Micro Four Thirds also has its drawbacks: the key is understanding whether they are real drawbacks or not. Some people far more authoritative than me write about this topic much better — for instance Andrea Bernesco in his micro43 sensei series; I strongly recommend reading his more in-depth considerations.
Elective affinities, part II. Micro 4/3 for riding reportage and bikepacking
After having discussed how a bike can help you at shooting, either because of its stability, or carrying options, or other small details. Now it’s time to spend a few words on the opposite combination – how gear can assist us while shooting from our bike – or make it harder. So, time to speak of Micro4/3 and cycling photography.
Small premise: all cameras are good. As the saying goes, “The best camera is the one you have in your hands”; that’s quite true: what really matters is that we enjoy using it and that it’s comfortable for how we use it (and about this, you can always learn and ajudst—see the “customization” section further down or the dedicated article).
Beyond this very important subjective parameter, there are also some objective criteria that can help us choose the right gear. So here, point by point, is why I’m satisfied with this system both for work and for riding. It took me a little while to organize my thoughts—about five years; hoping they aren’t all obvious or trivial, here’s the result of restless tests and experiences.
Warning
This article includes some nerding
Stabilization, for those who never stop
Somewhat surprisingly, let’s start with this feature, which at first glance doesn’t seem to have a huge impact. But in reality, it does—very much so: when you’re riding at 20 km/h on gravel, stabilization is absolutely essential. Otherwise, the vibrations from your hand or the bike would force you to throw away three quarters of your shots. So thank goodness that almost all modern cameras now have more than adequate stabilization. The old rule of “double the focal length”—that is, shooting at least at 1/100 of a second with a 50mm lens—is now dead and buried.
However, however… there’s stabilization, and then there’s stabilization. From talking with many colleagues using a wide variety of systems, two points have emerged.
First: any stabilized mirrorless camera lets you shoot comfortably with several extra stops of shutter speed.
Second: in a category of its own there’s Olympus (now OM System). Maybe it’s because the smaller sensor is physically easier to stabilize, maybe it’s because the engineers came up with incredible solutions, maybe it’s a mix of many things; the fact is that OM stabilization is outstanding—bordering on the ridiculous. Just for fun, I took handheld shots at 150mm (i.e. the equivalent of 300mm in 35mm terms) at 1 second, with an almost guaranteed success rate—let’s say 4 shots out of 5. This was with the very recent OM-1 II, but even the E-M1 III is no joke at all: I remember taking—again, just as a test, not out of necessity—shots at 150mm at 1/4 second without any issues.
I’ve also recently discovered that stabilization isn’t always customizable: it’s either on or off, even in advanced cameras (for example, on the Fuji X-T5). Olympus cameras, on the other hand, allow you to activate vertical and horizontal stabilization separately, which is very useful for panning. Small details, sure—but only up to a point.
Then there’s a whole very technical and complex discussion—which, honestly, I haven’t fully wrapped my head around—about the difference between in-body stabilization and lens stabilization. The fact remains that “more is better,” so the many stops of stabilization offered by the OM-1 increase even further when using lenses like the 12–100 f/4, which has its own built-in stabilization. It’s overkill—I can’t even think of a real-world use case—but it can be done.
Moreover, having so much stabilization makes the compatibility limits between OM and Lumix bodies and lenses basically negligible: yes, you lose the dual stabilization, but honestly, who cares. I regularly use the Lumix 35–100 f/2.8 on various OM bodies, and I’ve never really felt the limitation of not having dual stabilization; even with that lens I’ve taken shots at 100mm at 1/16 (not as a test, but out of necessity) without any issues, letting the camera’s IBIS do all the work.
1/90, f/11, @12mm
Less is more. Size and weight (and price)
Focusing on every single gram isn’t the right approach if you want to take photos and enjoy shooting —at that point, you might as well just grab a phone and be done with it. If you enjoy photography because it gives you satisfaction to think, experiment, tinker, and shoot, then you’re stuck with a proper camera, which means weight—there’s no way around it. Even though modern technology (i.e. mirrorless) reduced weight and bulk, a camera is not exactly a cereal bar.
Here too, the choice of format is crucial: the 35mm format (the glorious Full Frame, or FF) requires lenses of a certain size, whereas with smaller sensors (APS-C, like Fuji, and Micro Four Thirds, like OM and Lumix), lenses can be smaller. It’s simple physics.
Glass, but also AF motors and the case, are smaller and lighter. The difference becomes noticeable when you’re comparing similar lenses.
