I recently picked up an old Olympus OM-D EM-1 to play with, along with a couple of prime lenses. The photos it produces aren’t as high-resolution than those of my iPhone 16 Pro Max, but they look a lot nicer regardless. Part of that is due to the larger sensor which no phone is going to be able to compete with, but it’s also because it allows contrast to exist and photos don’t turn into smudge/blotch soup when zoomed in a little. Thanks to that, its photos capture mood better and feel closer to what I see (or remember seeing). I’ve toyed with alternative camera apps (of which many exist on iOS) and those are a bit better, but still fall short of an decade+ old standalone camera.
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> Each surveillance technology in our field guide includes the following categories to help you “spot” surveillance technology in the wild One shouldn't trust their eyes alone to spot all the hidden cameras that private property owners love to have covering the streets. For example, it took me months to realize that a tenant in my own building has three cameras pointed down from the windows of their unit and can track my every coming and going if they so wish, and that's an environment I have my eyes on every single day. I have a modified Olympus OM-D E-M5Ⅱ MFT camera body that I picked up on a whim because it came with a bunch of lenses and batteries and other things I wanted to use with my PEN-F, and it turned out to be amazing for spotting hidden surveillance cameras. The way it works is that the underlying camera sensor can see IR by design, and an IR-cut filter is installed over it to restrict it to the visible spectrum for photography. The mod simply opens up the camera body and removes that part. Surveillance cameras in dark rooms (or at night on the street) then show up as bright spots, because the modified body can see the ring of IR LEDs they use to illuminate dark scenes for night surveillance. I don't have any surveillance-spotting images to share, because I usually only do that via the viewfinder live preview (because tbh a photo of an all-black room with a single bright IR blob isn't interesting enough to shoot), but for example here is my IR photo of the Wi…
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I picked up an Olympus OM-D E-M5 III (weather sealed) during the pandemic and started going on photo walks. Fell in love with it and have taken it all over the US on road trips and hikes. I’ve since purchased other cameras and have gone pretty deep down the photography rabbit hole. Recently I’ve been eyeing a used Panasonic GX85 to pair with my existing smaller lenses like the Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 because it’s even smaller than the Olympus. But I still use my iPhone for some things - especially video. There are some great compact micro four thirds cameras on the market that are better than a phone but still small enough to carry regularly. The “Micro Four Nerds” YouTube channel is a great resource if you’re curious. She covers many of the really compact every day carry cameras on the market and best lenses for various scenarios. MFT cameras are a great gateway into the hobby, and some of the more vintage looking bodies just inspire me to take them everywhere and take photos. Highly recommend looking at used gear on sites like mpb.com or keh.com. Can usually find lightly used equipment for significantly less than retail pricing.
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It was never about resolution. 4/3s was dismissed because it’s very hard to get nice depth / bokeh, poor ISO, and great lenses were rare. It works great for niches like wildlife, news, street photography, not so for others. I owned an E-M10 for a while and ended up selling because it had nothing much to distinguish itself from my iPhone, and with all the computing power the phone photos were sharper and with better dynamic range. Portrait mode also evolved to do a pretty decent job for family pictures. APS-C is at the sweet spot of enabling very small bodies and lenses, but still getting FF-like images with a fast lens and decent low-light performance. My current Fuji kit is actually lighter than the old MFT one and about the same size, while taking far better pictures.
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Micro four thirds (u43) cameras are generally much smaller than DSLRs, and even quite a bit smaller than full-frame MILCs (mostly because the lenses are smaller). Their optical performance isn't as good a full-frame DSLR, but they are close enough to be a good substitute. I have a u43 Olympus E-M5 III, and also a FF Panasonic S5, and although the Panasonic is "better", the Olympus is so much easier to stuff into a bag that it's still my camera of choice most of the time. I should note that not all u43 cameras are small - Olympus / OM have a top-end "1" model that is large and clunky. But the "5" and "10" models are nice and compact. I think the Panasonics and the Olympus / OM PENs are pretty small too. There is then a useful range of lenses that lets you trade off performance, zoom range, and size; there are great, tiny primes; decent, tiny zooms; and great, chunkier zooms. In particular, the Pansonic Lumix G 12-32mm lens is 24 mm long. I can put that on my E-M5 and carry it in a jacket pocket. People have managed to take photos with it: https://www.flickr.com/groups/vario1232f3556/pool/