Often – very often, in my opinion – the shallow depth of field of a larger format can be a nuisance. It’s a nuisance for landscapes, for interiors, for close-ups and for any other kind of image where you want objects at different distances from the camera to all look adequately sharp.
Opinion
This is where I offer thoughts on developments in photography and video, some of the context behind news stories and industry events, and how these might impact photographers.
Do you really need autofocus for video?
What a stupid question, you’re probably thinking. Would we have a trillion words written a day on the latest camera autofocus tech if we didn’t need it? The thing is, it all depends on who you ask – and whether you’re talking about vlogging or filmmaking. Because there’s a difference.
Do lenses matter more than megapixels?
We assume that megapixels matter more than anything, and that a good lens on a high-resolution full frame camera will still be better than an excellent lens on a lower-resolution camera, right? Well, I thought I’d check.
Can you trust your EVF?
I’m not sure you can. The theory goes that because an EVF relays exactly what the sensor is capturing, it is by definition an accurate representation of the image you will record. But I think it’s leading us to trust EVFs altogether too much.
Are the kit lenses that come with cameras any good?
There is no one-size-fits-all standard zoom for everyone, and while a kit lens will be fine for some users, others might need to move on or use something different.
Why are kit lenses getting worse?
It’s as if the makers of full frame mirrorless cameras have suddenly realized that there’s no point making mirrorless cameras smaller if the lenses are as big as ever. So there’s a trend now to make compact zooms for these cameras to cut down on the overall system size. That’s great. But in making these kit lenses compact, have they also made them next to useless?
How hard can it be to find an all-manual camera with actual DIALS?
We all know that any DSLR or mirrorless camera can offer both manual exposure and manual focus. What I’m actually asking is how many cameras offer these as external controls like old-fashioned film cameras? The answer, depressingly, is almost none.
Canon and Nikon’s APS-C mirrorless lenses: strategic error or clever upsell?
Back in the days of Nikon and Canon DSLRs, both makers had APS-C cameras backed up by extensive ranges of APS-C lenses. You could buy an APS-C DSLR and stick with it for good. That’s not happening with their mirrorless replacements.
Who says mirrorless cameras are best for video?
Mirrorless cameras are only ‘better’ if you load the argument in favor of what they can do well and ignore the things they can’t.
I finally traded in my Olympus MFT… for a bigger one
Yes, the 12-40mm was a bit big on the E-M5 body, but I would get used to that. I thought. Well I didn’t. So I got the screw-on grip for the E-M5 III which made it better to hold with bigger lenses. It helped, but then it felt like a small camera made artificially big.