Vern Dewit
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Buy and Sell: On
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 p.1 #5 · Micro 4/3rds Landscape/Travel Photos? | |
millsart wrote:
Vern, just tell people those are with a 5D mkII and no one will know the difference lol.
Is the fields of beauty shot just one frame ? What focal length if so ? I'm really impressed with the near to far sharpness you've got in that one.
I think with the vast majority of photos nowadays ending up as images that only get viewed on the internet, most (I repeat most) folks simply don't need the 21 megapixels of the 5DII or the Sony A900/A850 cameras to produce great landscape shots. I'm not trying to start a flame war with that statement - I really believe it and live by it myself.
The shot you're referring to (and many others that I take) are stitched panoramas of at least 6-10, 12 megapixel images from the Panny GH1. Conservatively that is a 50-100 MP shot, downsized, slightly over-sharpenned and then downsized a bit more before being shown at only around 500-700 pixels on the short edge!
If you looked at that image at 100%, you'd be very disappointed with the "lack of detail and sharpness" - I guarantee it. I'm currently printing some of my larger panos at a large size of 2x4 feet to see how the details hold up in print. I think it'll be fine because people don't tend to stick their noses right up to a print that size but we'll see... It won't match the same shot done with a 5DII and 24mm TS-E but does it matter?
For web display and moderately sized prints the m4/3 cameras are capable of producing great images with the GH1 having by far the best sensor of the available choices right now, IMHO. I've owned the Olympus EP1, Panny G1 and Panny GF1 and sold all of those because they couldn't live up to what I expect from my GH1. I rarely use the video on the GH1 but the sensor is better than the G1 and it's too bad they didn't put it in the GF1. My issue with every single 4/3 and m4/3 sensor that I've tried (I also owned an Oly E410, E420 and Panny L1) is that they tend to smear details, especially on shots with foliage like trees and grasses. They also have limited DR, especially compared with something like the Sony A900, which I also owned briefly. I get around some of the DR shortage by using Singh-Ray GND filters whenever I can to hold back blown skies / sun.
There's a debate going on right now on the Nikon forum regarding what people carry on hikes - do they carry the 'trinity' of lenses (14-24, 24-70, 70-200) or tone it down? I do long and difficult mountain hikes and climbs. Some of my days are over 20km of hiking with 5-6000 feet of height gain. The Panasonic comes along on those days because I can carry it around my neck, shoot 28-280mm with one lens that also does HD Video with full AF capabilities and takes my Singh-Ray filters. It's hard to beat that. The compromise is that I don't get the quality that a D700 or 5DII with a TSE would give me - but I get the shot and I get the summit!
It's an interesting debate and it's different for everyone. (The Leica M9 poses a great solution to get a small(ish) FF camera with superior lenses into the back country, but I can not afford that system and I will not be banging it off rocks if I ever do get it! It also lack AF and the weather proofing that many other FF cameras have.)
Sorry for the essay but I've spent the last 5 years trying to get the perfect back country / landscape photography system and I've realized that for my uses I need two systems. One that is 'good enough' and light enough to take anywhere and another that has maximum quality and can be taken 'almost' anywhere. 
V.
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I mitigate some of this nastiness by using good GND filters, but of course if I was using a better system with the same filters, I could get even better range out of the landscape scene right?
