As I’ve talked about in a few recent posts, I’ve been contemplating a change from my old Pentax K100D DSLR to a newer camera, and was looking mainly down the mirrorless route. I’m still keeping my options open on sticking with a full DSLR, but I wanted to check out what mirrorless has to offer. So over the past couple weeks I’ve been doing a ton of reading about what options exist. After reading as much as I could handle online, I decided to hit the local camera store to get my hands on two models in particular, the Sony A6000 and the Olympus OM-D E-M10.

Both cameras are basically the same form factor, with the main difference being the placement of the electronic viewfinder. On the Sony, the EVF is placed to the left of the camera body, and on the Olympus, the placement is in the more SLR-like middle of the camera. This is akin to the old difference between SLRs and rangefinder cameras. The rangefinders had an offset viewfinder that was always just slightly off from what would be coming through the lens. With an EVF this is no longer an issue and everything you see on the screen, or the EVF, is exactly what the sensor is seeing. The only thing I find slightly awkward about the Sony placement is that you’re always shooting off to the right of where your face is (if you’re right eye dominant like me), unless you use the screen on the back more often. The Olympus feels more like a traditional SLR, looking down the barrel of the lens.

Despite being the same size, there are a couple of major differences in how the bodies are shaped between the two cameras. The Sony provides a really nice grip for your right hand that is comfortable and well positioned. The Olympus on the other hand has almost no grip, and it relies on a small area in the back where your thumb lies to help you grip the camera. Personally, I found the Olympus lack of grip a bit annoying, however, they do sell an add-on grip that gives a lot more ‘grab-ability’ to the camera.

Where the Sony fell short ergonomically in my opinion was on the size of the lens. Because Sony uses an APS-C sensor, the lenses are larger than the Olympus Micro Four Thirds system. What this means is that the edge of the lens is right up against the bottom of the camera body. On the Sony this was somewhat awkward because of how large the lens was. As you’re supporting the camera with your left hand in the traditional photography pose, your left hand is manipulating the lens. It felt like I couldn’t quite get my hand in the right position to comfortably manipulate the lens the way I was used to. Whereas, on the Olympus, the MFT lens is smaller than the body and it feels more akin to a typical SLR when adjusting the lens.

Both cameras had an array of buttons and dials, however the Olympus sported a touchscreen which is great for choosing focal points. Additionally the Olympus has multiple dials on the top of the camera so that you can adjust multiple parameters (such as f-stop and shutter speed) without needing to mess with the controls on the back of the body. Apart from these differences, the user interface of each camera will take a lot longer to evaluate than what I was able to play with during my time at the store.

Both the screens, and EVFs, on each camera were bright and crisp, though I’d give a slight edge to the Sony for being just a hair better with it’s color quality and brightness levels. Additionally, both screens slide flat so that you can do waist level shooting if you so desire. Neither camera has any selfie capability, but that could be achieved through the use of one of the controlling smartphone apps.

The other main difference in these cameras is the lens system. The Olympus uses the more industry standard Micro Four Thirds system. This is a lens system that is shared with many other manufactures, such as Panasonic and Fuji. Sony uses a lens mount that is proprietary, called E-Mount. The MFT system has been around a lot longer, and has a much more impressive array of lenses for it. This is a big advantage in my mind, as a camera body is only as good as the glass that you put in front of it.

The sensor size of the two cameras is also another factor that I am reading more about. The MFT sensor is smaller, about half the size of a traditional 35mm frame, whereas the Sony uses the APS-C sensor size, which is actually found in many consumer DSLR cameras. I highly recommend reading this great article from DPReview on how all of these different sensor sizes affect things such as depth-of-field and ISO calculations. The smaller sensor size of the Olympus allows for more compact lenses at longer focal distances, but there are tradeoffs for that compact size, as the article above details.

So after handling both cameras I’m still not sure which way I’m going to go. The Olympus seems like a ‘photographers’ camera, where as the Sony felt more like a consumer level device. I can’t explain the feeling, as they both have amazing feature sets that rival each other. Maybe it’s just the fact that Sony has always been my home entertainment equipment company…

Time to do some more reading and thinking. I’ll probably do another hands on in the future as well, and like I stated earlier, I haven’t written off looking at the DSLR world again either. All in all more to consider, and if anyone out there in blog land has any opinions of experience I’d love to hear it.