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That's a legitimate shame for open standards. M43 has its proponents and critics, but either way it is rare to see a somewhat successful multi-vendor standard i
by Someone1234 6y ago
That's a legitimate shame for open standards. M43 has its proponents and critics, but either way it is rare to see a somewhat successful multi-vendor standard in photography that actually worked.
The main problem is that the market itself has been shrinking, and there's just not enough room to have so much competition (Olympus, Panasonic, Sony, Fuji, Canon, and Nikon).
M43 was successful, but it succeeded in an area that is shrinking faster: Smaller form factor/lower optical powerful photography equipment; exactly the kind being eaten alive by smartphones.
While Panasonic and others will continue the M43 standard for a while longer, the writing may be on the wall. Some competition have moved into niches (e.g. medium format, videography, etc), which may have better longer term stability.
- brendoelfrendo 6y agoThis is actually news to me... I bought a M43 camera a couple years ago because I thought it was a standard with staying power and a healthy ecosystem of lenses and bodies from many manufacturers. Is Panasonic the only one still producing M43 gear? I thought Fuji did as well, unless they decided to ditch it, too. I'd be upset if the standard disappeared!
- igrekel 6y agoI'm in a similar situation! I still use my trusty GF1 which is by far the best camera I have owned and I wanted to eventually upgrade and bring my lenses that I accumulated over the years with me. Olympus had a solid m43 lineup back when I last checked. I was always a little frustrated how some vendors just started their own mirrorless, fragmenting the business. Its a shame and I am afraid to what will happen with m43.. its a shame if it goes, it is still a world better than cell phone cameras and it is so much more convenient than full frames.
- tqi 6y agoI bought myself a GF1 when I hit 1 year at my first job out of college, so it holds a very special place in my heart. It is interesting to me that while phone cameras have improved by leaps and bounds in that period, progress in the M43 space seems much slower.
- h2odragon 6y agoI got one better: i sank $2k into a full four thrids lens a while back (the f2.0 zoom; its still worth every penny). I've been wondering about finding a new sensor to put behind that, if i have to embrace the suck of adapters anyway, what should i be looking for now? Seems like "any Cannon" is the only sensible answer.
- taborj 6y agoActually, this might be the time to pick up a fire-sale Olympus...
- slantyyz 6y ago> Seems like "any Cannon" is the only sensible answer. Why? Most cameras made after 2014 are more than adequate for most non-pro hobbyists. A recent vintage Olympus or Panasonic M43 camera is still pretty competent, and assuming you mean 4/3 by "full four thirds" and not "micro four-thirds", you can always get a mount adapter to use it with an M43 camera. IIRC, the E-M series might work best with the old 4/3 lenses from a focusing perspective though.
- Jedd 6y agoWhat do you want to do that you can not do now?
- h2odragon 6y agoI'd like to get video using the lens; for stills the current olympus e3 its paired with is still pretty good.
- cannam 6y agoI think only Panasonic and Olympus make M43 bodies, so effectively yes, Panasonic is now the only one - though there are a few other companies making lenses still. The bodies are presumably going to be the more difficult thing to replace. I have a number of M43 lenses, and I'm concerned about how long I'll be able to use them for - it's not like the simple manual-focus lens days of old when you mostly just needed the right thread adapter. I've owned three Olympus cameras. The first was a mju-1 compact camera in the early 90s (known as the Stylus in the US - the original one before they added a zoom). This was a remarkably good camera, with a great lens at a nice practical 35mm focal length (like the old Trip line, which I never got to use) in a really stylish body. I sold it a few years later when I really needed the money... The other two have been M43 digitals - an E-PL3 (now in use by my kids), and an E-M5 mark II, which has been my main camera for a few years and which I am very fond of.
- slantyyz 6y agoIIRC, Kodak and a couple of Chinese mfgs (Mi and I believe Yong Nuo has announced an M43 in a smartphone like form factor) also produced some bodies and lenses in the past decade, although I wouldn't put them in same class as Oly or Panny in terms of build and/or handling.
- lostapathy 6y agoThere’s a lot of 3rd party lenses of various quality as well as some cheap cameras. I think DJI has a drone with M43 mount too?
- dllu 6y agoThere are still several companies making lenses for the system. For example, Cosina has a lineup of high quality manual-focus M43 lenses such as the recently released Voigtlander Nokton 60mm f/0.95: http://www.cosina.co.jp/seihin/voigtlander/mft-mount/mft-60mm/index.html http://www.cosina.co.jp/seihin/voigtlander/mft-mount/mft-60m...
- eropple 6y agoAt this point M43 is, in my neck of the woods, basically a video format anyway. I do on-site videography (my schtick being "we can run a four-camera live show from anywhere I've got Ethernet and power") and all my cameras are M43 because they hit a great spot on the price/quality curve. (Sony's APS-C cameras are very respectable too, but the glass is pricey.) Never used an Olympus, never understood the point of one. If I cared about photography in a serious way I'd have already bought an A7 of some flavor.
- cannam 6y agoNot very familiar with video - what M43 camera do you use for that?
