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Most BORING PMA ever

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Mike Johnston said:
I forgot about the 30/1.4. I do agree that that is significant.
Especially to someone like me who loves prime lenses!
Click to expand...
I'm surprised that you didn't comment on the silver *istDS.....:-)

The 30/1.4 will be more significant, if they also make it in mounts for P, K-M & 4/3rds and it is affordable.
--
Bob Ross
http://www.pbase.com/rossrtx
 
Yep, indeed they are about as big (and, presumably, about as expensive) as comparable 35 mm f/2.8 zooms. As I said elsewhere, the trouble is that it's a sort of a red queen's race -- because of the poorer-than-the-competition high sensitivity performance of the sensor, they're forced to make unnecessarily bright and therefore unnecessarily big and expensive lenses.

(Not that they're alone or anything -- it beats me why Canon for example insists on making their top glass about a half-stop too bright, and therefore monstrously big and expensive; I'd take the Nikon 85/1.4 over the Canon 85/1.2L any day of the week.)

Besides, no primes worth mentioning. ;-)

Seriously -- I get the impression that Olympus doesn't really know where it wants to go with the E-system. These lenses make it look like a "me too" version of APS-C and full-frame systems that do the same thing, only better. Beats me why they don't focus on the "half-frame" niche -- they could easily make a classic like the Pens, only with interchangeable lenses. Make the E-300 just a trifle smaller and give it a bright prime (f/1.4, between 15 and 25 mm), and it'd be damn near the ultimate travel camera.

I guess I just don't like these monster zooms. At least there was the 30/1.4 from Sigma. If they'll add a 10/2.8, I'll stop dreaming about a compact digital full-frame. :-)

Petteri
--
Me on photography: [ http://www.prime-junta.tk/ ]
Me on politics: [ http://p-on-p.blogspot.com/ ]
 
Petteri Sulonen said:
No, I haven't.

And, in fact, I've come around a good bit with regards to the
E-system. I'm just still annoyed at the marketing hype. Perhaps
partly because it sounded like such a brilliant idea when it was
announced -- an open standard designed from the ground up for
digital. Then when it turned out that it was neither open nor
designed from the ground up, I got disappointed.

The E-300 is a very interesting camera and has a nice niche for
itself. Olympus is certainly capable of producing superb glass --
classic Zuiko lenses have a very well-deserved reputation for
excellence.

But I believe my point still stands -- because of the disappointing
sensor, the lenses need to be brighter, which negates the
price/weight advantage of the system. There are very small APS-C
sized dSLR's on the market, with better performance and a much
wider range of glass to choose from. The E-system simply didn't
deliver. The E-1 and E-300 are nice cameras, but they're also
niche cameras. The smaller sensor approach they use has no
compelling advantages and several very significant disadvantages.

Petteri
--
Me on photography: [ http://www.prime-junta.tk/ ]
Me on politics: [ http://p-on-p.blogspot.com/ ]
Click to expand...
Petteri,

The system does have the potential for size reduction, but probably by someone like Panasonic or Sanyo. As it is I like the size/weight of the E-1. It is about the same as a Nikon F2. When the designers get turned lose with the 4/3rds sensor size, it might replace the 2/3" class EVF thingies.
--
Bob Ross
http://www.pbase.com/rossrtx
 
The price of the 30/1.4 will be the main point. How low will Sigma get? The Nikon 28/1.4 and Canon 35/1.4 aren't exactly cheap...
Ross said:
Mike Johnston said:
I forgot about the 30/1.4. I do agree that that is significant.
Especially to someone like me who loves prime lenses!
Click to expand...
I'm surprised that you didn't comment on the silver *istDS.....:-)
The 30/1.4 will be more significant, if they also make it in mounts
for P, K-M & 4/3rds and it is affordable.
--
Bob Ross
http://www.pbase.com/rossrtx
Click to expand...
--
http://www.4-3system.com/
http://jonr.light.is/
http://getfirefox.com/
 
Ross said:
The system does have the potential for size reduction, but probably
by someone like Panasonic or Sanyo. As it is I like the size/weight
of the E-1. It is about the same as a Nikon F2. When the designers
get turned lose with the 4/3rds sensor size, it might replace the
2/3" class EVF thingies.
--
Click to expand...
In film world I used 50E + 28-105/3,5 + 105/2,8 Makro + 200/2,8L + 2x to get 28-400mm and Makro as lightweight as possible.

now I use E-1 + 14-54 + 50 + Sigma 55-200

This is significantly less weight. So for me it holds its promisses.
 
