Micro Four Thirds is under seige at the moment.
It always seems to be and from my perspective it is unjustified, pointless even.
It is a valid format with advantages and disadvantages, but I have found, and I use multiple formats, that the advantages generally win out.
Relatively poorer low light performance than full frame
vs
More reach from lighter, cheaper, faster and often sharper lenses.
I know what I chose and why.
Here is a little gallery of some cricket shot today on an “aging” EM1x and the Olympus 300 f4, crops on the left, unprocessed originals on the right. Due to iffy light ISO 800-1600 were used, no noise reduction applied.
Generally I find the 600mm equivalent a little long for side shots, because I like to tell a story and the lens only includes a single element, so I shoot lengths-ways down the pitch and include if I can the bowler, batter and relevant fielders (easier with spin bowling as the keeper is behind the stumps).
Having enough quality from a six year old, 20mp MFT sensor for effectively a 1000mm crop though is handy.
Below is a sample of a “delivered” set, no before and after to compare and who would know!
Still down to counting stitches on the ball.
All silent shutter and hand held.
The big shame is, only we, the obsessed users pixel peep every file to excrutiating detail and these files stand up to that, yet we also hammer the format for not being as good as full frame or to cut to it, nt good enough.
Good enough for what? Car sized enlargements viewed at too close a distance? Almost all images are viewed small on compressed formats or to the limits of the print process, designed to be viewed at the correct distance. Only we have the luxury or seeming need to look closer.
If size and quality ratios are accepted, then how much is too much?
I remember the Nikon rep coming to the paper I worked at last year with her $25,000au 300mm Z-series lens, pushing the benefits of cropping the 45mp Z9 to get effectively a 600mm with about 20mp resolution “still far more than print publication or online needs”.
So, a $33,000au combination to get a cropped equivalent to my $6,000 300mm Oly and older model EM1x combo. Even if there was a difference in AF performance (the Nikon gear is newer, but I have no complaints), or optical quality (genuinely doubt it-and I compared direclty), is there enough difference to really matter? I hit what I aimed at and used single captures, no drive (even if 60fps is possible).
Since leaving the paper I have been keeping an eye on the other togs work in news print and online. I am not seeing a vast difference in quality with the newer gear, which proves that the end use is usually the final arbiter.
The 300 f2.8 is faster when used shorter you say! I could still manage to add a second body, a 75mm f1.8 (150mm eq), 40-150 f2.8 (300mm eq) and Panasonic 200 f2.8 (400mm eq), for about half the Nikon kit.
The other point of note is, I walked around the boundary all afternoon, chasing the right angles for each bowler and batter, something a huge 600mm full frame lens or even the hefty 300 would have limited. When at the paper this gave me a wider range of images in a shorter time.
Even managed some bird photography (or was it an accountants convention?).
I have shot cricket with the 40-150 f2.8 before when forced, cropping my 300mm equivalent to as much as a 600mm/10mp combination and nobody noticed!