Prices follow the same pattern. Just to give one example: from a single round silicon wafer you can obtain 24 full-frame sensors, 80 APS-C sensors, and 244 Micro Four Thirds sensors—that’s ten times as many! So it’s obvious that costs are lower, and this also pulls down the weight and bulk of the other components.
Important note: the difference in weight and bulk isn’t so much in the camera bodies, which are more or less designed for our hands and therefore look quite similar (aside from ultra-compact and single-lens models, like the Ricoh GR series, Canon PowerShot, Sony RX100, and the like—but that’s a different discussion). The real, significant difference is in the lenses, and there’s no getting around that.
A 70–200 f/2.8 for full frame, despite the recent “slimming treatments,” weighs about 1 kg, maybe slightly less; the Lumix 35–100 f/2.8, on the other hand, is about the size of a Coke can and weighs just under 300 grams. Yes, it’s true, the depth of field is equivalent to f/5.6, so it’s not exactly the same—fine.
Still, you go ahead and carry a 1-kg zoom lens; I’ll be happy to have my acn of Coke while riding up to 3.000mt.
Price! Money, cash, dough, bucks
Camera and lenses budget
A not-so-secondary advantage of the “small format” (which is all relative anyway: back in the 1980s, 35mm was dismissed as a small format—something Galen Rowell, whom I’ve mentioned here and will mention again, talks about) is the price. The sensor costs significantly less (there’s an interesting video about material costs, especially around minute 4:30), and less glass and less metal are needed to build the lenses. All of this has a major impact on the final price, as well as on weight and bulk.
To give an example, the two lenses I started riding with—the usual 45mm f/1.8 and 25mm f/1.7—can be found used, like new, for €100–200 depending on the moment; I paid €550 for the 35–100 f/2.8 that I use for work, bought as an ex-display item. But even buying brand new, prices are very different compared to full-frame systems: at full retail, the 12–40 f/2.8 costs €950—not cheap, but exactly half the price of its Canon equivalent, the RF 24–70 f/2.8. In general, that’s the kind of proportion we’re talking about.
Maybe another time we’ll talk about practical examples of a “first-approach” kit. We’ve already gone on long enough here, and there’s still plenty more to cover.
So, the next point is lens choice; here we’ll talk about it in general terms, just to get our bearings.
Micro Four Thirds is a consortium, with Olympus (now OM System) and Lumix as the two main brands. Compatibility between the systems isn’t 100% (for example, lens stabilization doesn’t work on bodies from the other brand), but in practice there are no real issues mixing lenses and camera bodies in any combination (as I do with the Lumix 35–100 on OM bodies).
The Olympus lens lineup is organized into three categories: standard line, premium line, and PRO line. Each range includes both prime and zoom lenses, and the overall lineup is very extensive.
Lumix lenses are just as good, and there are some real gems; let’s say they complement OM lenses well, with truly unique options like the 10–25 f/1.7 and 25–50 f/1.7 pair, as well as the much-loved 35–100 f/2.8. (The Olympus 40–150 f/2.8 is fantastic, but bulky for riding.)
Then there are third-party lenses, such as Laowa or Voigtländer: very solid and about 99% compatible, and often quite distinctive, like ultra-wide angles or macro lenses.
Let’s narrow the focus to OM lenses: the base range is more than respectable, but the premium line is the one that really brings out the strengths of the cameras. These lenses are extremely compact and deliver very high quality—for example, the already mentioned 45mm and the 17mm f/1.8 both weigh 120 g and are excellent.
Micro 4/3 drawbacks - and are they a real drawback?
1. Image quality, megapixels, and printing
First of all, let’s talk about “image quality.” A term that means everything and nothing. As far as megapixels are concerned, 20 are more than enough — and in fact the ultra-mega-professional-high-end full-frame sports cameras use 20 or 24 MP sensors, not more.
Actually, when traveling, having 20 MP files is very convenient, because they’re easier to manage on a phone and you don’t need to carry four SD cards for a two-week trip (which also cost money — anywhere from about twenty euros for a good SD card to hundreds of euros for a CFexpress card).
Then there’s printing, because in the end it’s great to take photos, but it’s even better to see that picture of the guy you met in some remote corner of the world years ago hanging on your wall. I usually print at 40×30 cm, and I’ve never had problems (except those caused by myself). This image of the Strada dei Cannoni was printed at 1 m × 70 cm: no image quality issues whatsoever.
