move to dslr or stay m43

jamesccp

Hello everyone,
My question is, I bought a lumix g3 about 6 months ago and have gotten really into photography. I only have the kit lens and a canon fd convertor with an fd 200mm and fd 135mm. I only want to shoot stills no film. Is the image quality up dslr standards. I do not want to start really investing in lenses and find I then need to migrate to a dslr for better IQ. The gh3 which is the camera i would upgrade to eventually is in the same price bracket as the nikon 7100 so should i migrate now before investing in lenses or stick with m 43. the size of the camera is not an issue

sebphoto

M43? Or M42?
If you have good FD lenses and you're happy then you don't have to buy expensive glass, however though quality might be much better if you would use good lenses

cnocbui

The Panasonic GH3, Olympus OM-D E-M5, PEN E-PL5 and PEN E-PM2 all deliver Nikon D7100 comparable stills performance. If you don't need a viewfinder, the Pens will give you GH3 stills image quality for considerably less moolah and size. All the lenses you currently have would be usable on any M43 body without buying anything extra.

The higher pixel count of a D7100 would be of benefit if you regularly print images at very large sizes. Having just used the Dpreview Studio sample image comparison tool, using it to compare images from a D7100 and Olympus OM-D, I would say there is no meaningful image noise quality difference up to iso 1600, and not enough to worry me at 3200. The OM-D images have higher resolution, but that could be down to the superior lens they used. I have an OMD, and since I know the image stabilisation is good for at least three stops iso advantage hand-held, the D7100 in low light without a tripod would likely be inferior.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/studio-compare#baseDir=%2Freviews_data&cameraDataSubdir=boxshot&indexFileName=boxshotindex.xml&presetsFileName=boxshotpresets.xml&showDescriptions=false&headerTitle=Studio%20scene&headerSubTitle=Standard%20studio%20scene%20comparison&masterCamera=nikon_d7100&masterSample=dsc_0162.acr&slotsCount=4&slot0Camera=nikon_d7100&slot0Sample=dsc_0162.acr&slot0DisableCameraSelection=true&slot0DisableSampleSelection=true&slot0LinkWithMaster=true&slot1Camera=oly_em5&slot1Sample=p1010003.acr&x=-0.8614239022677531&y=-0.26382290709753775

The size difference between an OM-D and D7100 is comical : http://camerasize.com/compare/#440,289

The overhead view is side-splitting. :eek:;)

jamesccp

Thanks for the reply, Wow that is some difference in size nice one for the link:D