I use Macs, Capture 1 and M43 and I choose these aware of the benfits and pitfalls of each.
Work has supplied me a powerful HP Z laptop, Lightroom and a full frame Nikon DSLR kit.
The laptops compared are interesting. The HP costs at least twice as much, is heavier and larger than my base model M1 chip Mac Air, but the Mac looses little by comparison. I bought a second one the other day as a backup for work, but both still come in under the cost of the HP. I looked at more powerful ones, but unless you go up a few cogs, there is little to gain and the M2 chip actually does some things slower! These HP’s are also showing a weakness in their USB-A ports, most suffering from some “twitchiness” after light use.
M43 for me is a fully evolved space. I am afraid of nothing! Sporting way too many options, I realise just how powerful the system is as I can often tackle a tough subject several ways. Even my most basic kit* can produce images that satisfy “fine art” me, not just “get it done” me. Going backwards into old tech full frame DSLR’s, with their monstrous FF lenses to get (at the moment) only about the same quality, does not appeal in any way.
Enough quality to crop aggressively without detriment. This is effectively a 300mm field of view from a lens the size of a full frame kit 70-200 short prime or cheap superzoom.
The original was fine at roughly FF 80mm equiv, but the ability to shoot wider and sort it later is a bonus.
Roughly a 400mm equivalent crop. Want to know the time? I can read most of the watch faces in the image.
Capture 1 vs Lightroom is for me a no brainer. Even with all the nice bells and whistles the latest version of Lightroom has, the Adobe base file processing is a step behind and looks to be quite heavy handed in application (user aside). I work with two photographers who are constantly fighting the noise vs sharpness game even with full frame files, but are tending to use the new subject and background select options regularly. Even files processed in C1, then run through LR with no processing (for our internal upload process) seem to take on some nasty artefacts and grittiness.
I cannot remember when that balance was a real concern for me with C1. I have literally never used the Noise Reduction slider in C1, using ON1 deliberately, but rarely. The programme even removed some of my concerns regarding the slightly softer files from my EM1 mk2’s, which it turns out was more of an Adobe processing issue and gave me a better understanding of colour accuracy, removing some of the Olympus warm/magenta bias from earlier models. I now treat my G9, EM1.2 and EM1x and older camera files equally for quality, but I do pay attention to their differing colour and the way some mesh with different lenses.
If I go into a messy space like a badly under exposed ISO 6400 file or just want the very tightest processing for a stressed file, I may drop over to ON1 No Noise, but otherwise I tend to leave both sharpening and noise reduction to the basic import settings and deal with my usual considerations, like my seeming inability to shoot a straight horizon.
My belief is the petty arguments between format sizes will be largely over taken by processing. The real visual difference between M43 or even 1” sensor images in almost all circumstances compared to full frame or even bigger formats has proven to be, time and again, not as relevant as some would think**. Processing is making sensor size and pixel count even less relevant. On one hand the “my phone is plenty” crowd are at odds with the “you need a full frame to be pro” mob, with M43 sitting somewhere in the upper middle. The reality is, even the 1” sensor is enough for most uses.
If the image is in focus, it rarely gets dumped for other reasons and even if it is a little out, some localised brushing-in of sharpening and clarity can often fix it. Lightroom and No Noise could work, but I would be using ON1 a lot more. In this case, I would likely switch to importing through DXO to Lightroom.
Ironically the thing that has empowered me to be in this place has been the technical quality of my images, not my disguising of compromises.
Need more realistically?
More is there. 600mm FF equiv hand held cropped to 400%.
*EM10 mk2 or EM5 Mk1 with the 12-60 Pana and 40-150 Oly kit lenses, which are the core of my travel kit.
**The now defunct Luminous Landscape site did several excellent de-bunking articles, one comparing a series of shots taken on a tripod mounted Hasselblad MF to a hand held Canon G9 compact (used for record keeping images). The photographer found it hard to split them so printed them out at decent sizes for his friends to look at and found they could not pick the difference. Another test had an 8, 20 and 50 mp comparison of Canon FF cameras. These tests always found that there was a measurable difference, but not a practical-visual one. Even visual tests of A2 prints at different print resolutions (72, 180, 240 and 300 dpi) have shown that 90% of people or more, even people in the industry, cannot see a difference unless they are told to expect one and even then they often guess wrong.