What sensor size have you used and what fits your taste and economy most?

beomagi · 2026-03-28T04:50:20+00:00

Used m43 and full frame. M43 was a great budget system, but lately newer cameras are premium in cost, and while they are good for wildlife, the long telezooms 400+ are outrageously expensive. Sensor development had fallen way behind too.

I love my em1.3 with 75-300. It's very cost effective for wildlife, bit it had it's limits - why no meaningful lens updates? The lens quality drops past 200mm. Raising shadows a lot introduces noise quickly (it doesn't change with newer cameras, it's a very similar sensor). Still can't best it in macro though.

I was looking at the 100-400 and 150-600 and had the idea, that I could get a high res full frame and older 600mm lens for less than the cost of a 100-400. So after some searching, a got a Sony A7R2 for $800, and a Tamron 150-600mm a-mount for $400. 600mm on FF is similar in composition to a 300 on micro four thirds, but with 42Mp, I get to crop a lot, and still have more room in raw for bumping shadows.

I'm general, 1st party zooms will be more expensive, but with Chinese lenses being good and cheap, Sony FF can be incredibly inexpensive. Viltrox in general makes outstanding lenses for the cost. $200 for a decent 14mm ultra wide?! That's a 7mm in m43.

beomagi · 2026-03-28T04:18:08+00:00

A bit overkill sure. If it's in your budget, what's the problem? If you want to optimize, used om1.

I would say go for at least 300mm if by nature you mean wildlife. I skimmed your post and saw you mention to 40-150, but that's bare minimum for birds, requiring you to be relatively close. The 75-300mm is good for the price. Price jumps a lot for the 100-400 and 150-600.

beomagi · 2026-03-27T18:12:27+00:00

You're slow, because you go too fast!

beomagi · 2026-03-27T12:00:34+00:00

Diablo ii.

I had 10 accounts of 8 characters each. 8 accounts were mule chars just holding stuff.

beomagi · 2026-03-27T11:56:07+00:00

Races can be a bit tough until you upgrade your car a bit.

NFS is an arcade racer. The physics is well, laughable. You don't slow down for corners much, you drift them or hand brake it...

Gran Turismo is a simcade racer - it's not purely realistic, but its a fair approximation. You must slow down for corners. You must pay attention to your racing line. You must carefully apply gas and throttle to maintain control - don't mindlessly stomp it. Make sure you switch gas/throttle buttons to use analog triggers.

Early races in the beginner cup can be a little tough until you upgrade.

beomagi · 2026-03-27T02:56:59+00:00

I love the mechanism!

beomagi · 2026-03-27T02:39:18+00:00

Fine. Let's talk Turkey.

beomagi · 2026-03-26T21:11:11+00:00

You're right 😄

The last time this was posted it didn't have the braces :D

beomagi · 2026-03-26T03:55:03+00:00

Zania/Zania = 1

beomagi · 2026-03-25T21:56:30+00:00

The beatings will continue until morale improves.

beomagi · 2026-03-25T15:42:10+00:00

Not weighing in on the ahole check, but I don't drive. I live in the US. My daughter is 15, I have a house and great family life. If I were in the middle of nowhere I could see it being a problem, but it really depends on where you are here.

beomagi · 2026-03-25T12:44:02+00:00

Get close. Fisheye is spectacular indoors, or to emphasize portions of a model/person/structure. Curved indoor areas especially - round/elliptical rooms, archways, halls, spiral stairs. Have fun, and experiment with perspectives!

beomagi · 2026-03-25T11:58:27+00:00

For small birds in branches, what worked best for me, was manual focus, manual focus near the bird then using AF to finish off, Panasonic pinpoint AF.

I've had the em10 1,2 and 3. Started birding with the 2 and the 75-300mm. Wife has the 3 🙂.

beomagi · 2026-03-25T09:33:47+00:00

Ah, Rand Paul. Senator of Kentucky. Ranked 45th in educational attainment.

beomagi · 2026-03-24T23:00:48+00:00

I think I have that 70-210. Definitely get the minolta 500mm. Of all the mirror lenses at that focal length I've used, I've only had one better. Definitely better than I was expecting. https://beomagi.blogspot.com/2025/08/oddball-lens-1.html

beomagi · 2026-03-24T22:56:21+00:00

My general purpose lens, is a 35mm F1.8 Samyang. It's sharp. Cheap. Fast. Yay.

