E10 Fact or Fiction

[Frank G.]

Maybe someone can set me straight on a few facts. I've heard that the reason the E10 wasn't designed with higher than 1/640 shutter speed is the new CCD they developed has poor picture quality at anything higher than this. And then I heard that Olympus did something odd with the CCD by trying to put two smaller CCD together to make one larger one? Does anyone have any further information? Although the final proof will be in the full resolution images it produces. After the 2500L debacle, I'm being very cautious.

 

[Paul]

Hi,

Curious to know what the 2500L debacle is/was about.

Paul

Maybe someone can set me straight on a few facts. I've heard that the
reason the E10 wasn't designed with higher than 1/640 shutter speed is
the new CCD they developed has poor picture quality at anything higher
than this. And then I heard that Olympus did something odd with the CCD
by trying to put two smaller CCD together to make one larger one? Does
anyone have any further information? Although the final proof will
be in the full resolution images it produces. After the 2500L
debacle, I'm being very cautious.

 

[Erik Ehudin]

I don't think they "stitched two CCDs together". That would be an interesting trick. As I understand it, an interlaced CCD scans twice to make an image, so it could, theoretically be a 2.1 (1.9) megapixel CCD that they call 4 megapixel because it scans twice. Doubt that's the case, but it is a possibility. The interlaced configuration of the CCD makes it slower (has to work twice rather than making one progressive scan) hence the low max shutter. I could be entirely wrong, but probably not as wrong as the guy with a mental image of two CCD's Krazy Glued together in this cam. We'll just have to wait for Phil, Steve and the gang to get their hands on one.
-Erik

Maybe someone can set me straight on a few facts. I've heard that the
reason the E10 wasn't designed with higher than 1/640 shutter speed is
the new CCD they developed has poor picture quality at anything higher
than this. And then I heard that Olympus did something odd with the CCD
by trying to put two smaller CCD together to make one larger one? Does
anyone have any further information? Although the final proof will
be in the full resolution images it produces. After the 2500L
debacle, I'm being very cautious.

 

[Jim Dawson]

What was the "2500L debacle" you are refering to? I must have missed it.

Maybe someone can set me straight on a few facts. I've heard that the
reason the E10 wasn't designed with higher than 1/640 shutter speed is
the new CCD they developed has poor picture quality at anything higher
than this. And then I heard that Olympus did something odd with the CCD
by trying to put two smaller CCD together to make one larger one? Does
anyone have any further information? Although the final proof will
be in the full resolution images it produces. After the 2500L
debacle, I'm being very cautious.

 

[Frank G.]

Ok, I'm sorry if I have offended anyone lucky enough to own a 2500L. The 2500L is probably the only digital camera that produces perfect noise free images with never any sign of chromic aberations.

 

[Daniel Lauring]

Actually, the "debacle" with the C2500L does involve its higher noise. The big complaints with it are:
1. Only two aperatures.

2. Lost light to the CCD because the light path is split with some of the light going to the eyepiece (Sony D770 works similarly.)

3. High noise pattern in pics. Very noticeable in blue skies. Noise is much more apparent than noise pattern from 2.1Mp and 3.3Mp cameras.

Ok, I'm sorry if I have offended anyone lucky enough to own a 2500L.
The 2500L is probably the only digital camera that produces perfect
noise free images with never any sign of chromic aberations.

 

[Daniel Lauring]

You've got a lot of different cameras mixed up there. The Minolta SLR is the one that stitches two CCD's together. The complicated optics to do this end up severly reducing the light to the CCD's and effectively yield a minimum F-stop of 6.8 or something like that.

The C2500L is limited to two aperatures and has a lot of noise. People have suggested the higher noise is due to the fact that the light is split between the CCD and the eyepiece.

The E10 has a max shutter speed of 1/640. It has a max ISO of 200. It has an interlaced CCD. One of the biggest advantages of the D1, S1 and D30 digital SLR's are their big light grabbing CCD's (or CMOS) which allow them to offer up ISO's of 1600. The E10 doesn't come close to competing with them on these grounds.

Maybe someone can set me straight on a few facts. I've heard that the
reason the E10 wasn't designed with higher than 1/640 shutter speed is
the new CCD they developed has poor picture quality at anything higher
than this. And then I heard that Olympus did something odd with the CCD
by trying to put two smaller CCD together to make one larger one? Does
anyone have any further information? Although the final proof will
be in the full resolution images it produces. After the 2500L
debacle, I'm being very cautious.

 

[JamesM]

Hey,

Frank G. wrote:

Ok, I'm sorry if I have offended anyone lucky enough to own a 2500L.
The 2500L is probably the only digital camera that produces perfect
noise free images with never any sign of chromic aberations.

