see also:

• professional sports / journalistic dSLRs
• Olympus OMD E-M1X pro sports camera
• Micro Four Thirds system
• Sony a9 full frame mirrorless camera
• em1xVSFF_400mm
• em1xVSFF_80-300mm
• e-m1x.de - unofficial site created to consolidate news of the E-M1x
• my blog post on the 600mm challenge

• The Olympus OMD E-M1X pro sports camera with the Olympus mZD 300mm f/4 PRO lens gives a very portable, sharp, easily hand holdable 600mm super telephoto solution for sports and wildlife photographers but how well does it compare with its peers which have dominated this niche
• I have thus sought to compare this combination with some pro sports combinations available in 2019
• Note than I have NOT included Canon R full frame mirrorless camera system nor Nikon Z full frame mirrorless system as neither of these have dedicated super telephoto lenses available in 2019, although, like the Sony a9, they could use adapted dSLR lenses although one would expect the AF capability would not be up to that of a dedicated lens for tracking fast moving subjects, however, Sony seem to have reasonable C-AF tracking with their Sony A mount lenses via their LA-EA3 adapter at up to 10fps.
• Note also that the E-M1X could use the “super-pro” Four Thirds dSLR super telephoto lenses - Olympus ZD 150mm f/2.0 super telephoto lens, Olympus ZD 300mm f/2.8 super telephoto lens and Olympus ZD 90-250mm f/2.8 super telephoto lens via an adapter

• the Olympus kit is FAR more affordable ($US5500 - almost a QUARTER of the price), far lighter and smaller (2.3kg vs around 9kg), does not require a tripod, has far more features (such as Pro-Capture mode, hand held 50mp HiRes mode), in-camera focus limiter settings, much closer focus, better weathersealing, is far more travel-friendly and much less conspicuous, gives far better hand held video stabilisation and an incredible 7.5EV Dual IS, has built-in GPS and sensors, lots of unique AF functionality to ignore backgrounds and foregrounds and the new AI tracking, AF works to much lower light levels and has a lovely articulating, swivel rear screen, and in-camera USB charging.
• the dSLRs have the advantage of the optical viewfinder and thus much better battery life and much deeper buffer for longer burst modes at full burst and the best pro support systems.
• the Sony has the best viewfinder, subject AF tracking and AF frame coverage but is severely lacking in lens choice, burst rate with mechanical shutter, extremely slow buffer clearance especially in extra large jpeg mode, is slowest to power on and get the shots, has the slowest shutter lag except when AF is already locked via half-press shutter release and, like the Olympus, RAW files in burst mode are only 12bit not 14bit.
• BUT the compromise with the smaller sensor of the Micro Four Thirds Olympus means:
  • poorer image quality in low light when high ISO levels are needed to stop the action
  • less tolerance of poor exposure or cropping
  • less ability to achieve shallow depth of field (DOF) although this could be addressed through post-processing

At the end of the day, image quality is not as important as getting the shot, and the Olympus has everything one needs to get to the shoot location without being burdened, and without the need for a tripod allows far more creative shooting.

If you don't get the shot, then talking about pixel peeping image quality comparisons becomes totally irrelevant.

The Olympus gives you confidence you can take it almost anywhere and it is sufficiently responsive and versatile to handle most situations - as long as you don't mind a little more image noise.