Originally posted by: gar655
Hmmm, going from a relatively fast and really high quality lens to what is quite possibly the worst kit lens ever produced in the quest of shallower DOF???
Based on the lenses you suggest you're going to buy the only shallow DOF you're going to get is with one of the 50mms.
You can get a Zuiko 50/1.2 MF for your E300. Maybe the older version of the 40-150 and when used properly can give a pretty shallow DOF. Sigma 30/1.4 maybe.
I can understand jumping off the 4/3 train I just can't understand jumping into something like the A200 and cheap lower quality lenses.
Gene
Been there done that with manual focus. It's nearly impossible with the 4/3 system because the viewfinder is so small. It's not like we're talking about a 35mm split prism viewfinder here. Shallow DOF is difficult to do on the 4/3 system unless you're using an f/1.4 lens or a telephoto.
I've owned a wide selection of 4/3 lens in my time:
14-45mm kit
40-150mm kit
35mm f/3.5 macro
50mm f/2 (nice and sharp, but I don't have time to wait 5 seconds for this thing to autofocus)
14-54mm f/2.8 (very good all around lens, but DOF is too wide)
50-200mm f/2.8 (very nice but too big)
Sigma 24mm f/1.8 (a soft, slow focusing joke)
Leica 14-50mm (basically the same lens as the 14-54 but with IS)
and I've found that I've had to compromise too much for every single one that I owned. I thought about the Sigma 30mm f/1.4, but 60mm is an awkward focal length. Not wide enough for street shooting, but too short for portraits. I considered the Leica 25mm, but I'm not going to spend $900 for a normal f/1.4 lens that can only achieve f/2.8 DOF on the 4/3 system.
Speaking of the worst kit lens ever, I found it quite sad that I was playing around with it and the A200 in my dark living room last night, and it focused faster than my old E-300 ever did in broad daylight with high quality glass.
The only thing I will miss about the Olympus is often times JPEGS straight out of the camera require no post processing. The colors were wonderful.
These are the cameras I looked at:
Canon XSi (didn't like the way it felt in my hand)
Canon 40D (too expensive for me at the moment)
Nikon D80 (Almost had me, but no in-body IS was the deal breaker)
Sony A200K (I considered the A350K but 10 MP is plenty and I'm not all that interested in live-view)
Pentax K200D (I feel that Sony will be around longer if I decide to stick around)
I wasn't even remotely interested in the Nikon D40/D40x/D60 lineup.
You can't really diss the A200K. It has decent specs for a dirt cheap price, and the reviews back me up that it's a good camera.
EDIT: Plus, I never said I expected shallow DOF from the kit lens. It just happened to come with the package. What was I going to tell them? Take it out of the box because I don't want it?
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