Honest appraisal

poider · Oct 6, 2025

G’day, I currently have a Nikon D7200 and an OM -5 both cropped sensor cameras, the Nikon 1.5x crop and the OM-5 2x crop, Getting harder to replace lenses for the DSLR and not fully happy with the m4/3 sensor performance…. Looking at an upgrade soon, will trade all in for the next kit…
Thinking of entry level Nikon Z5 m2 or the OM-1 m2.
I would like an honest opinion about the comparative differences.
Nikon Z5 m2 is entry level and would have cheapish kit lenses, but is Full Frame.
OM -1 m2 is advanced flagship model and would have a couple at least one pro lens, it also has a bsi stacked sensor.
I take my camera on holidays generally cruiseships so take a lot of interiors of ships, lots of sealife and light houses as well as general photography whilst touring from the ships.
My main concern is picture clarity and low noise, I usually shoot in jpeg and do not like a lot of post processing, so would really like a camera kits tat takes good clear photos straight out of camera.
I hear and watch a lot of reviewers, but they are usually paid by or sponsored by the system they are advertising and it is hard to take them seriously.
Has anyone used both and have a genuine assessment of one against the other.
I know there is a huge difference between FF and M4/3 but not sure if the tech in both makes them fairly equal or not at all.
Thank you
Peter

Ysarex · Oct 6, 2025

poider said:
G’day, I currently have a Nikon D7200 and an OM -5 both cropped sensor cameras, the Nikon 1.5x crop and the OM-5 2x crop, Getting harder to replace lenses for the DSLR and not fully happy with the m4/3 sensor performance…. Looking at an upgrade soon, will trade all in for the next kit…
Thinking of entry level Nikon Z5 m2 or the OM-1 m2.
I would like an honest opinion about the comparative differences.
Nikon Z5 m2 is entry level and would have cheapish kit lenses, but is Full Frame.
OM -1 m2 is advanced flagship model and would have a couple at least one pro lens, it also has a bsi stacked sensor.
I take my camera on holidays generally cruiseships so take a lot of interiors of ships, lots of sealife and light houses as well as general photography whilst touring from the ships.
My main concern is picture clarity and low noise, I usually shoot in jpeg and do not like a lot of post processing, so would really like a camera kits tat takes good clear photos straight out of camera.
I hear and watch a lot of reviewers, but they are usually paid by or sponsored by the system they are advertising and it is hard to take them seriously.
Has anyone used both and have a genuine assessment of one against the other.
I know there is a huge difference between FF and M4/3 but not sure if the tech in both makes them fairly equal or not at all.
Thank you
Peter

I don't have the two specific cameras that you're considering but I do have a FF Nikon (Z7) and two Olympus M4/3 sensor cameras (PenLites). The tech in both can't make them fairly equal. The differences in sensor area can't be overcome by tech advances -- it's physics. The larger sensor is going to have 3 advantages;
1. less noise -- 4X sensor area collects more total light = less noise.
2. higher resolution.
3. more total dynamic range.
So given those advantages I probably use my FF camera the most. No. In fact I use the M4/3 sensor cameras for over 90% of what I do and the FF stays in the drawer. That's because all three of those advantages are either inaccessible to me or don't matter. Let's take the easy one first; resolution. I spent a couple years using a 12mp sensor camera and still have hundreds of photos I took with that camera. 12mp was enough resolution for me. It was close and I couldn't get away with much cropping, occasionally I got squeezed. But 16mp in my PenLites is more than enough. Thing about resolution is when you have enough more really is just a waste. I don't need more than more than enough.
Less noise. You're not going to like this one but because I shoot exclusively raw and am able to optimize my sensor exposure most of the time, my m4/3 photos are all noiseless -- zero noise. My FF camera can take photos with less noise but less nose than zero doesn't get me anything. NOTE: The less noise that my FF camera can deliver is inaccessible to me and I suspect may be inaccessible to you. To take full advantage of my Z7's better noise performance I'd frequently have to use a tripod and that's not an option for me. Without the tripod my FF camera's noise performance is going to be about equal to what I get from my PenLites. The M4/3 sensor cameras have a two stop exposure advantage over the FF camera because in order to match DOF between them the FF camera has to be stopped down two stops more than the M4/3 camera. In other words if I have the DOF I want in a photo at f/4 with the PenLite then to get the same photo from the FF I'd have to stop the lens to f/8 and that's going to take away two stops of shutter speed very possibly forcing me to raise the ISO instead on the FF. If I really want the same photo from both cameras I have to match DOF and that's going to cost me two stops of exposure on the FF.
My earlier comment about you're not liking this: You want to shoot JPEGs. That basically forces you to expose the sensor in your camera to only 1/2 or less than 1/2 of the amount of light that I apply to expose the sensor in my camera. The noise we most commonly see in our photos is a function of two things; exposure and sensor area. Less exposure = more noise. Shooting JPEGs and you're much more likely to encounter noisy photos because you have to expose less.
Finally DR; I take photos in natural light walking around outdoors. The lighting conditions I encounter require on average 7 to 8 stops of DR and when side and back-lit up to ten stops. My Z7 can deliver nearly 12 stops of DR but that's overkill. Shrink the sensor and you shrink DR capacity. My PenLites can just barely take me over the 10 stops I sometimes need for high contrast light. So the FF is overkill. Your ship interiors are potentially very high DR, but you may be giving up the ability to capture that shooting JPEGs -- some modern cameras now have JPEG focused features to deal with high DR like in-camera HDR processing. You may want to look into that with the cameras you're considering.
Another option is to compromise in the middle and get an APS-C mirrorless camera which will plug you into a new line of lenses.

TJMcG · Oct 6, 2025

The Z5 II is an FX-size camera, but will take any Z lens, not just "cheapish kit lenses." It will also take any older F-mount lenses you already have with an FTZ adapter. I don't have a Z5, but I have a Z50 II (DX) and a Z8, (FX), and I buy the best lenses I can afford and use them on both cameras. Just buy the body and the lenses you want separately.

I don't know anything about Olympus cameras.

poider · Oct 6, 2025

I am also considering APS C as in the Z50 m2 but the battery life turns me off, bad enough on the OM-5, I recently visited Hawaii and went to the Zoo, on that day I exhausted 3.5 batteries, and they say the Z50 m2 is worse, The lenses I have for the f mount are pretty basic kit lenses, so I would have to buy new lenses for the z mount.
I don’t shoot raw as I would have to edit every photo

poider · Oct 7, 2025

I want to build a system around the camera, but start with a travel lens that does it all with one lens or at most two, currently I use the OM-5 with the 12-40mm f/2.8 and the 75-300mm f/4.8-6.7, this gives me the FF FOV of 24-80mm and 150-600mm, the Nikon D7200 I have the 18-140mm and the sigma 150-500 FF FOV of 27-210mm and 225-750.
I am thinking of the OM 1 m2 with 12-200 f/3.5-6.3. Or he Nikon Z5 m2 with the 28-400 f/4-8

wfooshee · Oct 7, 2025

I'm not sure what "getting harder to replace lenses on the DSLR" comes from. The D7200 does not require DX lenses; it will mount any FX lens, all the way back to manual-focus AI-enabled lenses. (In Nikon parlance, AI is Auto-Indexing, not artificial intelligence.) It has a focus motor in the body so it will use the earliest AF lenses for Nikon's F-mount.