plus an extra pair of spare batteries and a couple of chargers if anyone's interested -- it's a great camera, all original boxes and such.)

The Pen is a beautiful camera. It can pass for a point-and-shoot with the attached 14-42mm lens, but it can take anything from the µ4/3 line of lenses. The GH5 will serve the more serious shooting and video work.

Lenses for the system are far cheaper and smaller, as are the cameras. And the pictures that come out of them serve my purposes well enough for me not to want to lug around the Canon gear any longer.