p.1 #1 · OM-1 with 12-40 Pro or Sony A6700 with Sigma 18-50 for travel
I'm thinking of getting a second camera kit for travel and have it narrowed down to OM-1 ii with the 12-40 2.8 Pro or the Sony A6700 with Sigma 16-50 2.8. Anyone have experience with both?
My main kit is Sony A7RV with Sony lenses: 24 1.4 GM, 50 1.4 GM, 70-200 F4 G. Great, but heavy for travel.
I also like to do birding. For that I use the A7RV with 200-600 and a tripod or, for walking around Sony 70-350 in crop mode.
Some considerations:
1) Sony a6700 body being APS-C it has some advantages over OM m43 - mostly dynamic range
2) reviews of OM 12-40 Pro seem to say it may be better/sharper lens than Sigma 16-50
3) I've tried OM-1 ii and liked it a lot. It has a good reputation as a birding camera, if I want to get 100-400 lens later
4) I used to have a Sony A6400 before it was stolen, found it frustrating to use and image quality very good but not A+
However, I hear A6700 is much improved and I could use my sony FF lenses on it.
p.1 #2 · OM-1 with 12-40 Pro or Sony A6700 with Sigma 18-50 for travel
I have an A7Riv and A6400 and A6700 (pretty much replacing the A6400), several lenses for both. I would probably recommend going Sony. A few thoughts:
"Same system" OK, batteries, menu systems, some lens sharing. Most of the longer lenses are FF the 70-350 an interesting exception, giving essentially the same results on either A6700 or A7Rv.
There are some ff zooms now which could do double duty without cropping on FF. Tamron 50-300?
Getting into mid-range and wider, to go lighter, smaller and less expensive, aps-c can be a preferable approach. I think the Sigma 18-50/2.8 is a good choice, the ff Tamron 17-50/4 is bigger and heavier even if ff for the A7Rv. FWIW, the 18-135 is my most used lens for the aps-c side of things.
For me, the 70-350 seems the only one I use on both. I do find the ff Samyang 24/1.8 (one might have others that are similarly useful) well suited to both sensor sizes but I'm not a big prime user.
There's almost no simple interchange when using two different mount systems. But if not taking advantage of shareable lenses, etc., one could deal with two systems.
The A6700? It's going to handle much the same as the A6400. Some changes, additional external control or two? A bit bigger, more articulation for the rear panel, same evf (I think?) so you might want to see if the changes do or don't impact your offputting points. Same menu system as A7Rv, updated processor and focus/subject identification and tracking. (Reviews go into more details) I think you'll find image quality essentially the same as cropped A7Rv.
p.1 #4 · OM-1 with 12-40 Pro or Sony A6700 with Sigma 18-50 for travel
Thanks so much, this is VERY helpful.
It was the menus on the a6400 that got to me. Now that they're the same as A7RV, it should be fine.
I had the Tamron 50-300, nice lens, but since it's for FF I exchanged it for the Sony 70-350 hoping it would give me more reach. Not much different than the Tammy when putting the A7RV in crop mode, but I find leaving the a7RV in FF mode with 70--350 on it seems to give me a little better IQ, a touch more reach.
p.1 #5 · OM-1 with 12-40 Pro or Sony A6700 with Sigma 18-50 for travel
Yep, OM has ND, graduated ND, other computational modes. I also found its ergonomics excellent - I like it a lot.
But I just did some figuring, and it turns out to be much more expensive once I take into account I'd need to buy both a standard zoom and a long zoom for it. So my plan is to try out the Sony A6700 first and hope it works for me.
