Change from Olympus System To NikCan? Why?

Mark#1

Hi.

I've had an E-410 and the two kit lenses - 14-42mm + 40-150mm - for maybe two years.

I really like the way the compact body handles, and the lenses have been fine for the hobby stuff I'm doing.

I'm currently interested in longer telephoto (than the 150mm (300mm 35mm equiv) max) applications, but there seems to be a bit of a dearth of reasonably-priced longer lenses for Olympus. Their own 70-300m looks like a decent hobby lens, but some reviews have commented that it can be a bit "slow", which I understand to refer to the AF. I've also read that the Zuiko Standard lens range is a smidge higher-quality than NikCan kit lenses.

Given that I like the E-410 (it's not perfect - its low-light performance isn't great and it doesn't have IS), I'd be happy to stick with Olympus and try the Zuiko Standard 70-300mm, and maybe swap up later on to one of the higher-spec E bodies with IS built in (rather than rely on IS built into the lens), and higher max ISO.

With Olympus's x2 crop factor, it really exaggerates the max zoom focal lengths more than NikCan, which I like.

I'd expect every DSLR out there to be more than competent for day-to-day hobby applications, so with that as a given, my primary interest would be wildlife & candid family portraits (I love when the kids are goofing around and don't realise, or at least feel, that they're being photographed), maybe with some light landscape & macro work too, all with as few lenses as possible. I also really like the idea of the newer DSLRs with 1080p video capability, for all the obvious reasons.

I'm sure y'all know that Sigma do a 50-500mm zoom for NikCan, but not Olympus.

So, if you were me, would you stick with the Olympus system (I just like it), and continue to spec-up now & then, or trade-in and start from scratch with NikCan?


Thanks for any replies,

Mark

bullpost

I recently went from an Olympus E300 , which is five years old, to an E3.
I bought it second-hand with the 14-54 and 70-300mm lenses for a good price.
I'm very impressed with the E3 so far - huge improvement in high ISO performance and its got in-built IS which helps with the 70-300mm.

I had already made the investment in Olympus and by and large , like you, was generally happy and therefore saw no reason to change.

With olympus's likely move to micro four-thirds in the future , I think there will be some good bargains in new and second-hand kit over the next few years.
Bottom line though realistically for me is there is no way I could have contemplated moving brands, as I just wouldn't have had the money to fund it.

If you're happy to stick with Olympus then stick with Olympus. Unless you plan to upgrade a lot of your stuff in a shor ttime frame, it's probably in your favour to stay with them.

Surely it's cheaper to buy a new Olympus lens, than to sell everything and start again with Canon/Nikon?

When people refer to 'slow' lenses, I think they generally refer to the Aperture. That is; the 50mm f/1.4 is a really fast lens. A 50mm f/5.6 is quite slow, etc. (just made that last lens up). Open to correction there, though.

I'm currently shooting with an Olympus E-420 and a Canon 20D. I have the 14-42 kit lens and the 40-150 f/3.5-4.5 for the Olympus, and also have a Flashgun for it. I have the 18-55 kit lens and 50mm f/1.8 for the Canon, so both cameras are capable of very different things for me at the moment.

However, I do predict myself slowly changing over to Canon as I plod along my little photography path. Olympus are good, have been good to me, and I've never really had much trouble with my camera or lenses. The camera hasn't been abused, and hasn't let me down.

However, I do want to upgrade to a better camera in general (e-420 is poor with high ISO, and the 20D is getting older, age-wise). I was looking at the Olympus E-3, but eventually settled on wanting to upgrade to a Canon 7D. It seemed to be favoured in a review or two I read, and the price doesn't seem too bad.


So for me, I'm gonna go with Canon over time. That's more because I bought a Canon camera though and I'm already kinda in the door with them. That said, the Canon 50mm 1.8 cost me about €120 posted. The Oly equivalent, the 25mm “Pancake lens”, was running about €200 when I seen it last. All adds up.

magicbastarder

i went from olympus to nikon. reasons were i was looking to replace my E500, and my dad was looking to get a DSLR. since my GF was on nikon, and i saw a decent D300 for a decent price, i went for that, and gave my E500 to my dad.

he didn't take my sigma 30mmf1.4, as he said he probably wouldn't get use from it, so i'm selling that now.

nilhg

I've the Oly 70-300 and love it, sure the AF is slow especially if the AF gets confused and it starts to hunt but you soon lean how to cope with that and avoid thew situations where it's most likely to happen. Optically I don't think that any lens from any other company can beat it at the price.

Last Autumn I up graded from a e510 twin lens kit to the e30 and 12-60, I was lucky, I got a good price and a few days later the price on that kit started to rise and I believe now that they are almost impossible to buy new, I sold on the e510 and lenses to my brother so now have the e30, 12-60, 70-300 and sigma 30f1.4 as well as a couple of flashes. I suppose before I bought the e30 would have been my opportunity to switch brands but TBH I was happy with my e510, had a fair idea what I was getting in the e30 and the price including the 12-60 was reasonable I thought, for 99.99% of what I want to do it's plenty good enough.

BTW, sigma did do the 50-500 on 4/3 fit, I think it's discontinued new now but if you watch out on ebay or the fourthirds forum they do come up, here's the last one I can find.

If you were really lucky you might even find one of the few 300-800's made in 4/3 fit.

Mark#1

Resurrecting my own post here...

I'm still with the E-410.

I guess my main interest in changing systems would have been for the video capability creeping into some upper-mid level DSLRs, but it's not really enough to make me change. Who knows - I might eventually end up with an E-5... :eek:

I just saw yesterday that I missed out on an E-620 + 14-42mm + 40-150mm over on Adverts for €350! Dang!

Where do you guys recommend looking for a used E-620 and 70-300mm lens? Or where do ye recommend for reasonably-priced new?


Thanks,

Mark