Micro Four Thirds vs APSC: Lumix 14-140mm vs Canon RF-S 18-150mm

 

SailGP on Sydney Harbour

I have a history with Micro Four Thirds (MFT) equipment since 2009 and also with the Lumix 14-140mm f3.5-5.6 superzoom lens. 

I switched from Lumix to Canon when the RF mount with dual pixel phase detect AF became available. However I still have a new-ish Lumix G100D and a good near new copy of the current version of 14-140mm lens. 

This was introduced in 2013, replacing the previous 14-140mm f4.5-5.8 of 2009.

The 14-140mm f3.5-5.6 was updated in 2019 gaining improved weather sealing with a thin rubber gasket around the lens mount  but no change to the optics or stabiliser.

YouTube has been sending a lot of MFT promotional videos my way recently including several extolling the virtues of the current version of the Lumix 14-140mm. I used the 2013 version of this lens mounted to a Lumix G7 on many trips in Australia, New Zealand and the Southern Ocean  several years ago. It generally delivered good results with no particular problems apart from those associated with the contrast detect AF on the Lumix camera body.

The Canon lens was introduced in 2016 as the EF-M 18-150mm f3.5-6.3 IS STM, then re-housed into the RF mount in 2022 while retaining the same lens formulation. I was distinctly underwhelmed with the EF-M version of this lens but Canon appears to have changed something for its RF-S re-birth because the new version is much improved.

The Canon lens is often sold as a kit with the R10 body. In Australia camera gear prices vary greatly but a figure of AUD1700 is fairly typical. 

The G100D is not sold with the 14-140mm as a kit in Australia so the two have to be purchased separately for around the same price as the Canon kit. 

I ran tests to see how the MFT kit consisting of the G100D with 14-140mm lens fared alongside the Canon EOS R10 with RF-S 18-150mm lens.

Spoiler alert, it proved to be a no-contest. The Canon kit is much better at all focal lengths and apertures.

The Lumix lens is nicely presented with a petal type lens hood (Canon are you paying attention ??) and a soft pouch. The Lumix lens is a bit shorter and lighter but wider than the Canon with a larger filter size.

Both have an image stabiliser included in the lens.

I ran tests on my usual lens test chart and also some general photographic scenes. 

I noticed that although the Lumix lens has a  nominal 10x zoom range and the Canon an 8.3x zoom range, the actual difference between the angle of view at the wide end long end of each is less than the numbers might suggest and in practice barely significant. 

The test chart showed that the Canon lens is sharper at all focal lengths and apertures. The Lumix suffers from some de-centering at the long end which doesn’t help. In addition some frames with the Lumix kit were not exactly in focus despite the chart being evenly and brightly lit with a focussing pattern to make focus easily achievable.

Photos of general scenes with the Lumix lens look OK with no serious problems but if we want to transfer a high level of sharply rendered detail from subject to photo, the Lumix lens is not the best way to achieve this. 

Comparisons like this inevitably raise the question of the ongoing viability of the Micro Four Thirds system.

The single selling point of MFT is the proposition that MFT camera bodies and lenses can be smaller and lighter than comparable offerings with APSC sensors but still deliver comparable image quality and performance.  A search of the relevant camera and lens catalogues will quickly reveal that this is at best only partly true. Many MFT camera bodies and lenses are in fact not smaller than many APSC offerings and do not deliver comparable performance. In the comparison cited in this post the MFT kit is slightly smaller although less enjoyable ergonomically and image quality, performance and focussing are all at a lower level than the APSC kit. The commercial reality is that MFT research and development has slowed to a crawl. Pana-Lumix is directing almost all its limited resources into building up the full frame Lumix S catalogue. 

From my perspective as a consumer and former MFT enthusiast, Pana-Lumix appears to be running down the clock on their MFT project with the likely aim of withdrawing altogether from MFT at some indeterminate future time. 

Their recently released L10 compact model is described by several reviewers as a micro four thirds model but in fact MFT is a protocol for a mirrorless interchangeable lens system and the new L10 is a fixed lens compact.

I notice that OM system’s financial health does not appear promising at least on the published numbers. Their output of genuinely new product and not just refreshed versions of existing Olympus bodies and lenses, is very small. 

I think it is possible that MFT might continue as a viable system if more Chinese camera, drone and lens makers see it as a relatively accessible entry path to the interchangeable lens camera market mainly for video and vlogging.

But for still photography I cannot see how MFT is more attractive to buyers than any of the more numerous and better supported APSC system cameras and lens catalogues.

We shall see.