Prime Lenses....

rayk said:

Why do some people seem to want Olympus NOT to make primes?

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No-one has said that, even if you restrict it to "wanting Olympus NOT to make primes of about normal to moderately wide focal lengths other than macro lenses." (The desirability of fast long telephotos, macros or ultra-wides lke fisheyes is not in debate here).

The only claims I see anywhere is that it it not an important priority for Olympus to make such lenses, and predictions that they probably will not. Do not equate
"I expect no shortish non-macro 4/3 primes" or
"most customers have no interest in shortish non-macro 4/3 primes" with
"I want Olympus NOT to make any shortish non-macro 4/3 primes"
as if out of spite for people with different tastes.

rayk said:

rayk said:

Have you played around with the OM lenses at all? I'm really
curious to see how the OM 21/2 does on the E-1. I use various
Zeiss lenses on Canon bodies and it certainly involves more
fiddling but the results have been stunning. The 1Ds with the
Zeiss 28/2.8, for example, is stunning.

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No I haven't, Sean. I don't come from an Olympus background, and
really know nothing about pre-digital Olympus lenses. But I think I
would like to stay with auto-focus, even though I manually overide
it, and through the lens auto metering, even though I usually
overide that, too. But the choice to stay with the digitals is
probably made more out of ignorance than any educated preference.

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Well then, heck, why not try some OM primes with the adapter? If you focus manually already (as I usually do) the only real hassle is stop down metering (for AE or manual exposure). In fact when I'm working with the Canons and Zeiss lenses outdoors, I often zone focus and leave the lens at about F/8 - even while I'm viewing through the finder.

One great thing about using older lenses on digital cameras is that many very good ones aren't very expensive and have already gone through their major depreciation. So one can try many and sell any that don't work out. I'm using two very old rangefinder lenses on my R-D1 just about daily.

It might be worth playing with. If you don't like them, you can just sell them all and save the adapter for a rainy day.

Cheers,

Sean

I would agree with that, and nobody should expect any company to make what is not profitable.

But would those things apply here? Would a couple of primes, say a wide, and a portrait that people seem to want, really be considered niche? It's not as though there are no primes in the four thirds range. It is just that they are mainly appearing at one end of the scale. 300, 150, but nothing below the quite long 50mm, which is really a specialist macro.

And surely you wouldn't consider the 300 to be mainstream, and not niche, especially at it's cost? I don't know if there would be a huge market for a very fast prime, and I doubt that we will see one. But a run of the mill type wide angle? Niche market?

Ray Kinnane
Saga-shi, Japan

http://www.pbase.com/rkphoto

rayk,

it comes down to how much demand there is for various types of lenses. All the evidence is that the three types of prime lenses with the greatest present day importance are long fast telephotos, macros, and portrait lenses. Remember that a macro lens is also a high quality general purpose prime lens, and even a portrait lens for some. (Medium format systems often have a 120mm f/4 or so billed as both a macro and a portrait lens.)

To me, the borderline case is a portrait lens; Olympus hinted at one for this year in the first edition of the lens roadmap, but then changed that, so I am curious to see what comes in 2006.

Your comparison to mf makes no sense. Of coure the that was a dying market. DSLR is far from shrinking into oblivion.

Company like Olympus is not going to go toe to toe with Canon and win. They should be covering the niche that the big guys can't cover. They've understood this in the past & did pretty well marketing the compact SLR angle with the OM line.

The 4/3 has an advantage in that the smaller sensor makes it easier to design very fast prime lens. That is a niche they should be covering and selling.

BJL said:

No camera company needs to address every small niche of the entire
photographic market.

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Xoom said:

Your comparison to mf makes no sense. Of coure the that was a dying market. DSLR is far from shrinking into oblivion.

Click to expand...

I was not comparing MF to DSLR; I was comparing MF to "moderate wide to moderate telephoto, non-macro, non-portrait prime lenses". The evidence is that these have shrunk to a very small part of the market.

It's a niche market to be sure, but if Oly is to market the E-system as a complete top to bottom professional system (which they are), then they should have a $1.5k f/1.0 WA prime (or PC prime, DFC prime, macro prime, fisheye prime, etc. etc.). They don't have to sell many. Just have it in the line-up, and charge an arm & a leg for it to guarantee profitability, just like they do with that $6.5K 300mm f/2.8 prime... lol!

BJL said:

The evidence is that these have shrunk to a very small part of the
market.

Click to expand...

