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Author Topic: The long arc from the Sony R1 to micro 4/3  (Read 1014 times)

bluekorn

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The long arc from the Sony R1 to micro 4/3
« on: August 19, 2022, 05:14:19 pm »

Full disclosure. My husband gave me permission to ask this question on his account. I loved the Sony R1 for many reasons and last week it finally died. I had very nice 11x14 prints made from it. Does anyone have experience to compare the R1 print at 11x14 to a M4/3 11x14 print? I do realize the present Panasonic has twice the pixels.
Thank you. Scherrie
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Robert Roaldi

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Re: The long arc from the Sony R1 to micro 4/3
« Reply #1 on: August 22, 2022, 10:23:17 am »

Not sure I can completely answer your question but I too once had an R1, and I bought it because of the recommendation by Michael Reichmann on this site. I now shoot m4/3s, Olympus bodies (E-M1 and E-M5 M2) with a mix of Olympus and Panasonic lenses.

The phrase from his review that sold the R1, for me, was his comment that although the R1 at ISO 400 displayed noise when viewed on screen, it was irrelevant when printed. I have shot m4/3s at ISO 400 and 800 (and higher). The m4/3s sensor is slightly smaller than the R1's APS-C sensor. I have no back to back comparisons but have printed 8x10s and a few 11x14s with each and I don't feel as if I was giving anything away by using m4/3s. In my non-pro and non-scientific experience, some of the worry of small sensor noise disappears when you make prints. That noise you see on screen at 100% is often irrelevant and sometimes it's not even ugly when printed. I stopped worrying about this a long time ago, but I don't make large art prints for sale in galleries. OTOH, others do, and nowadays noise reduction software eliminates much of the "problem" at the cost of a few minutes editing.

For a while, I used the Panasonic 12-60/3.5-5.6, which is the focal length equivalent of the R1's lens (more or less) and I came to think of them as functionally equivalent, except the m4/3s system is a smaller and lighter (and you can change lenses). Online reviewers don't always have a high regard for that lens but Panasonic also sells a 12-60/2.8-4, which is regarded more highly. This is personal and anecdotal but I hope it helps.
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Robert

nemophoto

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Re: The long arc from the Sony R1 to micro 4/3
« Reply #2 on: September 02, 2022, 09:35:11 am »

The Sony R1 was an excellent camera for the time with a great lens. A friend of mine picked up an R1 at a yard sale years ago and loved using it for his street photography (converted to B&W), so the noise was never an issue. 20-years ago, I had a 4MP Olympus E10 as one of my early digital cameras. I was able to massage a handful of those up to 20x24.

But, technology moves on and with it, quality. You would be more than happy with a 4/3s sensor camera and could easily go larger than 11x14. You would be thrilled with the speed and accuracy of focus. There is also the quality of the pixels - the software and technology. If you really want APS-C, there are a number on the market. You never said why you wanted to go the 4/3s route, but I gather it’s because of size of the camera, lenses, etc. If that’s the case, I think you’d be happy.
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Paul_Roark

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Re: The long arc from the Sony R1 to micro 4/3
« Reply #3 on: October 03, 2022, 11:05:39 am »

The effort to reduce camera carrying weight and size is a noble one that most of us probably keep an eye on.  In my experience, the largest single step in this effort has been software, not hardware.  Topaz's AI Gigapixel does a very superior job of up-sizing.  It made me a believer that there is more to "AI" than just hype.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com
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