The 2500 is a noisy camera - no question about it (at least after 100 ISO). At 100, it is a great camera. The lens is excellent and it is fast. I certainly wouldn't purchase a 3030 over it. The 3030 is inferior. That is not to say it is a bad camera, only not as good a cam as the 2500.

HOWEVER, when you compare it to other higher end cams - yes, it is not sufficient. On the other hand, most of those cams cost 4x what the 2500 costs and 2.5 times what it originally cost at retail.

Look at most on-line photo contests and see which cameras have captured the prize the most. I think you will find that the Nikon 990 or Oly 2500 are the two heavy hitters.

-JM

 

[DC25528]

You can't use the LCD when framing a picture with the 2500. So you're sure it uses the slit path design? If so, then I wonder why they didn't do it like Sony. I can view the image on the LCD while framing on the sony D770. (one of the big reasons I went with sony instead)

However, this lost light is insignificant. The system is rated at F2.0-2.4....far better than any regular digicam...or any camera for that matter.

Ok, I'm sorry if I have offended anyone lucky enough to own a 2500L.
The 2500L is probably the only digital camera that produces perfect
noise free images with never any sign of chromic aberations.

 

[DC25528]

I don't think they "stitched two CCDs together". That would be an
interesting trick.

no no no =) they use optics to split the light into two paths. One beam goes to one ccd and the other to the other ccd.

As I understand it, an interlaced CCD scans twice to
make an image, so it could, theoretically be a 2.1 (1.9) megapixel CCD
that they call 4 megapixel because it scans twice.

I don't think so. It is still a 4 megapixels sensor, but takes two scans. Each scan will look at every other line. Do you remember when people used interlaced modes in monitors? One pass, it scans the even lines. The next pass it scans the odd lines.

 

[Adam Trachtenberg17826]

I don't think so. It is still a 4 megapixels sensor, but takes two
scans. Each scan will look at every other line. Do you remember when
people used interlaced modes in monitors? One pass, it scans the even
lines. The next pass it scans the odd lines.

Exactly right. But you don't have ot look at monitors to find an example of interlacing. Olympus' old D-320L camera had an interlaced CCD. I believe that is why the lower resolution, progressive scanning D-220L camera produced nicer looking, albeit smaller, images.

Someone should come up with a multiplier for digicam age, like dog years. I'd say every human year is about 35 digicam years.

 

[synp]

Someone should come up with a multiplier for digicam age, like dog
years. I'd say every human year is about 35 digicam years.

You mean that your digicam doesn't take any good pictures for 5 months and
dies after two years? The best pictures are when it's a year old.

As for the 7x multiplier for dogs, this would mean that 4-year-old girls give birth

for the first time, and children are fully grown at 7 years, after reaching puberty at
age 3.

 

[erikn]

The E10 has a max shutter speed of 1/640. It has a max ISO of 200. It

Actually, looking at Olympus own specificationspage, the shutter speed is now don to 1/500. I won't buy it....

E

 

[Michael F.]

Why is the 2500 better than the 3030? Fewer f-stops?

Mike

The 2500 is a noisy camera - no question about it (at least after 100
ISO). At 100, it is a great camera. The lens is excellent and it is
fast. I certainly wouldn't purchase a 3030 over it. The 3030 is
inferior. That is not to say it is a bad camera, only not as good a cam
as the 2500.

 

[Michael F.]

I beg your pardon? f2.0 is better than any other camera? Well, first of all, f-stops are a lens characteristic, not a camera characteristic. For most consumer digital cameras, that's an irrelevant distinction. For SLR digitals (the Nikon D-1 come, Canon D-39 come to mind . . .) or virtually all film SLR bodies - not to mention medium format cameras - lenses are available that are faster than f2.0. I once had a Pentax SLR with an f1.2 lens. Thats fast. f2.0 is pretty good, but not better than "any camera".

Mike

However, this lost light is insignificant. The system is rated at
F2.0-2.4....far better than any regular digicam...or any camera for that
matter.

 

[JamesM]

Why is the 2500 better than the 3030? Fewer f-stops?

Mike

NOW, I don't want to have a "my camera is better than your camera" foolishness war. I wish to apologize in advance if people feel that I was going there. I simply feel that the 2500 is a better camera (over-all) then the 3030. That is IN NO WAY deriding the 3030 as being a very good camera..as I said in my prior post...though I did say it was inferior to the 2500 - let me clarify - for my purposes.

They are BOTH out of date. However, I prefer the 2500 for several reasons...

(1) SLR
(2) SLR
(3) SLR
(4) SLR
(5) SLR
(6) Hot Shoe
(7) Dual Media Types
(8) Full Manual Control
a. greater control of white balance with manual pre-set
(9) Better Macro Mode (2cm vs 20 on 3030)

(10) Faster shutter speed - 1/10,000 of a second vs 1/800 of a second on the 3030.