Franka T.L. said:

Franka T.L. said:

interested now that 35mm has kind of dried up for them. .....

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Unlikely, sure the 35mm film market dried up, but those lens are
going onto their respective DSLR. 4/3 just do not yet had the
market penetration to afford them a viable drive to deliver 4/3
lens. We look at Tamron, and Sigma, which make up the bulk of these
independent lens maker. And they would be producing lens for Nikon
and Canon foremost, then what's next in line, not 4/3, but Minolta
and then Pentax even though both of which are both later in coming
to the DSLR market ....

Sigma had a batch of 20/24/28mm fast fix focals in f1.8, and surely
they can adept it to 4/3, but they are not doing it. Neither do
Tamron with the SP90 or SP180 Macro, not even their now trademark
ultra zoom .... in the end, that signals that the 4/3 had yet to
make the market penetration it suppose to do

I think its a bit asking too much to think that these Mfr will
satisfy the need for now. Olympus just had a dilemmma here. If they
want to grab the market share, they need products to fill the
system. And filling a system mean s diverse product which iare not
going to be in short term paying for themselves. So Olympus
concentrate on those that sells. But for a sizable portion of the
market and propective customer, missing those means missing
something in the system that they need or want. So they will not be
buying into the system or at least not buying until there is
something along. Which of course in the short run means less market
share ( and guess what those proespective customer buying )

--
Franka

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By"smaller lens making firms" I meant, Tokina, Kiron, Phoenix, Vivitar, Cosina...

Sigma has said that they will remount their line to 4/3rds, but we'll wait and see on that.

4/3rds as a format has only been on the market a little over a year, so it is far to early to write its epitaph or order a grave marker.

It is also hard to say that a large portion of the market wants a "System", some just want a tool to take pictures of family and travels and prefer an SLR for its response qualities. I have several "Systems", but I don't have complete systems, nor would I ever need one.

In about three weeks we might get some more hints at what is in the works for 4/3rds. We can then update our opinions and speculations.
--
Bob Ross
http://www.pbase.com/rossrtx

Sean Reid said:

Well then, heck, why not try some OM primes with the adapter? If
you focus manually already (as I usually do) the only real hassle
is stop down metering (for AE or manual exposure). In fact when
I'm working with the Canons and Zeiss lenses outdoors, I often zone
focus and leave the lens at about F/8 - even while I'm viewing
through the finder.

One great thing about using older lenses on digital cameras is that
many very good ones aren't very expensive and have already gone
through their major depreciation. So one can try many and sell any
that don't work out. I'm using two very old rangefinder lenses on
my R-D1 just about daily.

It might be worth playing with. If you don't like them, you can
just sell them all and save the adapter for a rainy day.

Cheers,

Sean

Click to expand...

Sean,

And you could borrow a Contax-4/3rds adapter from Camera Quest to see how that combination balances. I tend to use the f/stop that is bright enough to still focus to avoid the closing down hassle (f/4 or 5.6 depending on the light). I do use zone focusing with a 24mm, but as you use longer lenses focusing become easier. The 90mm Summicron-R is vey nice if you can get a chance to use it.
--
Bob Ross
http://www.pbase.com/rossrtx

Ross said:

Ross said:

Well then, heck, why not try some OM primes with the adapter? If
you focus manually already (as I usually do) the only real hassle
is stop down metering (for AE or manual exposure). In fact when
I'm working with the Canons and Zeiss lenses outdoors, I often zone
focus and leave the lens at about F/8 - even while I'm viewing
through the finder.

One great thing about using older lenses on digital cameras is that
many very good ones aren't very expensive and have already gone
through their major depreciation. So one can try many and sell any
that don't work out. I'm using two very old rangefinder lenses on
my R-D1 just about daily.

It might be worth playing with. If you don't like them, you can
just sell them all and save the adapter for a rainy day.

Cheers,

Sean

Click to expand...

Sean,
And you could borrow a Contax-4/3rds adapter from Camera Quest to
see how that combination balances. I tend to use the f/stop that is
bright enough to still focus to avoid the closing down hassle (f/4
or 5.6 depending on the light). I do use zone focusing with a 24mm,
but as you use longer lenses focusing become easier. The 90mm
Summicron-R is vey nice if you can get a chance to use it.

Click to expand...

Hi Bob,

Yes, that's a good idea and I may do that. You're using the 90 Summicron on the E-1? Cool. I'd love to see some samples. Please e-mail me off-list if you're so inclined. What other lenses are you using on it?

