For any of you thinking about pluses/minuses of m43 vs full-frame for birding:
I have a Sony A7RV as my main camera - mostly for landscape, flowers, family photos. Happy with Sony 24 & 50 GM primes and 70-200 F4. I have an OM-1 II for travel (12-40 Pro lens), works well.
I've become more and more interested in birding. Before getting the OM, I used Sony A7RV with 200-600 G on a tripod. The gear's gotten too heavy for me to carry around or handhold, so I sold that lens and recently tried out the Sony with the 100-400 GM lens and the OM with the OM 100-400. (200-800 FFE). I figured the OM would have more reach but be held back by its smaller sensor, while the 61 megapixels of the Sony would let me crop in to use a lens with shorter reach and less weight.
What I found, as you might expect:
- for birds nearby, the Sony is super gives photos with better sharpness, dynamic range and colors.
- for birds at some distance, the Sony hunts focus, the OM has great bird focus and its high fps get some excellent keepers
-- at mid-distance, sharpness depends mostly on my technique and how stable I can hold the gear. I prefer the Sony colors and resolution, but the A7RV and 100-400 GM are much more difficult to handhold. If I were always carrying a gimbal and tripod I'd choose the Sony, but for ease of use the OM feels better in the hand and I can get the camera up and start tracking birds much faster.
I was surprised the Sony+lens is not THAT much heavier than the OM (a little less than a pound), but the overall balance and ease of use of the OM is better. Adding the 1.4 TC to the sony lens made it softer and heavier, so I stopped using it. (TC works great on the 70-200 G, though)
Probably the OM would give me better results with the 300 mm F4 OM lens, but that's more $$ and weight than I want to invest in.
One other note: I do most of my post-processing in Capture One, but DxO9 does a better job with OM RAW files (superior noise reduction, though the color management and masking doesn't work as well as Capture One's )
I hope you find this useful. I'm 75, so weight is more of an issue. Just my experience, - you may get different results
