Young (ish) guy here (35-45 age bracket to be vague!) and I’ll openly admit to flirting with other systems. My first serious camera was the Panasonic G1 when it first came out and I was looking for something better to take photos of my eldest, now 10. I really bucked the trend in our office where it was all about DSLRs and mainly Canon. I was eventually ground down and tried a 550D and 50D, but then the Panasonic GX1 came out and I was smitten again.
The thing that keeps tempting me to look around is Eye/Face AF performance. I know for some this feature is a gimmick, but for me it allows me to get photos of my kids in a “street style” whilst out walking with them. My kids don’t pose! You point a camera at them and they’ll grimace or pull some other unattractive face, the best I can do is to be stealthy and that’s where Eye/Face AF comes in:
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For those with kids and trying to capture the moment without having to think too hard, Face/Eye AF is a game changer and should significantly increase the hit rate.
I recently switched to the Nikon Z6 (actually really nice and surprisingly compact if you stick below 100mm, but it failed my restaurant test with its massive prime lenses - I want something that isn’t going to intimidate people) and I then briefly tried an X-T3 (horrible ergonomics) before trying an X-T4 (great camera, let down by 90s lens motors in their faster primes. If I have to stick with f/2 primes to get fast AF performance my thoughts were that I’d just as well stick with mu43).
So... I’m back with a G9 and so far I’m being reminded of why I looked around! The G9 will happily draw a little box around a person / face and then mess with you by focusing on a random tree in the background! I’d say I’m getting a 50% success rate with face AF and then if I use the small AF box it’s closer to 100%. Even with C-AF the face box just won’t jump to the subject that it’s drawing a box around, it’s frustrating.
I’ve now got an Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mk III on order because the reviews all look very favourable and I really really want to stick with mu43. I’m more than happy with the image quality I can get and I love that I have a choice of small primes (Oly 17mm f/1.8) or larger primes if I really want the shallow depth of field look (Oly 17mm f/1.2). I also like that the 12-100mm is around the same size as a FF 24-70mm lens and together with a couple of primes I meet all my needs.