Cheers,

Sean

I don't have one, and with the very excellent 50 Macro on the market, there is no reason to buy one.

Nikkors on the E1 will work, but it's manual metering (not bad) and stopdown metering(a real pain at high f-stops). I bought the adapter because I had several old Nikkors with my old F3 setup. The only one I ended up keeping was the 105 1.8, which is a magnificent portrait lens no matter what camera you put it on. The others - 50 1.4 80 2.8, 200 3.5, did no better than an equivalent ZD zoom. They just weren't worth the trouble.

And yes, the 55 micro is a terrific lens, one of the legendary Nikkors.

Xoom said:

It's a niche market to be sure, but if Oly is to market the
E-system as a complete top to bottom professional system (which
they are), then they should have a $1.5k f/1.0 WA prime (or PC
prime, DFC prime, macro prime, fisheye prime, etc. etc.). They
don't have to sell many. Just have it in the line-up, and charge
an arm & a leg for it to guarantee profitability, just like they
do with that $6.5K 300mm f/2.8 prime... lol!

Click to expand...

Perhaps this is why Olympus was so reluctant to market the OM adapter at the onset in places other than Japan...

It is possible that this adapter helped to create the attitude that they "should" have a XXX prime or the like in order to be a "complete top to bottom" system...

So.... If it is to be a complete system.. then... What do people think it needs to round itself out as a "Complete Professional System"??...

Perhaps....

Tilt and Shift ( 2 or 3 )
Bellows
Primes ( 6 - 10 - they already have three )
various adapters ( reversing rings and the like )
More Focusing Screens ( 4 - 2 more than now...)
More than 1 fisheye...
Defocussing lens ( at least 1 )
Lens Stabilization
Soft Focus Lens
2x Teleconverter

and let's not forget...

Remote flash Capabilities

What else did I miss ???

Cheers,

Higuma said:

Perhaps this is why Olympus was so reluctant to market the OM
adapter at the onset in places other than Japan...

It is possible that this adapter helped to create the attitude that
they "should" have a XXX prime or the like in order to be a
"complete top to bottom" system...

So.... If it is to be a complete system.. then... What do people
think it needs to round itself out as a "Complete Professional
System"??...

Perhaps....

Click to expand...

Very well put ..... so what do all the guys having the adeptors used them for - yeah - those good fix focals. If they were using the Zoom, they have that already in the current lineup. Of course it does not help while Olympus try at all level to convey their 4/3 as a Professional, up to date and complete system for the PRO and in the E-300, a mass market DSLR good for the PRO but just for us mortals ....

The point is that " Complete top to Bottom " System !!! And Olympus have a niche one only as for now.

--
Franka

...it's as simple as that. Why is that so hard to understand?

--
Ciao,

J.

-------------------------
http://www.pixelpower.be
http://www.xposed.be
-------------------------
Cams: Canon 300D / Olympus UZI
Lenses: Canon 17-40 L / Canon 35-350 L

Tools: Battery grip / X-drive I / Lowepro Trim trekker / Velbon Tripod / left eye / brain

A complete top to bottom system with film would definitely involve medium format as well as 35mm, and even with digital, a sector of professional photography wants bigger than 24x36mm format.

So Olympus is in the good company of Canon and Nikon in not having a totally complete system but at best a "wide ranging DSLR system"; one that covers territory from entry level to some professional usage. So my comments below are on what seems needed for a sufficiently wide ranging system, not one that is all things to all people.

Higuma said:

So.... If it is to be a complete system.. then... What do people think it needs to round itself out as a "Complete Professional System"??...

Click to expand...

Higuma said:

Tilt and Shift ( 2 or 3 )

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maybe, but digital editing has reduced the need

Higuma said:

Bellows

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obsolete I think

Higuma said:

Primes ( 6 - 10 - they already have three )

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• the full standard array of three macro lenses, as already indicated in the roadmap
• two or three fast telephoto primes, but only bothering with ones that are faster than any zooms reaching the same focal length.
• a fisheye
• one or two portrait lenses, at least one with "defocus control". I have been reading some things about defocus control portait lenses which make them sound well suited to giving the background blur control that some people seek.

Higuma said:

More Focusing Screens ( 4 - 2 more than now...)

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at least one more, with manual focusing aids

Higuma said:

More than 1 fisheye...

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one seems enough, unless they follow Pentax with a fisheye zoom!

