Both are fine systems, and very capable. The NEX sensor is objectively superior in terms of noise and low light performance, but whether that matters or not depends on your subject matter and lens priorities. Ultimately, you should handle both, consider what focal lengths and options are most important for you, and make a subjective decision.
For me, the NEX-7 is just about perfect, since I like the handling (love the fact that the viewfinder and controls are on opposite sides of the body, which makes it less cramped than any m43), and am satisfied by the lens options. The Sigma 30/2.8 is my standard lens, and the 50/1.8 OSS gives me a fast short tele prime. The 16/2.8 is better than its reputation, but not amazing. For now, that's good enough, but I'd be happier still if there were more options around that focal length. I also use some adapted lenses, but those three are the ones I use the most.
EOS Fun, i'm really not sure about your opinion on 'sensor rendering' from the smaller sensor from low resolution posted images.
Rendering is a product of post processing and or lens use and I find detail and microcontrast from a sharp lens is rendered *extremely* similar at a pixel level from the 5N and OMD in Lightroom and CS5.
The difference of course is the sharp lenses on the NEX tend to be manual focus and unstabilised... M43 in my opinion makes up for the shallow DOF advantage / disadvantage with the widespread availability of fast autofocus lenses.
If you are referring to deeper depth of field that would simply be a product of almost all NEX shots here being with manual focus glass - I highly recommend checking out some of the more recent images in the OMD thread however with the first class 75mm F1.8 / 45mm f1.8 / 25mm F1.4 or new 60mm Macro.
'Wide and shallow' is what both these systems really lack, however M43 gives it a nudge with the Voigtlander 17mm F0.95...
I'm pretty sure this is personal bias, not actual files.
I own both systems and have shot a lot with almost all the lenses of both systems.
The most noticeable difference between the MFT/APS-C is lens choice, IBIS, EVF, weather sealing, and about 15% dynamic range in some scenes. Range that you probably won't notice if you're not the type to push or pull files heavily.
curious80 wrote:
As someone who has been holding on to my 5N waiting for more sony lenses, I must say the prospects so far have not been very promising even after the recent announcements.
I was fairly interested in the 35 1.8 but disappointed that we still don't get a pancake. The 10-18mm already has reports of corner shift. The 50mm 1.8 is reported to be decent but then the olympus 45mm 1.8 is significantly smaller and lighter and is widely raved as being a great lens. Plus the oly 45mm at 90mm equivalent is a much better portrait focal length for me than the Sony 50mm at 75mm equivalent. The 24mm 1.8 is still the most desirable lens in the lineup, but not much else in there. In terms of lenses m43 is simply better. For pretty much every NEX lens there is an m43 lens which is better and smaller. And there are many m43 lenses with no counterpart in NEX. And with the recent Oly sensor the sensor difference has been reduced to very small levels.
At this point I am fairly certain that I will move away from NEX, either back to m43 (waiting for e-pl5) or to Samsung NX (have already got the NX200 to play with). I will likely still keep the 5N to play with MF lenses. Considering that it has a great sensor and cost me just about $200, not much incentive for me to sell it. ...Show more →
The corner shift of the 10-18 was fixed with a firmware IIRC. No, the 50 is very good but some people say its a hair below Oly 45 but nothing scientific yet. I think the 35 is a very good proposition with OSS and 1.8, pancake would be nice but not a deal breaker.
As I said earlier, wait for the upcoming Zeiss 12, 32 and 50 lenses but if it still doesnt float your boat then switch.
I'm afraid I agree to some extent to eosfun, but if you use m43 for close up and landscape then all is good.
frezeiss wrote:
The corner shift of the 10-18 was fixed with a firmware IIRC. No, the 50 is very good but some people say its a hair below Oly 45 but nothing scientific yet. I think the 35 is a very good proposition with OSS and 1.8, pancake would be nice but not a deal breaker.
As I said earlier, wait for the upcoming Zeiss 12, 32 and 50 lenses but if it still doesnt float your boat then switch.
I'm afraid I agree to some extent to eosfun, but if you use m43 for close up and landscape then all is good.
