Travelling Light

The initial appeal of early mirrorless cameras was that they were lighter and smaller than their DSLR counterparts. This made cameras more portable and more convenient to use, especially for travel photography, where you might not need your professional kits with you, or want to pack as lightly as possible. The Micro Four-Thirds mount is home to many beloved cameras from Panasonic, Olympus, and more! Even Black Magic Design has some capable video cameras that use the Micro Four Thirds. The Micro Four-Thirds mount cameras are a testament that you can pack a lot of the quality-of-life features that DSLRs have and still come out with something compact.

Among the Micro Four-Thirds camera we have in-house, the GF3 is certainly not the oldest, but it is our smallest. With no pentaprism (faux or not), the camera is fairly short, measuring only 65mm tall. Compared to a camera in Canon's 5D camera family, this is tiny. Some users may disuaded by the ergonomic compromises when useing the GF3 (the lack of grip, and its size may not be ideal for larger hands), but it's going to be objectively lighter, especially paired with a compact prime. There are plenty of options, but even a fairly basic prime OEM lens can cost several hundred dollars. While we have plenty of lens adapters available, and many vintage primes can be found second-hand through eBay, KEH, or even your thrift shop, we wanted to pair our smallest camera with the smallest lens we could muster.

This C-mount lens we have was the perfect candidate. The C-MFT adapter is already incredibly slim, and this 25mm f/1.4 lens is great for a few reason. C-mount lenses don't always cover the entire sensor (APS-C and Full-frame cameras are usually out of luck for this reason, as well as flange focal distance), but this lens gives our GF3 full coverage. The f/1.4 maximum aperture is also excellent for letting in the most light as well as accomplishing a shallow depth of field. Surprinsgly, the maximum aperture and image circle are not even what makes the lens enticing to me; the focal length is.

25mm would be considered wide on a full-frame sensor. But those of you familiar with the Micro Four-Thirds sensor size is that the system has an innate 2x crop factor. This being said, a normal lens for full-frame, 50mm, has the same field of view as a 100mm lens when that same lens is adapted to Micro Four-Thirds. That 2x crop factor is one reason Micro Four-Thirds can be more difficult to adapt to, especially if you're trying to keep equivalent field of view in mind. The beauty of our 25mm C-mount lens is that it's the perfect focal length to be a normal lens, turning the GF3 into a fairly capable setup.

If the name of the game is taking photos with the lightest kit possible, or being covert or discreet, the choice is a no-brainer. The 5D Mark II with a 50mm lens has the same field of view as our GF3 setup. Storing it way is easier too; no more camera bags. I can easily fit it in one of my smaller slings, and I'm inclined to believe it could slot comfortable into the pockets of my cargo pants.

If you've never shot with the Micro Four-Thirds system, it could be easy to dismiss the line as a "toy camera," but that's simply not true. Full-frame is not a requirement to make good work, and all systems come with the pros and cons. But the Micro Four-Thirds mount is absolutely filled with variety. The newer Olympus PEN cameras are a wonderful homage to the half-frame film cameras from the 20th century. The OM-D series bears carry the classic look of the OM mount. Pansonic and Black Magic Design have workhorse video cameras in the form of the Lumix GH series and Pocket Cinema Cameras.

Micro Four-Thirds was the system that kick-started mirrorless cameras as we know it. To learn more about other systems from the early days of mirrorless, check out this blog post.