OM Systems OM-3 - new retro body for 2025

[Coldkennels]

In theory - for FF indoors to get family in focus I need f5.6 with 24 mm.
And ISO 4000 at least, but usually it is 6400. For M43 this will be f2.8 and 3200.
This is for static situation. But I don't like just static family photos.

On practice I haven't seen much family indoors pictures with M43. My own experience wasn't good.

This makes it sound like M43 would actually be better for your needs, not worse - much higher depth of field at equivalent settings.

Looking through a list of M43 lenses, there's a lot of lenses that are either 12mm primes or zooms that cover the 12mm focal length with f/2.8 apertures.

(Also, your numbers are slightly wrong - if you're shooting f/5.6 and 6400 ISO, that's f/2.8 and 1600 ISO, not 3200 ISO.)

I have no idea what the low-light performance of contemporary M43 bodies is like, but my other half is regularly shooting at high ISOs outdoors, and the results are impressive for such small sensors. I forget what she's using, but it's one of the Olympus (i.e. pre OM Systems) OM-D bodies. It's a very capable little thing.

 

[JoeV]

I’ll tell you my experience transitioning from a micro 4/3 LUMIX camera to a full frame Lumix S5ii. Which is that I thought it was gonna be better for the kind of work I do which is mainly video oriented, and mainly close-up at a table in my studio. What I discovered was that in close-up usage, micro 4/3 has an advantage; or let’s say that any smaller format has an advantage over full frame in terms of having intrinsically wider depth of focus. With a full frame camera, I ended up having to boost the iso and stopping down the lens to get the equivalent wide depth of focus that was intrinsic to micro 4/3, which ended up negating all of the advantages of full frame.

Since I’ve learned this, anytime I want to do close-up shots on my studio table I end up using my iPhone or another format even smaller than micro 4/3 because that format’s intrinsically wider depth of focus is better suited for close-up work.

 

[agentlossing]

intrinsically wider depth of focus

Really only due to the focal length being wider, right? It's more like a by-product than an intrinsic product of the format.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

I’ll tell you my experience transitioning from a micro 4/3 LUMIX camera to a full frame Lumix S5ii. Which is that I thought it was gonna be better for the kind of work I do which is mainly video oriented, and mainly close-up at a table in my studio. What I discovered was that in close-up usage, micro 4/3 has an advantage; or let’s say that any smaller format has an advantage over full frame in terms of having intrinsically wider depth of focus. With a full frame camera, I ended up having to boost the iso and stopping down the lens to get the equivalent wide depth of focus that was intrinsic to micro 4/3, which ended up negating all of the advantages of full frame.

Since I’ve learned this, anytime I want to do close-up shots on my studio table I end up using my iPhone or another format even smaller than micro 4/3 because that format’s intrinsically wider depth of focus is better suited for close-up work.

I never need to bump ISO if on tripod. Depending on camera manufacturer, focus stacking will also works via camera external software.

 

[JoeV]

Really only due to the focal length being wider, right? It's more like a by-product than an intrinsic product of the format.

Well, without a lens, they’re just sensors. But if you use them as cameras as we do, and desire a specific angle of view … then for the same equivalent angle of view the smaller sensor has the shorter focal length, which gives it intrinsically wider depth of focus for the same aperture.

So for applications like recording video of objects on a tabletop vignette (where you can’t focus stack because it’s video) and you wish to get as much of the object in focus (because the purpose of the video is descriptive, not narrow-depth-of-focus “art”), the smaller sensor camera has wider depth of focus for the same exposure setting.

These differences may not matter in theoretical discussions, but in practical use, as I discovered, sensor size makes a huge difference, especially for descriptive imagery where more in-focus information about the subject is desired.