Its not that the NEX lenses are bad. On one of my trips I just took the 5N with the kit lenses i.e. the 18-55mm and the 16mm and came back with nice pictures:
However for me compactness is fairly important and NEX is not delivering on that front even now. And unluckily for me the particular FL choices that NEX is offering are just a bit off for me. The 20mm + 45mm combination in m43 is much more appealing to me then the 35mm + 50mm combination from NEX as an example. With m43 offering so many choices it is much more likely to find your combination. On the wide side the 16mm NEX can do the job - the above are both with the 16mm. However stitching the above panorama was a nightmare due to massive vignetting that the lens offered. I had to do fair amount of PP on individual shots to bring them to a stitch-able state. Again with m43 having lenses like 12mm f2, it seems more attractive. Right now it seems to me that I need to make too many compromises in lenses to hold on to a slight bit of sensor advantage. Of course if the lens FLs and size work for your uses then I am sure most lenses would perform well enough.
I haven't heard about the Zeiss lenses that you have mentioned. When were they announced / rumored? Though they are still likely to be fairly large and 1k+ each.
I agree with what eosfun is saying regarding "flatness". I also find there's more "life" or depth (not talking about DOF here) to a properly shot and processed Nex shot than an OM-D shot. I wouldn't base my buying desicion on it, but I notice it.
I find it interesting that there's this inherent 'the OM-D files look flatter' vision that people see, yet when I compared the OM-D with kit lens vs. the NEX-7 with Zeiss 24/1.8, it was nearly impossible for anyone to discern a difference, and when they did, they were just as likely to prefer the OM-D image to the NEX-7 image. This didn't hold quite as well in the first example I did (where there's a visible DOF difference), but you can still see how close they are.
Landscape shots start on page 2 and continue through Page 4.
mortyb wrote:
I agree with what eosfun is saying regarding "flatness". I also find there's more "life" or depth (not talking about DOF here) to a properly shot and processed Nex shot than an OM-D shot. I wouldn't base my buying desicion on it, but I notice it.
+1
But it would quite hard to prove it though, its the same like going down from FF to 1.5x crop albeit to a lesser extent.
Hmmmm.... I really think people do dramatize these 'differences' to suit ones pre-conceived ideas, whether it is Zeiss vs Leica, film vs digital, full frame vs crop... certainly on a 1000px web image.
If you know what you are doing when you compose and process an image you create the illusion of depth, even with deep DOF.
Gear is lovely but plays a lesser role in such things I find.
mortyb wrote:
I agree with what eosfun is saying regarding "flatness". I also find there's more "life" or depth (not talking about DOF here) to a properly shot and processed Nex shot than an OM-D shot. I wouldn't base my buying desicion on it, but I notice it.
+
the difference becomes more apparent when looking at multiple images made by the different formats. It may be difficult to see in one sample.
+1. Agree...it's like comparing a FF to a crop...crop looks like crap .
Edgars Kalnins wrote:
+
the difference becomes more apparent when looking at multiple images made by the different formats. It may be difficult to see in one sample.
It would be interesting to see some examples of images which you guys think are flat vs the ones which you think have depth to understand what exactly you mean. Different people have different conception of what they mean by these terms, so my conception of depth in an image might not be what you have in mind. For me the quality of light has a much greater impact on the "depth" in an image than most other factors.
Of course the quality of light and the quality of photographer (composition,angle,concept) plays a more decisive role than format size. I'm basing my self when I pick the 5N over the D700 for a given assignment. The transition becomes more abrupt in the smaller format, less dimensionality and so on..
Re lenses, I do think that Sony and Oly will be equal when the sony 35 1.8 and 10-18 are available. What makes the Oly more appealing is imo, the look sexier while the sony just looks like..electronics?
Generally, I wouldn't say m4/3 images are flat. I think that APS-C size cameras have a just a little bit more of a pop compared to them. However, to be honest, I'm not sure I would be able to easily distinguish between the 2 in a blind test.
For the OP, I think that the OM-D probably fits your needs better if you're going to using video 20% of the time. The 5 axis IBIS is rock solid for video on all native lenses and even 3rd party ones due to the latest firmware update. Here's a video of the D800 compared to an OM-D. You can see the difference the IBIS makes in the OM-D though the Nex also has selection of image stabilized zooms and some of their prime lenses.
The Nex cameras though do have an advantage in that they have focus peaking. While many people use focus peaking for stills, I've read that focus peaking was originally used as a focusing aid for the video recording world.
12mm 2.8 seems fairly interesting.