1-5, 7, 8 and 10 being most important to me.

-JM

PS as for the aperture issues, as I understand it, due to the size of the CCD depth of field issues are not very significant - allowing for the decreased number of aperture stops.

 

[synp]

I beg your pardon? f2.0 is better than any other camera? Well, first
of all, f-stops are a lens characteristic, not a camera characteristic.
For most consumer digital cameras, that's an irrelevant distinction.
For SLR digitals (the Nikon D-1 come, Canon D-39 come to mind . . .) or
virtually all film SLR bodies - not to mention medium format cameras -
lenses are available that are faster than f2.0. I once had a Pentax SLR
with an f1.2 lens. Thats fast. f2.0 is pretty good, but not better
than "any camera".

Mike

Mike, I've just checked some Nikon and Canon lens catalogs. While it's true that

there are f/1.4 and f/1.2 lenses, they are all fixed focal-length. The fastest zooms
were f/2.8 and the reasonably priced ones (those that cost less than a new
camera) are usually f/3.5-f/something. F/2.0-F/2.4 is remarkable.

 

[Adam Trachtenberg17826]

'Tis remarkable, but not as remarkable as it would be in a 35mm camera, or one of the SLR digicams. Sure, it's a fast lens, but the camera is hamstrung in low light situations by its max. 200 ISO. Sure, f2.0 should be good for a nice shallow depth of field, but not in a camera with a 2/3" CCD. So, a great technical achievement, but limited by the electronics behind it.

I beg your pardon? f2.0 is better than any other camera? Well, first
of all, f-stops are a lens characteristic, not a camera characteristic.
For most consumer digital cameras, that's an irrelevant distinction.
For SLR digitals (the Nikon D-1 come, Canon D-39 come to mind . . .) or
virtually all film SLR bodies - not to mention medium format cameras -
lenses are available that are faster than f2.0. I once had a Pentax SLR
with an f1.2 lens. Thats fast. f2.0 is pretty good, but not better
than "any camera".

Mike

Mike, I've just checked some Nikon and Canon lens catalogs. While it's
true that
there are f/1.4 and f/1.2 lenses, they are all fixed focal-length. The
fastest zooms
were f/2.8 and the reasonably priced ones (those that cost less than a new
camera) are usually f/3.5-f/something. F/2.0-F/2.4 is remarkable.

 

[Michael F.]

James:

It was a serious question, not a flame war in the making - at least I hope not; I think thet're an incredible waste of energy (altho sometimes fun to watch from the outside).

I agree that the SLR aspect of the 2500 is a nice feature, but that seems a little discounted by a smaller CCD. Both cameras are capable of taking great photos, I think.

BTW: lack of aperture doesn't only affect depth of field. With only 2 f-stops to choose from, in a given lighting situation, a photographer has very limited flexibility in manual control.

Having lots of shutter speeds (which I'd prefer) is pretty well useless if you only have two f-stops.

Mike

They are BOTH out of date. However, I prefer the 2500 for several
reasons...

(1) SLR . . .
(5) SLR
(6) Hot Shoe
(7) Dual Media Types
(8) Full Manual Control
a. greater control of white balance with manual pre-set
(9) Better Macro Mode (2cm vs 20 on 3030)
(10) Faster shutter speed - 1/10,000 of a second vs 1/800 of a second on
the 3030.

1-5, 7, 8 and 10 being most important to me.

-JM

PS as for the aperture issues, as I understand it, due to the size of
the CCD depth of field issues are not very significant - allowing for
the decreased number of aperture stops.

 

[Michael F.]

I could accept "exceptionally fast zoom lens" or, maybe, "fastest consumer digital", or something along those lines. That is likely true. But "far better than . . . any camera for that matter," is, well, just not even close to being true.

The statement wasn't qualified by 1) reasonable price (whatever that is - I just spent about $2000 on new equipment which many people, including my wife, is totally unreasonable. People posting on the Pro Digital Forum, I'm sure, think I'm a cheapskate and cutting corners); OR, 2) Not including fixed focal length lenses in comparison. One of the big drawbacxks to zooms is that they're generally pretty slow

So, yeah, f2.0-2.4 is pretty fast for a zoom lens in a relatively inexpensive camera, but it's not anywhere near the fastest lenses around. Which is, I think, where I started.

Mike

Mike, I've just checked some Nikon and Canon lens catalogs. While it's
true that
there are f/1.4 and f/1.2 lenses, they are all fixed focal-length. The
fastest zooms
were f/2.8 and the reasonably priced ones (those that cost less than a new
camera) are usually f/3.5-f/something. F/2.0-F/2.4 is remarkable.