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 p.2 #9 · Sony Full-Frame vs. Olympus OM1 II? | |
To share the hands-on experience with the OM-1 II and Panasonic G9 II versus Sony A1.
This experience is limited to the following lens kits:
FF, Sony 20mm F1.8, Sony16-35mm F2.8 v.1, Tamron 35-150mm F2.8, Sony 24-105mm F4, 35mm F1.4 GM, 70-200mm F2.8 GMII, 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 GM, 200-600mm F5.6-6.3, and the x1.4 and x2.0 TCs.
mFT, Panasonic Leica 10-25mm F1.7, M.Zuiko 17mm F1.2, 90mm F3.5 Macro, 12-40mm F2.8 PRO II, 40-150 F2.8 PRO, 400mm F4 PRO.
I obtained the OM-1 II in March 2024 and G9 II in October 2024 and have been shooting with the two cameras almost exclusively. My opinions are just mine, and I expect these to be different from those of others.
To make the long story short, comparing micro-four-thirds and full frame systems is like apples and oranges. It is impossible to make any broad general statement on one being "better" than the other. I can only say that one has some advantages over the other, however these advantages may or may not matter to everyone.
I can give a summary of what I see as distinct and specific advantages of the mFT, as follows:
1) OM-1 II with the 300mm F4 lens is a useful alternative to a FF 600mm F4 camera system. The advantages: (a) the price, (b) the portability, (c) the 1.4m MFD with the maximum magnification of x 0.48 (the lens is a semi-macro), (d) the best in the world IBIS, (e) the black body and an integrated retractable lens hood.
When this can be important: if one wants to have access to FF equivalent 600mm in a camera system that can be carried in a holster while on medium to long hikes. This lens also makes sense for those who are not dedicated wildlife photographers and who cannot afford or would be reluctant to buy the Sony 600mm F4 GM lens. Also, those who may want to shoot hand-held for extended periods of time.
The more expensive M.Zuiko 150-400mm F4.5 with x1.25 TC lens is widely praised and can be considered as well but I don't have any experience to comment on, as I am not a dedicated wild-life photographer.
2) The medium telephoto zoom 40-150mm F2.8 is another lens that, together with the 300mm F4, make the mFT special. At 760 g, this internal zoom with a retractable integrated hood has been my preferred instrument for street photography, people and portraits, and semi-macro (the magnification is 0.42x at MFD of 0.7m). The zoom is unremarkable at 40mm but is outstanding at and near 150mm (FF equivalent 300mm). I like the 40-150mm and the 300mm lenses so much that either these are going to die on me, or I am going to pass away first. Selling these seems unthinkable.
3) To echo the earlier comment from Steve Spencer, OM-1 II with the 90mm F3.5 macro lens can be claimed to be the best system for macro. This is owing to the native 2x magnification (FF equivalent) of the lens and, once again, the best in the world IBIS for those who shoot small things while hiking, hand-held. The camera allows in-camera stacking. In my hands this works well (when the subject is still). The downside is that the stacked image is jpeg only (the camera saves the individual frames as well, as raw files).
4) A distinct special advantage of OM-1 II is the nearly unbelievably steady IBIS (already mentioned above). When shooting in the wide-to-normal range, I can easily shoot hand-held with shutter speeds as long as 2-3 s. Thus, one can shoot night and low-lit scenes (when the subject allows) and collect more light to compensate for the lower PDR 9.69 of OM-1 II at the base ISO 200.
In the final paragraphs, I should address the performance in the wide-to-normal range. In comparison to A1 with the 20mm and 35mm primes and the Tamron 35-150 zoom, the performance of OM-1 II with the 17mm F1.2 and 12-40mm F2.8 lenses is less satisfactory. In particular, the Sony 35mm lens is in a completely different class vs. the M.Zuiko 17mm lens. The latter relies on CA corrections and lens distortion too much to my taste. The Panasonic Leica 10-25mm F1.7 is an outstanding zoom but it is unreasonably large (3.45 x 5.04" / 87.6 x 128 mm) and heavy (690 g) for mFT. There are some super-fast lenses, e.g. Voigtländer（COSINA) SUPER NOKTON 29mm F0.8 Aspherical, NOKTON 17.5 and 25mm F0.95, or Laowa Argus 18 and 25mm f/0.95 MFT APO. However, these are manual-focus only. I personally don’t see a compelling reason for switching from FF and promoting the use of an mFT system in the wide-to-normal range. This can be of interest to select photographers who are pursuing the smallest possible camera systems at all costs. There are posts on the micro-four-thirds forum that seem to indicate that one can be very satisfied with a compact mFT camera system. This hasn’t been my experience, whereas I can wholeheartedly recommend OM-1 II for macro and medium-to-long telephoto applications.
If you look at the image thread on the mFT forum, you should see it is heavily dominated by macro and wildlife photos (many are truly outstanding!). I believe that the mFT image thread illustrates well what mFT is good for.
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