For advert pictures, you probably wont get any 'better' pictures with any amount of 'better' camera... this is true for most photography,
But for selling stuff? particularly on e-bay?... well, making sure the photo's aligned the right way would put you streets ahead of a large number of sellers on there!
Resolution isn't particularly important; most photo's have to be shrunk to under 1000x1000 pixels or 1Mpix, for web-display anyway.... you ought to be able to get away with even a 'cheap' compact for a lot of e-bay ad-shots! But, the important bit is you then want to pay attention to the 'setting' you place your artifact in for photo, and the lighting.. try not to use flash, try and get it in good 'natural' light; make sure there's no clutter in the shot. People want to see what you are selling, not what sort of kitchen equipment you have, and they really don't care whether you are off half a stop on your exposure, or your horizon's a bit wonky! They JUST want a clear, tidy picture of what they are buying!
For 'general-purpose' photo's... you had me at the mention of 'classic motorcycles' btw.... again... so much is down to what's outside the camera, not what is in it!
Better Photographers Take Better Photographs, NOT 'Better Cameras'
There are folk that do stunning things with pin-hole cameras made out of old cornflakes-packets, old pop bottles and other Blue-Peter model materials! Other's do amazing things with camera-phones or plastic lens 'toy' cameras.... Its all in what you know, not what you own, and stepping up to an 'enthusiast' SLR camera as part of doing a bit of 'learning'? Hummm-Hooo--Urrrrrrrrr..... There is a 'reason' that most folk use Cannon or Nikon, DSLR's....
Quarter of a century ago, I entered the 'game' with a hand-me-down Olympus OM10 'film' SLR... then, ten years out of date, and like the 4/3 'system' significantly 'unsupported' as Olympus abandoned the mid-level 'enthusiast' market... they did some STRANGE things back then, like the 'half frame' Auto-focus 'power-zoom' SLR my granddad bought... I don't think he ever finished the 36exp roll of film that came with it! But curious 'thing', it was an SLR you couldn't change the lens on! As a company they have always very much been paddling their own canoe, pushing their ideas of alternative technology.... however... the OM SLR 'system' was by 1990, pretty much left to it's own devices. They still offered the 'Pro-Grade' OM4, but that was about it. But, plenty of lenses and accessories about, having been in production for almost two decades, AND with 'auto-focus' begging people to upgrade, an awful lot of stuff in the second hand shops up for relative pennies.... great when I was a student... could replace a knackered OM10 for the price of another roll of film! But, just five years on, and earning a lettuce.. sorry celery... or something like that, wanting to 'upgrade'? Well?!?! Somewhere between the devil and the deep, really! My OM kit was even less appreciated by then than it ever had been, so little value for trade in, but to get 'like for like' in another system, was going to cost a ruddy fortune.. doing it 'bit by bit'? Yeah, nice idea, but means having two half complete camera systems to try and match to a job!
The 4/3 'system', now, is rather like the OM system then... significantly less supported and less loved.... but, second hand it IS bludy cheap! As has been alluded to, you can get a damn good camera, and lenses to go with it for well under £100, which you'd struggle to get just a basic Nikon or Cannon SLR body-only for, and it would be a heck of a lot of camera for the money... BUT.... its out of the main-stream, it is a quirky camera for its own aficionados, and as a learning tool, likely to make learning a tad harder having to 'translate' teaching and advice aimed at 'conventional' SLR owners, and learning the 'quirks' of that system. And? when it's time to move on? Back to square one, it's little loved and little valued, and you still face having a big investment to make the 'leap' to something else. So I DON'T think that the old 4/3 or even the newer MFT systems are best suited to a newbie to SLR photography. I think that they are better suited to people who have done their learning, and know what they are buying into, and have a specific reason for wanting that system, and are prepared for the compromises it imposes.
Said main attraction is you can get a complete second hand outfit for under £100... BUT, you don't have to spend an awful lot more to stay in the main-stream. Both Cannon & Nikon are baiting the 'entry-level' market with DSLR's for under £300, with a typically 18-55mm 'kit' lens. And if you are prepared to hunt about a bit, and get off e-bay, where seems an awful lot seem to hope to get the new MRRP for 2nd hand kit, look at Gumtree, or local ad-sites, or news-agents windows, or the back of the 'free' papers that come through the door.... there are good cameras out there for not too much money.
