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Forum: Canon, Nikon, Sony, and Other Camera Brands
09-29-2018, 08:06 AM
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Micro Four Thirds will be around a long time. The format has a major advantage in terms of LENS size (and lens choice). There are many terrific yet TINY lenses for the format. In some of these discussions there's too much emphasis on body size. Mirrorless FF bodies may be of modest size, but it's a challenge to design a lens that can provide sharp corners when combining a large sensor with a short register distance. The angles are extreme. The resulting lenses are huge, eliminating most of the weight advantage of a smallish body. When dealing with a short register distance it's much easier to get sharp corners when the sensor is relatively small. There are some superb MFT lenses that are almost unbelievably tiny, even by APS-C standards. You can put together a really compact kit. It's all about the lenses!
In addition, recent improvements in sensor technology and noise handling have reduced the drawbacks to the smaller MFT sensors. To see this, look at the output from the new 20-megapixel sensors in the Panasonic G9 and GX9. The image quality is as good as (or better than) what you could get from APS-C not that long ago. Of course the newer APS-C sensors are better still, but the difference is not large enough to matter for many applications.
The MFT format will continue to serve a couple of important niches. First, some people prefer a small and lightweight system, and don't need the very best output. MFT offers the smallest overall kit with a decent sensor size. Second, some FF (and MF) shooters who do have a need for the very best output also have a MFT system because sometimes they want to travel light, and in some cases MFT output is good enough. This second group doesn't view MFT as a substitute for FF, but rather as a very useful complement. Because of these two markets, and because of the terrific lens selection, MFT isn't going away anytime soon.
Dan
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