Higuma said:

Defocussing lens ( at least 1 )

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yes, see above

Higuma said:

Lens Stabilization

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yes; they have some patents, so get to work. I want a stabilizing teleconverter if they can get around Nikon's patent on that idea

Higuma said:

Soft Focus Lens

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isn't this covered by a defocus control portrait lens?

Higuma said:

2x Teleconverter

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yes; and I expect this once they have zooms f/2.8 faster across the whole range, since that lens speed is needed for AF to work with a 2x TC.

Higuma said:

and let's not forget...

Remote flash Capabilities

Click to expand...

yes, though high end third part flash makers like Metz might handle this

One thing you missed:

a more sophisticated multi-point AF system for action photography, if they pursue that market.

Higuma: I think that the reason Oly was reluctant to market the OM adapter was that the old film lenses have some issues at the widest and narrowest stops. They don't quite meter right, color balance changes, there may be slight sensor/resolution mismatch effects. And many people don't understand that a lens always performs less well wide open or at f/16 or 22 than it is in the middle.

I'm willing to deal with this up to a point, as are many reasonably knowledgable photographers. But many people aren't, and they would complain. Particularly people who know only digital.

I think Oly didn't want to support people who would complain that the camera wasn't "working properly." And deal with the negative "buzz" from people who take or see pictures taken with old lenses that aren't perfectly sharp or white-balanced and blame the camera. They also may have thought the adapter would cut into new lens sales.

Believe me, I'd want a fast normal or moderate wide prime just as much whether I have the adapter or not. At least with the adaptor, I can shoot my 50/1.4 until it comes. If I had a 28/2 or 24/2, I'd be trying it out as a fast normal, too. They really are be stopgap measures--once a fast digital prime comes out in that range, I'll probably buy it. They are so much more convenient, and probably better optically than the old lenses (which are no slouchess, either).

Meanwhile, my old OM Zuikos give me viable "occasional" lenses for available light, macro, long telephoto. The adapter is one big reason why I eventally bought the E-1 instead of another camera. If you don't sell the camera, you don't sell any lenses for it, period.

I suspect Oly will be a viable player in the pro market. Not fast enough for some people, and a niche market but it will happen. They will never overtake C or N, but if they play to their strengths, they'll do OK. One of those strengths is that they can make smaller, faster lenses.

--Peter

Higuma said:

Xoom said:

It's a niche market to be sure, but if Oly is to market the
E-system as a complete top to bottom professional system (which
they are), then they should have a $1.5k f/1.0 WA prime (or PC
prime, DFC prime, macro prime, fisheye prime, etc. etc.). They
don't have to sell many. Just have it in the line-up, and charge
an arm & a leg for it to guarantee profitability, just like they
do with that $6.5K 300mm f/2.8 prime... lol!

Click to expand...

Perhaps this is why Olympus was so reluctant to market the OM
adapter at the onset in places other than Japan...

It is possible that this adapter helped to create the attitude that
they "should" have a XXX prime or the like in order to be a
"complete top to bottom" system...

So.... If it is to be a complete system.. then... What do people
think it needs to round itself out as a "Complete Professional
System"??...

Perhaps....

Tilt and Shift ( 2 or 3 )
Bellows
Primes ( 6 - 10 - they already have three )
various adapters ( reversing rings and the like )
More Focusing Screens ( 4 - 2 more than now...)
More than 1 fisheye...
Defocussing lens ( at least 1 )
Lens Stabilization
Soft Focus Lens
2x Teleconverter

and let's not forget...

Remote flash Capabilities

What else did I miss ???

Cheers,

Click to expand...

Peter A. Klein wrote:

--------------------------------------snip-----------------------------------------

Peter A. Klein said:

They will never overtake C or N, but if they play to their
strengths, they'll do OK. One of those strengths is that they can
make smaller, faster lenses.

--Peter

Click to expand...

I believe Oly knows that they could sell small and/or fast wideangle primes at any point in time, and are concentrating their efforts on finishing three price/performance ranges of zooms to satisfy the greatest needs first.

Right now, my "needs" are well met by the 11-22 (especially), the 50 macro and the 45-150. I "want" less a conspicuous moderate wideangle prime for street shooting. I'm positive that there are plenty of professionals who "need" one for available light interior shots. If one doesn't show up on the roadmap for 2006, I'll probably go with a manual focus lens on an adapter - but my vision is aging and I sure would rather have something with an automatic diaphragm.

Heck, I took several years to make a decision on which DSLR system to buy into - I can wait another year or two to finish buying lenses for it.

Regards,
Lou