As of yesterday, I am no longer the owner of a SLR camera. I purchased my first SLR back in 2004, so I’ve been a SLR user for almost 7 years. And while I love the quality of photos you can take with a SLR camera, dragging tons of equipment and lenses around gets a bit tiring. That’s even more true when you start picking up some of the nicer, heavier lenses, many of which I owned previously.
I sold all my L-series glass about 6 months ago, partially because they weren’t being used and also because I needed the cash to finance some of my current traveling adventures. I wasn’t originally going to bring a SLR camera with me, but decided at the last minute to bring my 40D and a 28mm prime lens. It’s not a bad combo, but it still takes up quite a bit of room in a backpack.
I decided down in Argentina that the SLR wasn’t really working for me, so decided I would do something different as soon as I hit North America again. I arrived in New York City two days ago, and promptly went out and purchased the Olympus E-PL2 micro four thirds camera. I sold my 28mm lens here for $400 USD on craigslist, and my SLR body + battery pack for $450 USD. The E-PL2 cost me around $600 USD, and the 20mm f/1.7 Lumix lens was another $400. So for a difference of $150 I replaced my SLR system with a micro four thirds system that’s lighter and more flexible, at least in the short term. I’ll probably pick up a full frame Nikon SLR at some point in the future, but until then I’m going to try going micro four thirds exclusively.
I’ll review it more when I have some more time, but I thought I’d attach a few photo that I’ve taken with it.
Yankee Stadium
Yankee Stadium
Empire State Building
Dale, Top of the Rock
Cookie and Ice Cream, 20mm
New York Cab
The photos look awesome, Duane. Have to save my pennies since I ended up fixing my home backup situation first. And I don’t think I can live without a viewfinder, so I’ll look at the Panasonic ones that now have a viewfinder integrated again. I’m still excited about m43 and where the standard is going.
I actually don’t mind the LCD to be honest. One of the nice things I haven’t seen any reviews mention yet is that the LCD shows you the final exposure settings for the photo – you can’t see this with an optical viewfinder, which is one of the hardest parts of photography in my opinion. So on something like the Olympus you can see the final focus and the final exposure. With an optical viewfinder you can see the final focus, but you have no idea what the exposure is.
I think an electronic viewfinder would be the best of both worlds, but it’s an expensive add-on, and takes the place of the flash I believe, at least on the E-PL2.
Nice photos. We’re thinking of getting Robyn the Olympus too. She wants the creativity of the SLR features (changeable lenses) etc, but not the bulk of the dSLRs.
Though travel, I can see why the bulk of an dSLR is a hindrance. Such as our trip to Costa Rica. 7D, 70-200 + other stuff in its own backpack 😉
I can see the dSLRs going mirrorless like the PEN and such, but I don’t think Canon, Nikon will change the size of the camera bodies. They will incorporate the electronic view-finder but keep the current styles I think for the first little bit. Who knows…
What other lenses do you want to pick up for the new camera?
To be honest, after having L-series glass for years it is very hard for me to use just normal kit lenses. Other than the 20mm f/1.7, most other lenses just get average grades for optical quality. Sigma is about to toss its hat into the ring for lenses, and so is Carl Zeiss I think, so we should be seeing better micro four thirds lenses coming out. But right now there’s no real other lens I’d want to put money into.
What about the Olympus 45mm 1.8?? I’m reading great reviews about it.
I’m still mulling over the idea of switching to 4/3 from Canon full-frame (5D). I’m leaning towards Olympus because of the body containing Image-Stabilization.
Plus, years ago, I used to have a half-frame 35mm Olympus PEN, and loved the results I got.
Anyway, thank you for sharing your experience and the great photos.