I had one of those jobs the other day that pushed my gear to the limit. In hindsight, after the mild depression lifted, I realised that I had broken my own rule.
I had taken the wrong lenses for M43 to work at it’s best.
The reality envelope of this level of photography, is pretty much understood.
I can push my M43 gear to a well exposed ISO 6400 file, which can still be cropped, pushed and prodded a decent amount. From these files I have managed to read name badges from a group of over a dozen people, bring out shadowed faces cleanly and use as little as 20% of the file without anyone seeing the crop.
The job I did unfortunately, had all the elements that stretched that and I only have myself to blame. Anticipating a quiet week with no sport (a weekend off), I took my sports gear bag home, but luckily left my f2.8 40-150 in my locker by mistake.
The lens I really needed was the 75 f1.8. In this environment, I would have managed ISO 3200, 1/1000th wide open. Wide open of course is f1.8, acting like an f2.8 lens in this format.
This is plenty and well within my happy zone.
To add to my dramas, the outer ring lights used for bikes were the on, but not the stronger main overhead lights, so basically most faces were in shadow.
Instead I needed ISO 6400 at 1/500th f2.8, which was on the edge. ON1 bought the files back, but I did the big no-no, I underexposed several files. They only just made news print quality, not fine art by any means.
All systems have a limit and most need some type of awareness to get the most out of them. My systemic advantage is extra reach for the speed, but I have to bring that. If I am in the same situation as everyone else, the full frame shooters have an edge. If I play all my tricks, balance returns.
Another photog there had a Canon R3 with a monster 85L ($13,000au). Her issue was reach, made up for partially by cropping a few more pixels and cleaner ISO performance, balanced against sometimes shallower depth of field, so same-same. The reality for her was a little more reach at the expense of a bit of speed would have been better (135 f2?) as she sometimes needed to be a little too close.
The huge difference to me is my EM1x and 75mm come in under the price of the lens alone and most importantly, it is more than enough. I just did not bring it, so my bad.