My daughter, 'borrowing' my DSLR to do her photography O-Level last year started scaring me, pricking water-filled balloons full of water within inches of its expensive electronics, begging me to buy her her own (to drown!). I paid £120 (inc P&P) for a 2nd hand Nikon D3100, from a dealers, and £70 (inc P&P) for an f1.5 35mm 'prime', 2nd hand privately from the classified on the forum here. That's a bit 'over' because for her school photography I knew she would do better with that more expensive prime lens, and I wanted 'some' sort of warranty on the body before she started chucking water around near it! Month later, O/H, feeling left out, decided she wanted to move up from her bridge/compact, to the 'same' camera as my daughter, and we found one in the local small ads, another D3100, with the 'kit' 18-55 for £140, as boxed in curry's a year or so earlier. Others I know have spent similar sort of money to but entry level Cannon 'outfits' often almost as unused.... they are out there if you go looking, and are prepared to pay that little extra cash up front, and possibly compromise on NOT trying to get it all straight away.
But then? Your learning is made easy, in the main-stream, using common & conventional 'kit', and if you want to expand it... well, its supported, and its common, and there's plenty of choice of 'stuff', new or 2nd hand on offer for reasonably 'sensible' prices.
Personally, I am a 'generalist' and predominantly a recordist. which is fancy way of saying I mostly take 'snap-shots', really! However.... LETS TALK BIKES
I'm a builder, not a breaker, so I don't tend to need to do appealing 'ad-photo's; but renovating about one bike a year, I do find I do quite a few photo-how-to's, that are a lot like 'ad' shots, taking close-ups of bits of engine internal, showing where to put the spanner on a tappet lock-nut, or where to find the vacuum 'plugs' to balance your carburetors, or wot-not. Then, of course I'll head out on one (when nothing is left to need 'fixing'!) and go to shows or meets or events or rallies. Rallies tend to offer some pretty varied photography; there's usually static display of bikes, sometimes in good day-light, but frequently in a 'nasty' (for lighting) tent, barn or exhibition hall. Bands? Again some-times on nice day-lit stages, more often in dark and heaving tents or the back room of a pub! Bulldog Bash offers the Drag-Strip 'run-wot-yer-brung' for action shots; at others it might be a grass-track or hill-climb or merely a parade. Lots of ops for 'social' photography in the 'Party', or for candids, looking around parts-jumble stands and such. I manage to find more than 'enough' in and around bikes to cross genres and stretch my capabilities in photography.....
BUT.... little lens audit last week.. I REALLY want to go buy an 'Ultra-wide-angle' to be able to get up close and intimate with bikes on show.. you know, the ones people keep walking in-front of when you want to take a snap of them
one I want, of course, costs more (new) than I paid for the camera 'kit' to start with.... hmmm.... and SHE is looking over my shoulder every time I look at any of the on-line camera shops
women NEVER miss thing like this, do they?
Anyway, pivotal question, would I get the use out of it? What do I use 'most'? And bottom line to that, is that I get most use out of that 'cheap' Kit 18-55mm lens!
It is NOT all that limiting for general purpose photography. I have a 55-300 in the bag, but it's not used all that often, and when it IS, checking the 'exif' data, usually not at all that long a 'zoom'. I could probably cover 95% of everything I want to do, with the, only slightly more expensive 'kit' 18-140, and NOT use the 55-300 at all!
THIS, however (A Bimota Tesi 1D for them that don't know) I took last year at the Staff's.. (Oh Yeah! says so in the picture! dowh!).. with a 'fish-eye'... sort of suits that subject.... THIS is where things CAN start to 'head' if/when you start to get a bit 'keen', and for the rest of the bikes in that show, I would have been far better off with an Ultra-wide-angle rather than a fish.... so I think I WILL (plead with the bank-manager.. extend the mortgage.. sell a kidney perhaps...) and get one... and try and hide the receipt and box some-where it will never be found......