Strada dei Cannoni, 2021
Conclusion? Megapixels are a non-issue; for those who want to go deeper, there’s also this long and detailed video by ProMirrorless.
2. Micro 4/3 doesn't handle high ISO
Short answer – true, you get one stop less compared to FF modern cameras. There’s no way around it. Electronics can patch things up, but physics is physics, and you can’t escape the intrinsic limits of a sensor. But that’s only part of the story: another part is that, thanks to having roughly double the depth of field compared to full frame, in some situations I can shoot wide open where I would have to stop down with full frame, thus compensating for the ISO issue.
But aside from these specific cases (typically indoor, low-light scenes such as a restaurant or a tent), the fact is that I’ve never had ISO problems when shooting cycling. I only did once, when I needed very fast shutter speeds in a dark gym (not dark like a volleyball court — dark like Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion). For everything else, I’ve never gone above ISO 3200, and more often I’ve stayed within ISO 2000, which m43 handles just fine. With the newer OM-1 I also push to ISO 4000 when needed, since it performs a bit better.
3. Heavy post-processing, explained with a car metaphor
Here we get into very technical territory that I don’t fully master, so I’ll just share the opinion I’ve formed so far: it’s nice to be able to really push files — lift shadows by four stops, and so on.
This is possible with full-frame cameras and much harder with M43: if I mess up the exposure by 4 stops, there’s not much I can do; the photo has to be good to begin with, since there’s less margin for error. But for me, that’s exactly the point: if I need to lift shadows by four stops, I’ve taken the photo wrong. And that can be avoided fairly easily thanks to all the available aids — auto ISO, histogram, highlight and shadow warnings.
To use a car engine metaphor: full frame and micro43 are like two 200-horsepower engines. But the first is a generous 2.4-liter turbo diesel, with constant torque between 1,500 and 3,000 rpm, so elastic you can start in third gear; the second is a 1.2-liter naturally aspirated gasoline engine, wrung out to the limit, with torque only between 5,000 and 6,000 rpm. The final power is the same, but it’s harder to extract it from the second than from the first. Bruuum brrummm!
4. Blur and bokeh
It all depends on what we want to do. In some cases, an increased depth of field is an advantage.
For physical reasons, depth of field in micro4/3 is doubled compared to full frame (APS-C is about 1.5×, while “medium format,” which is even larger than FF, has even shallower depth of field). This means, in practical terms, less background blur.
For me, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, because I like a reportage-style approach where almost everything is sufficiently in focus to be readable. I’m rarely interested in seeing just a face floating in a creamy background; I prefer understanding a scene. Depth of field is a narrative tool like any other, but if only one element is in focus, that isolation makes it harder to describe an interaction or a situation. Advantage or disadvantage? It depends on what we’re looking for — the important thing is being aware of it.
Hotel in Rotterdam, 2022. With full frame, I would have had to stop down to make the background outside the window readable.
5. those famous computational features
I’m putting them last because I really appreciate them — they’re simply clever, to borrow Škoda’s slogan — but I almost never use them.
For some kind of photography they can be important, so here’s a quick summary (you’ll find dozens of videos on YouTube if you want to dive deeper):
- Live Composite: allows you to capture long-exposure scenes by combining only the bright parts of multiple exposures — ideal for light trails or fireworks without overexposing the image.
- High Res Shot: creates high-resolution images by combining multiple shots into a single, highly detailed photo. It works both on a tripod and — incredibly — handheld (and it really works well).
- Live ND: simulates the effect of neutral density filters, allowing motion effects like silky water without physical filters.
- Live GND (Graduated Neutral Density): the most recent addition, lets you apply graduated filters directly in camera, balancing exposure between sky and ground in landscape photography.
- Focus Stacking: automatically combines multiple images shot at different focus distances to create a photo with extended depth of field, especially useful in macro photography. It works only with a selection of PRO lenses.
More thoughts about Tools and Techniques
Little vademecum for shooting while cycling. #1 – Editing.
First episode of a short editing guide. Let's start with the necessary step - reducing the number of good pics.
Turning constraints into narrative keys: Paul Fusco’s Kennedy’s Funeral Train [1968]
The italian saying is "fare di necessità virtù": a classic reportage and what it can teach us about cycling photography
How does Memory work? 4 ideas for cycling storytelling inspired by Wim Wenders’ “Once” [1993]
A book of simple pictures (and four simple ideas) showing us how memory works.