Moving to Digital
Email to Park Cameras
Dear sirs,
I am planning to make the move from film SLR's that I've been using for
over 30 years to digital. My main interests are close up work outdoors,
although I do a fair bit of mountain photography too. I'm keen to get
away from carrying big sacks full of glass up mountains.
I'm keen on the light weight and compact size of the Lumix G1 & I like
the swivel rear screen, but I have reservations about the EVF and the
price of the Leica 45mm Macro Elmarit lens seems very high.
Are there extension tubes available to avoid buying a macro lens or does it make
more sense to use an adapter and one of the Olympus 4/3 fit lenses? If I
do will I lose all the size and weight benefits in any case? Are there
likely to be a plethora of other micro 4/3 lenses along soon if I wait
for a few more months?
With true SLR's the Pentax K-x looks pretty good only I understand that it eats batteries like they're going out of fashion. If I went Pentaxwould there be any way I could use any of my old Pentax thread fit lenses?
The Nikon D5000 looks very good again with the swivel screen, but the screen resolution is a bit low and macro lenses and other accessories
seem quite expensive too, especially spare batteries and macro lenses.
Some of the wide ranging super zoom lenses say they offer macro but I'm not convinced that they can be very good considering how cheap many of them are relative to true single focal length macros.
I'd appreciate your recommendations either out of these three or if there are others that would be better e.g. Sony, Olympus, Canon...... the range seems endless.
Regards,
Actual Response
Hi, thank you for your email.
The Lumix G1 has proved to be very popular amongst many photographers in your position who are looking to achieve SLR quality images with the usual level of control but in a smaller design. The Leica macro lens isn't cheap but it is very good quality. You can do as you suggested and use a 4/3rds lens or even an OM lens with the trade off being size. A number of manufacturers will be releasing more micro 4/3rds lenses over the next few years but we do not have a roadmap as such. Inevitably there will be more macro lenses released but at what price point and of what quality is unknown.
Of all the entry level digital SLRs at present there is very little difference in quality. Nikon, Canon and Pentax all have suitable options, if you go with a current Pentax the you can but an M42-K-mount adapter to allow you to use your current lenses. They will operate fully manually and will appear to have a focal length 1.5 times longer than when used on a 35mm film camera. This is due to the sensor being smaller than a frame of film and therefore offering a narrower field of view. It is in fact possible to use the screw thread Pentax lenses with the micro 4/3rds cameras, if you search on Google for 'M42 to micro four thirds' then you'll see a number of results for retailers offering such adapters. Again you would be using the camera fully manually.
Many lenses, such as the superzooms that you mention say 'macro' on them because the have a maximum reproduction ratio slightly higher than you might normally expect of a lens of such a focal length but it doesn't normally come close to true 1:1 reproduction as defined by a true macro lens.
I hope this answer proves useful but if you do have any further questions then please do not hesitate to ask.
Kind regards,
Gui de Basly
Corporate Sales Executive
Park Cameras Ltd.