I have a 5D MKIII and several L lenses. I like travelling and enjoy street photography. Problem is the weight and size of my gear. I am looking for somethig smaller, ligher, but something that will give me very high IQ. I know about Leica, but it will cost a fortune. Is there any alternative?
I will probably have only one lens 35 1.4. Also I want to have an optical viewfinder. Wat options do I have and do we have a decent product today or we still need to wait as nothing come close to dslr in terms of IQ?
The problem you face is that a 35/1.4 effective non-retrofocus lens doesn't exist outside of Leica Mount.
People might recommend the Fuji x100 or Xpro1 but there is no 35mm equiv for the xpro1 and the x100 lens is 35/2.8 in terms of rendering and f/2.0 in terms of light capturing ability.
There should be a 23/1.4 for the Xpro1 next year but I don't know how big it will be. That will give you 35/2 equivalent rendering on the APS-C sensor of the Xpro1.
The Zeiss 24/1.8 for E-mount (NEX) is a very good lens, and quite light. It will give you a 36mm f/2.4 equivalent rendering.
Sony's RX1 will give you a very high performing Zeiss 35/2 and a full frame sensor for likely the same money as an xpro1 with the 23/1.4.
What's more the RX1 being a 35mm lens on a full frame body holds the depth of field rendering advantage at every stop. The full frame sensor offers a diffraction limit advantage too for that matter.
Light Pilgrim, can I speak heretic-ally? Have you ever considered going without an optical finder?
For thirty plus years I'd always used an optical finder of some sort and actively avoided high IQ digital compacts because none that met my budget and IQ desires offered optical finders.
On paper when the X100 came out it looked to be perfect - I bought one - but guess what, I found myself using the X100's EVF almost all of the time. Turns out I enjoy framing accurately every bit as much or more than an optical finder with parallax error and not quite accurate frame-lines. This realization has since led me to purchase all-EVF cameras and today I might even consider an optical finder a liability unless it provides a through the lens view. Your mileage may vary of course.
Bonus: external EVFs offer a tilt-view capability that can be very useful.
Another heretical notion: sometimes I don't even use an eye level finder at all and in fact sometimes an eye level finder is a liability. For travel and street photography there are many occasions when I purposely do not mount the EVF on my cameras. Framing using the rear LCD makes one look like an "amateur" or like everyone else with their cell phones and cheap pocket point and shoot cameras. This is a *good* thing, at least for some forms of street photography, as people relax more easily.
thrice wrote:
But he still won't have 35/1.4 effective rendering.
Just saying, if he wants the shallow DOF.
Only Leica has that (and Canon, Nikon and Sony on DSLRs). Unless he wants to build the camera himself, he will have to accept some kind of compromise. The OM-D with the 17.5/0.95 is actually the closest he can get on a smallish camera, but that's manual focus.
FlyPenFly wrote:
Also it seems even with the latest updates the Fuji AF is pretty darn slow compared to OMD or NEX.
Usually, fast AF isn't important for street photography, but others may think differently. I'm currently using an OM-3 for street. Doesn't seem to hamper me much. When I get rich, I'll upgrade to a Rolleiflex TLR, one of those beautiful new ones
FlyPenFly wrote:
Yeah I think the 17.5mm on the OM-D is about a F1.9 equivalent. I believe the Zeiss ZA is somehwhere around F2.8 equiv.
The 17.5mm will be across the board sharper with less CA at F4 and above... but the ZA will be significantly sharper wide open.
The Zeiss is f/2.4 equivalent. One stop from f/1.8.
General rule of thumb, you lose one stop of DOF for APS-C and two stops for m4/3
Also, Sony's APS-C is 15% larger than Canon's.
Do you have a good link to test results with the CV? I would think the extra stop of diffraction tolerance given to APS-C would mean higher overall acuity is possible with the 24/1.8 Zeiss.
So if I want to have smaller thing and a good 35 mm lens, optical viewfinder and a FF it is only Leica? That is interesting, they do not have any competition:-)
In addition to all the above, i'd suggest trying the new Canon 40mm on your 5D III. I'm not a big fan of DSLRs for street photography, but the 5D III isn't bad at all for that genre thanks to a combination of features. If size and weight is an issue, trying the 40 pancake may end up being a pretty good solution.
