Friday, September 5, 2014

Adiós DSLR!

I have friends who go on extended travel lugging their big bag of photo gear, usually a DSLR and two or three zoom lenses. Don't laugh, I use to be like them because 5 years ago DSLR give you the best performance; that was before, how about now?

During our last gathering, my DSLR die hard friends were shocked when I told them I only took my little Lumix GM1 when we went to Malaysia and Taiwan this year!

They all sneered at the small wonder, to them, nothing but their HEAVY DSLR can give them the travel pictures they are proud of!


Mind you, as you can see from the picture above, I still have my DSLR; a Nikon D300 that I bought 5 years ago. The zoom lens attaches to this once the Camera Of The Year, a Nikon 12-24mm f/4 AF-S DX , this Nikon has an equivalent field of view of an 18-36mm lens.

When you are on a shoot-n-run travel, to me, this is the best lens to have on your DSLR!

On the left of the heavy weight D300 is my feather weight Lumix GM1 with the
Panasonic 7-14mm f/4 ASPH LUMIX G VARIO ultra wide zoom.  This incredible optics behave like a 14-28 mm equivalent!



Here is another view of the two camera, looking at them make you realise how big the D300 is!  But... but, my friends argued that the DSLR possessed a LARGER sensor, the image quality will be much better than the M43 "rubbish", which is; they point out, ONLY 25% of a full-frame sensor!

Really?

Wellington put on a beautiful sunny face on Saturday, I decided to take both cameras for a spin. Make believe that I am a tourist at our vast City Square, trying to capture the vistas.


Our marvellous City Public Library, both were shot at their widest settings. Are you able to see the advantage of a ultra-wide zoom lens?  A 28mm lens just won't cut it!


Two different views of the CBD in Wellington with two different lenses. Notice how much wider the Lumix is! 4 extra mm of wide is a lot!  And yes, that was our Saturday morning 11am traffic; in the city! Eat your heart out, KL ;)


Entrance to our City Square, both shots were taken at the same spot; I am a sucker for a good ultra-wide, Lumix is the clear winner!


I love our City Square on a fine Wellington day! You can just sit there watching life go by... I will have to come one working day to see the difference :)

Sharpness, was the LARGER DSLR able to "out sharp" the little compact?



Not a very scientific test and comparison, but I think you know what I am getting at; both cameras and lenses are able to deliver very sharp pictures. But it was the pictures below affirmed my reluctant to use DSLR on any of my travel!


Ever experience carrying ONE and HALF KILO around your neck or shoulder for 5 or 6 hours?  And that is NOT counting the other HEAVY lenses you might bring along for your BIG DSLR!

Look at the GM1, LESS THAN 500 gm!

I REST MY CASE :)

Adiós DSLR!

2 comments:

Rob said...

This is the most biased review I have ever read. Never mind that you're comparing a 1 year old pano with upgraded glass that's arguably the best pee-wee you can get, to a 5 year old mid-range nikon with a bargain-box lens. Despite all this you failed to note the colour depth in the nikon being far superior to the pano, and there's at least 10m difference of effective shooting distance in your "Sharpness Test"... Whether it was the zoom or the standing position it still skews the outcome.

Don't get me wrong. I agree that there's way too many people in the world lugging around slr's they really don't need to. But to try and give the impression that a pee-wee is better than an SLR is preposterous.

"review" blogs like yours are half of the reason it was so hard to make someone buy the correct camera for their needs when I sold them for a living. Because people who don't know any better read this drivel and actually believe it....

you want to do this test for real? try using two cameras that were actually built in the same generation of digital technology for a start. The GM1 is an impressive camera for what it is, but it isn't better than an EQUIVALENT D-SLR, and it never will be. Stop talking garbage.

Anonymous said...

Elisha said...
I used a canon 6d and several prime lenses, and a back up camera: Canon 60d with a zoom lens sigma 2.8 to photograph events, changed everything for a Leica d lux 109 and a Lumix GM1 with 12-32 zoom lens and lens Lumix prime and not only improved it results, as now do photo and video without spending time and money working on editing program to fix the photos in RAW. shooting with Canon and Nikon forcing the photographer to work in RAW: JPEG as canon and nikon are not good. I did an excellent return.
I agree with the Cy.Leow.
Congratulations for this excellent site.