2011/02/04

Orange you glad you're not a green apple?



One interesting aspect of M43 for me has been the use of zooms vs. primes. I've got the Panasonic 20mm F1.7 which is a fine lens that provides decently thin DOF when I want it and create a nice 3d effect under the right conditions.

The 14-140 zoom, on the other hand, is slow - F4.0 to F5.8 IIRC - with very little control of DOF. 85% of the photos are entirely in focus. On the one hand, it's disappointing; with the 14-140 attached, the GH2 feels and acts like an overgrown small sensor superzoom camera. But there is some comfort knowing that focus will not be an issue when using the zoom. Which leads me to my next point - an M43 camera with a slowish zoom is a great combo for someone stepping up from a point-and-shoot.

In forum after forum I've seen people step up to an APS-C dSLR (or worse yet, FF) and complain that their photos aren't in focus. The camera isn't bad - it's just that they really haven't had to consider focus in their point-and-shoot and now they must. M43 with a zoom like the 14-140 is a nice middle-step for users stepping up from a point-and-shoot. They will instantly get higher quality photos - sharper, better in low light, etc... - while maintaining much of the simplicity of a point-and-shoot. If they progress in their photographic journey, they can pick up faster primes and learn about the more esoteric aspects of photography like DOF, bokeh, and so on.

That said, I'd really like to see a set of fast M43 zooms (F2.0?). I'd just about abandon APS-C if that happened...

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