As I tinker with different setups with my EM5.3, I figured I’d reach out for a quick sort of ShotKit type thread (not seeing one, please let me know if I’m missing it).
If you use MFT, what do you use it for? Is it your only system or do you couple it with other systems? What kit (bags, bodies, lenses, flashes, etc) do you use the most?
To answer my own question, I use MFT for travel, reportage, and closeup/macro. I currently shoot mostly with an EM5.3 and 12-45/4, though I also carry an 8-18/2.8-4 when needed and am acquiring some small primes to keep in my proverbial back pocket. It all goes into a moment Fanny sling, but im looking at a Wotancraft Pilot 7L for more long term stuff.
Looking forward to some replies/photos!
To answer your question, for quite a few years, I used MFT for pretty much all of my photography. Why? Because an MFT camera was not only my main one - but, on quite a few occasions, my only one. So...it was all I had. And the MFT cameras which I had, I found immensely satisfying. They all managed not only to 'get the job done' - but often to either 'realize' some surprisingly good (surprising to me, I mean) images, or to be good creative tools for translating either my mind's eye or the world around me, to images. Something I've been obsessed with for much of my life.
Over the past few years, I've branched out from MFT. For awhile, I used a handful of great Pentax DSLR's. More recently, I've become enamored of the color possibilities of some modern Fujifilm cameras, so much so that on occasion, my Fuji's have been my weapon of choice, so to speak. For colour images, at least. But I still use MFT for birds and wildlife (my E-M1 + some telephoto or telephoto-zoom lenses) - for travel (my GX9 is my favorite serious small travel camera, usually with a small prime) - and occasionally just for having a superb small camera which looks more like an innocuous point-and-shoot than a serious photographic device (my E-P5). They are all great cameras... still.
In no particular order, and with no rhyme or reason, here are a handful of some of the better (to my eyes, at least) photos I've taken over the years with MFT cameras. This first was taken with my old Lumix GX-1, and my dirt cheap Olympus BCL (BodyCap Lens) 15mm fixed f/8 plastic lens--
Join to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
This portrait was taken at a local minor league baseball game of one of the fans - with my old GX8, and a wonderful lens, the PL 45mm macro--
Join to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
A shot of plants growing inside the abandoned Volvo parts car of a good friend of mine, parked out in the middle of his farm (taken with my old GX7 and its humble kit lens)--
Join to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
The tail end of a classic old Dodge sedan, taken with a classic old MFT camera, my former Olympus E-P1, and its underrated small 17mm pancake lens--
Join to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
This is one of my favorites, taken at a Halloween parade in Ashland, Oregon, with the inexpensive but oh-so-sharp Rokinon fisheye on my ancient GX1--
Join to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
Lastly, two of my more recent MFT shots, taken with the GX9 and the small 20mm Lumix lens, on a trip to Mexico City. First this street shrine, on a busy boulevard---
Join to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
And finally this ancient Renault that was parked on a quiet street--
Join to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
So... yeah, hard to say what I use MFT for. Probably the simplest answer, in all seriousness, is --- to take pictures with.
And no, that's not facetious. It's the truth.
Of course the problem with simple answers is, they can create other more complicated questions - including why a person takes or tries to take pictures in the first place. Which gets us into interesting but deeper waters...
But...thanks for asking the (initial) question, though... definitely made me think.