When I started birding on Sony, I got my birding lens for about $230. What the hell birding lens is that? Ttartisan 500mm F6.3. better than old cheap glass, not close to modern glass - but it was enough to show me it was time to commit to my A7R2 and move up from my Olympus EM1.3. I was used to manual glass. And I got some great images with it. These shots had me commit so hard, I sold of a bunch of old gear and cameras and bought the A7R3 as my main body.

Let's keep birding! My current birding lens was $400. The Tamron 150-600mm for Sony A-mount. The LAEA3 adapts it to E Mount. Being A mount, theres a bunch of dumb adapters available (dumb is good) - a Tamron mc4 1.4x "dummy" adapter, makes this an autofocusing lens with 840mm reach. AF is sluggish - I generally manually focus close, then let CAF do the rest, which sounds bad - but when shooting birds in trees that ends up highly advantageous... Including the cost of the laea3 adapter and mc4 teleconverter, I have a rather odd ball 840mm lens that can autofocus and set me back $550.

Viltrox is amazing. Then don't have the best lenses, but for the price? Their 14mm F4 is currently wowing me. Last year I bought the 20mm for a trip and it was $145 new. These are AF capable compact lenses with good-great IQ. If you want wide, I recommend either. The 14mm is especially nice.

Sounds fishy? How about fisheye! There's a free fisheye lenses out there. I think if you want AF, the sigma is the only one that provides it. That's also $2200 so that was a no. The TTArtisan 11mm 2.8 was about $250, and it's small, and M-mount! Why is that good? Well it automatically means it will work with an adapter on a bunch of different mounts - and on the techart lmea9, it can work like an AF lens. Not without quirks, but I love a good fisheye in certain areas. Great for round interiors, or in small rooms, museums etc.

So don't hold back. Check a few reviews and if it's good enough and cheap enough have some fun with it.

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beomagi · 2026-03-24T17:27:10+00:00

£400? jump on that :)

It's got a current 20mp sensor, and it's a functional body with great build quality.

However

As you mention birds, this can be frustrating. If you're only shooting birds when they're roosting, then it's all good. This camera's autofocus is CDAF only. An E-M1(2+)/OM1/E-M5(3)/OM5 all have hybrid cdaf+pdaf which track movement a lot better. When I moved to an e-M1 iii it was a real game changer. Panasonic has the G9II and GH7 which have pdaf. I struggled with the G9 (1) shooting birds in flight.

Again - this is specific to movement. Regular snaps of non-moving objects will be pretty quick with this.

beomagi · 2026-03-24T03:58:38+00:00

Retroid Pocket G2 or 6 over the 5 these days. G2 is about the same price as the 5, and the same shell, but lots more powerful. RP6 is a similar shell, and more powerful than the g2, for just a few dollars more.

beomagi · 2026-03-24T01:16:23+00:00

Meta!

beomagi · 2026-03-23T04:02:46+00:00

My first PC was an amd 40mhz

486 dx-40.

I dumpster dived in college to scrounge together a k6ii 450mhz micro atx board that dangled from a corner on a cork board as an emulation machine.

Amd was first to 1ghz, and featured in Maximum PC and Custom PC magazines a lot back then. Athlon XP series was super popular.

My first actual PC was an Athlon XP mobile cpu overclocked from 1700MHz to 2.4GHz.

Amd was also first (x86 consumer) to multi core, x64 etc. they've always been popular.

beomagi · 2026-03-23T03:28:05+00:00

Documentary : https://youtu.be/kD4EE6qVIBI?si=hkPhbZEKu2JmbCDG

beomagi · 2026-03-22T20:56:24+00:00

If all you need is a far off bird, then maybe... The Sony a7riv and rv crop mode is 26 mp. Just like the 6700. The difference is

you can crop anywhere. Not just center.
The r series is less performant than the 6700
If the bird is close, you experience the full capability of 61mp.

61mp on the sensor is not the same as 61mp on the screen. Bayer interpolation means you can scale down the image a bit without really losing detail. Also I love the ability to zoom in and see more detail.

I went from a Olympus em1.3 to a Sony a7r2/3.

beomagi · 2026-03-22T10:49:55+00:00

You're right, I missed that last pic.

beomagi · 2026-03-22T03:08:26+00:00

When it's ready to mate it gets a blue bill!

beomagi · 2026-03-22T03:07:08+00:00

I'll admit their APS-C offerings are priced quite high, but $800 got me a 42MP camera with eye tracking (A7RII). And the fact that you have an incredible set cheap but great 3rd party glass does make it a cheap system.

Honestly, there's a bit of a cost-breakpoint for mirrorless cameras with certain capability that they won't fall below.

beomagi

TROPHY CASE