Male
The versatility of compacts is hard to find with the 4/3 and even more difficult with the DSLRs. But the image quality is different worlds especially because you start focusing on what you are going to shoot UW before and in the water. If you are quickly distracted by both small organisms and large fish or scenery on the same dive then it is not easy to focus on composition and techniques that help you get the best shots. That is true on land as well so it is a mindset not only the image sensor. I agree that when you are diving and you are not sure what you are going to see in unknown locations or waters then a versatile lens like the 12-50 on an OM-D can get a lot of different subjects. But then I think some of the better compacts are probably better as you can really cover the whole range with a small but reasonable quality. I believe that once you move to the better images it is hard to go back to compacts though. I am myself tempted to try the new Sony RX100 for those situations I mentioned and for light traveling. In regards to the 12-50 I can confirm like many others did that it does indeed do 1:1 magnification in macro mode without diopters. Not sure why Olympus quotes 0.76. The 45 or 60 mm macro lenses do 2:1 magnification since they can fill the image with about 17mm horizontal subjects.
nudibranco
Member Since 08 Feb 2008Offline Last Active May 16 2013 11:52 AM
#324730 Olympus OM-D E-M5
Posted by
on 18 January 2013 - 06:10 PM
My experience:
The versatility of compacts is hard to find with the 4/3 and even more difficult with the DSLRs. But the image quality is different worlds especially because you start focusing on what you are going to shoot UW before and in the water. If you are quickly distracted by both small organisms and large fish or scenery on the same dive then it is not easy to focus on composition and techniques that help you get the best shots. That is true on land as well so it is a mindset not only the image sensor. I agree that when you are diving and you are not sure what you are going to see in unknown locations or waters then a versatile lens like the 12-50 on an OM-D can get a lot of different subjects. But then I think some of the better compacts are probably better as you can really cover the whole range with a small but reasonable quality. I believe that once you move to the better images it is hard to go back to compacts though. I am myself tempted to try the new Sony RX100 for those situations I mentioned and for light traveling. In regards to the 12-50 I can confirm like many others did that it does indeed do 1:1 magnification in macro mode without diopters. Not sure why Olympus quotes 0.76. The 45 or 60 mm macro lenses do 2:1 magnification since they can fill the image with about 17mm horizontal subjects.
The versatility of compacts is hard to find with the 4/3 and even more difficult with the DSLRs. But the image quality is different worlds especially because you start focusing on what you are going to shoot UW before and in the water. If you are quickly distracted by both small organisms and large fish or scenery on the same dive then it is not easy to focus on composition and techniques that help you get the best shots. That is true on land as well so it is a mindset not only the image sensor. I agree that when you are diving and you are not sure what you are going to see in unknown locations or waters then a versatile lens like the 12-50 on an OM-D can get a lot of different subjects. But then I think some of the better compacts are probably better as you can really cover the whole range with a small but reasonable quality. I believe that once you move to the better images it is hard to go back to compacts though. I am myself tempted to try the new Sony RX100 for those situations I mentioned and for light traveling. In regards to the 12-50 I can confirm like many others did that it does indeed do 1:1 magnification in macro mode without diopters. Not sure why Olympus quotes 0.76. The 45 or 60 mm macro lenses do 2:1 magnification since they can fill the image with about 17mm horizontal subjects.