But, point is, I KNOW that I could do 95% of everything I do and want to do in photography with-out EVEN a DSLR... I continued using the old film cameras for an awful long while, and around 2003, when I bought a digi-compact, carried on using the old film cameras, pulling them out less and less often when I hit the increasingly less limited restrictions of a compact..... when I DID fess up and buy into 'digital' with an SLR... I did so quite conscious of the fact that 'this time' I wanted to 'buy-in' to the main-stream, with a main-stream supported system.. Hence Nikon! KNOWING that as soon as I did, I would be chasing the 'range' of kit I had in film... AND vent my frustration at some of the 'stops' I found in film... like not being able to easily get 'UWA' lenses, in almost ANY system, let alone the less supported Olympus!... Reason I've shown the 'fish' shot. Struggling to find anything for 35mm film down in the 21mm ish (very) wide angle region, let alone find it 'cheaply'.. when I came across a 'cheap' 2nd hand fish-eye I bought it.. for fun, and did have a lot with it.But 12mm, it wasn't a 'full-fish', giving the 'full' 180 degree field of view and a full circle image.. and wasn't a brilliant lens, so always felt a little cheated by it... cost me £30 I think.. I REALLY shouldn't feel cheated! One that took that pic cost almost 20x that! and for the use it's getting, I ought to feel 'cheated'! But what the heck... swot I wanted! And this is sort of the point. twenty years ago, a 'full-fish' would have been WELL out of my price range... I couldn't have even dreamed of one... NOW? well, not exactly pocket money, but not only can I dream.. I can actually have it! while, that 21mm lens I really wanted to start with? Well, that's equivalent to 14mm on an APS-C sensor DSLR, and not only am I not struggling to find on, I have much much choice in lenses covering that FoV and wider! And again, all for very very 'sensible' prices, new or used.
THIS is what you get 'buying in' to a main stream system. The Olympus outfit? Is not in the main-stream. And THAT on it's own is it's greatest limitation. for generalist photography? Yeah, probably no great handicap... but it IS a handicap.. and If you see your photography taking you down this sort of road, where, like me, you want to take 'nice' pictures of classic motorbikes... then, it is likely you WILL want to get up-close and personal with them, to avoid being trampled by other viewers, or having them constantly crossing your 'frame'.. then your concern wont be with 'more' zoom, but less... and with a 2x crop factor on 4/3 sized sensors, to get down to that field of view from that range, you will need something quite a lot 'under' the 12-14mm shortest lens length that seems to be available for that system, other than a 9mm fish-eye.... and held to ransom over the prices.
Depends whether you see your 'interest' developing at all, BUT, for where you are at? the Olympus system has few significant 'advantages' to make it worth buying into, and any 'saving' you might find buying into it, is likely to pale as soon as you do want to pursue any more interest, IF the 'quirkiness' doesn't stifle your enthusiasm & interest before!
For what you suggest you want a camera for, and where that could lead you, I just don't see 4/3 or MFT as the 'ideal' starting point. I really don't. A conventional entry level Cannon or Nikon i do. And IF you have to make compromises to get started, rather than trying to get 'all you'll ever need' on one box... you never will! There will always be something else or something different to 'add to'... so I'd keep it tight and get the bare essentials; and basic entry level body, and 'kit' 18-55 lens, that, I can guarantee will do 90% of all you are likely to want to do and do it pretty darn well... you may feel frustrated at the lack of 'more' zoom, but if you had it, you'd probably be just as frustrated by 'blur' as the shutter speed drops out trying to keep the exposure up with restricted apertures, and the extra magnification magnifies as much 'shake' in you not holding the camera as steady as you should, as it does the pigeon or whatever you are aiming at... IF you can even find the bird in the view-finder the angle of view covering so little of the 'sky' its in!
As to your pigeon fancying friend... he's 2/3 right.. Mega-Pixels isn't so important... Light? Definitely. Lens? Ho-Hum... important 'ish'... but a great lens is worthless if the photographer looking through it don't know what the heck they are doing! Remember better photographers make better pictures, not better cameras or better lenses! Its just like motorbikes... want a faster bike? fit a better rider! Give a better rider a crap bike, they'll still make it go faster; Give a crap rider a faster bike.... they'll just crash quicker! On which score, you could probably get a heck of a lot more than you are from your compact with a little more know-how and a bit of simple technique.. I know I get a lot more than many expect from compacts! so it's getting that 'know-how' that is the 'key' here, as much as anything, and THAT is where a main-stream DSLR, that makes the learning 'easy' is likely to be the 'better' bet.
Ennerdale panorama 5
Loweswater in autumn