- maxnoe 6y agoProbably the Panasonic GH Series.
- eropple 6y agoThere isn't a ton of value to the GH series for what I do, which is more video than film--I mostly shoot video game events (and I've been running a ton of them remotely since COVID started at https://twitch.tv/tracecomplete https://twitch.tv/tracecomplete -- only need one camera for that, though!). I like my GH4, but for photo it wasn't much better than the G7 and the G7 could shoot 4K60 and was about equivalent (again, for my purposes) when dumping to an external recorder. The G9 with Firmware 2.0 has almost made the GH5 obsolete, too.
- eropple 6y agoMy three primary cameras right now are a LUMIX G9 (newest, the recent firmware upgrades put it on par with the GH5 for what I do and it has a full-size HDMI port which matters a lot), a GH4, and a G7; my off-cam/desk webcam is now my oldest camera, which is a GH3. The latter three all have the same sensor but the GH3 is a lot slower and has worse dynamic range and internal processing.
- acomjean 6y agoM43 for those that don't know is "micro 4/3" is a format of interchangeable lens for cameras across multiple manufacturers (although pretty much just Panasonic and Olympus). Nikon canon and sony have their own lines of lenses. Its better than a point and shoot, but not as good as a full size SLR (single lens reflex) camera. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_Four_Thirds_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_Four_Thirds_system I have an olympus micro 43 camera. I really like it. Though when the top button broke, They wouldn't send my local camera fix it shop the part, and it ended up costing more money to fix than it should have. I like it for traveling as its good but light and while not a subtle as a phone camera, its not a serious looking as a "real" camera.
- Derbasti 6y agoBut where are those small cameras? Panasonic's GM series is all but abandoned, and the E-M10 is hardly small compared to a Fuji X-E3 or Canon M50. To me, that always felt like M43's Achilles heel; it promises to be small and light, yet most kits actually end up just as big as APS-C. I still love my GM1, though.
- Someone1234 6y agoThat's only true when comparing lens-less cameras, which isn't that meaningful when lenses are required to use the body. An X-E3 with lens isn't a similar size to an E-M10.
- veesahni 6y agoAren't Fuji & APS-C lenses still bigger than equivalent M43? 9-18, 15 f1.7, 45 f1.8 such a tiny tiny kit
- tormeh 6y agoIt is pretty small, especially when you look at lenses. When I go on short vacations, I can fit my M43 Olympus and three lenses into the same carry-on backpack I simultaneously pack all my clothing, electronics and bathroom accessories in. I've owned an APS-C before, and realistically speaking you'll have to pay extra for check-in luggage and wait at baggage claim if you're going to bring such a camera. This is obviously all nonsense if you're enthusiastic (or professional) enough, but I struggle to bring my camera along as it is.
- notJim 6y agoI think what happened is that larger sensors became cheaper, and companies also realized that people who buy dedicated cameras are willing to pay for them. Personally, I shoot Fuji, and it's fantastic, but when I compare astro stuff between something like a Sony A7sii to my Fuji shots, the result is much cleaner due to the lower noise. It only really matters for astrophotography, but since I don't want to invest tens of thousands into multiple systems, it pushes me towards full frame.
- centimeter 6y agoIt's not as simple as "FF has lower noise". There's a reasonable argument that once you factor in everything, most sensor size differences come out in the wash. In the case of low-light performance, you have situations like: APS-C + 35mm f/1.4 ~ FF + 50mm f/2. Yeah, you need a larger aperture in f-stop terms for equivalent optical properties, but the cost of that is probably offset by the cost of APS-C lenses being otherwise cheaper (having a narrower optical path). The two biggest actual advantages of FF, to my mind, are lower sensitivity to small inhomogeneities in lens glass (but this is not super important) and larger maximum FET capacitor size. The good astro shots you've seen are probably compositions of multiple photos. That is arguably the only way to get good low-noise shots with any consumer sensor technology, just due to the extremely high dynamic range of the sky and the physical realities of shot noise.
- notJim 6y agoI am already stacking the shots, as are the photographers I'm comparing to. It is also objectively true that noise is lower on FF cameras, specifically at higher ISO. You can see many comparisons of this online. The A7sii has larger pixels that gather more light compared to either the A7rii or an APS-C sensor.
- centimeter 6y ago> It is also objectively true that noise is lower on FF cameras, specifically at higher ISO. This is a meaningless statement - there are too many free variables you’re ignoring. How large the pixels are is not all that relevant for how much light can be gathered - the actual physical constraint is (the angle subtended by the sensor & lens * physical aperture diameter)^2.
- dnr 6y agoI've been happily using my Panasonic G3 for years for hiking/backpacking/skiing. The key features for me are the small weight and size of the body and lenses, and the electronic viewfinder. I've been thinking about upgrading the body recently, but all the newer G series are much bigger and heavier, and the GF and GX series don't have a viewfinder. What's the best choice for me in the M43 world? (Or which system should I look at instead?)
- jon_elbrook 6y agom43 is a strategic mistake. There's not enough differentiation from smartphones.