...was the fact that Canon et al made their announcements too early. The fact that they announced the Rebel XT on the Thursday before the show suggested to me that there'd be even bigger announcements during the show itself. What a disappointment. :-/

By the time the show started, the excitement was all but over.

But I guess that's the deficit you have to pay when you've got these big companies competing against each other to make their biggest announcements ahead of all their rivals......

Nick
--
(Fuji s5500)
http://thegrapevine.brinkster.net/S5000-gallery.html
 
Petteri Sulonen said:
No, I haven't.
Click to expand...
you should try for yourself.
Petteri Sulonen said:
And, in fact, I've come around a good bit with regards to the
E-system. I'm just still annoyed at the marketing hype. Perhaps
partly because it sounded like such a brilliant idea when it was
announced -- an open standard designed from the ground up for
digital. Then when it turned out that it was neither open nor
designed from the ground up, I got disappointed.
Click to expand...
it's just another system, not more not less
Petteri Sulonen said:
The E-300 is a very interesting camera and has a nice niche for
itself.
Click to expand...
The E-1 is much more interesting (100% viewfinder, sealed body) for my needs as travel camera, but of course that always depends on your needs.
Petteri Sulonen said:
Olympus is certainly capable of producing superb glass --
classic Zuiko lenses have a very well-deserved reputation for
excellence.
Click to expand...
I use a 50/1,4 from the last and best series with my E-1 but it cannot come even close to the new digital Zuiko 50/2,0
Petteri Sulonen said:
But I believe my point still stands -- because of the disappointing
sensor,
Click to expand...
yes, people reading the dpreview.com tests believe this. Shoot the E-1 in RAW and use Adobe Camera RAW 2.3 or newer it gets significantly better with noise performance on par with the 10D. I used both so I can compare.

In some ways I even like the E-1 pictures more than the pictures I had taken with the 10D.

But of course thats quite subjective. If others prefer the soft 10D's CMOS look I wouldn't argue around that.

But if you read the dpreview test you would belive that the 10D is way superior to the E-1 and that's imho very far from the truth.

I had the 10D before and I had to sell it with a quite significant loss and I still had all my Canon stuff when the 20D was aviable and reviews raved about its performance.

Do you really think I would have bought an E-1 if the Canon really would deliver significantly better image quality? They simply don't (except high ISO on the 20D, which really is better)
Petteri Sulonen said:
the lenses need to be brighter, which negates the
price/weight advantage of the system.
Click to expand...
Yes. If you see it that way you are right. On the other hand bright lenses have some other advanteges like more light for AF systems and the viewfinder.
Petteri Sulonen said:
There are very small APS-C
sized dSLR's on the market, with better performance and a much
wider range of glass to choose from.
Click to expand...
before I sold my Canon gear I tried and shot with all of them, Sigma, Minolta, Pentax, Nikon, ...

I do not want an extremly small camera like the Pentax *istD because I simple can't hold it. The grip doesn't fit my hand and I have quite small hands.

Lenses:

Olympus had the best standard lens for my needs. I waited for a fast 28-100 (in 35mm terms) for Canon for one year(!) and all they made was that slow 17-85 IS which I had to "modify" for my 10D and which is far away from the quality of the 14-54 if you look at distortion, CAs, vignetting and close up possibilities. No thanks. Not for me.
Petteri Sulonen said:
The E-system simply didn't
deliver.
Click to expand...
I'm glad that the camera is not much smaller than it is. 100-150g less than the E-1 would be nice but I wouldn't like to sacrifice built quality for that so I think that's not very likely to happen.
Petteri Sulonen said:
The E-1 and E-300 are nice cameras, but they're also
niche cameras.
Click to expand...
yes, they are.
Petteri Sulonen said:
The smaller sensor approach they use has no
compelling advantages and several very significant disadvantages.
Click to expand...
It has advantages if you look at the performance of the lenses especially wide open and at the edges.
But sadly you never tried for yourself.

People look at test charts on dpreview made with a 50mm prime stopped down under studio condititions and compare the lines/mm the camera delivers in jpg mode.

If you think that will tell you something about the performance a camera system will deliver then I can hardly argue against that.

Olympus surely is not the holy grail of DSLRs and the system has its disadvanteges but it is a lot better than most people believe (mostly the people who never used it but talk a lot about it)
 
Cephalotus said:
Petteri Sulonen said:
No, I haven't.
Click to expand...
you should try for yourself.
Click to expand...
What for?

[snip]
Cephalotus said:
yes, people reading the dpreview.com tests believe this. Shoot the
E-1 in RAW and use Adobe Camera RAW 2.3 or newer it gets
significantly better with noise performance on par with the 10D.
I used both so I can compare.
Click to expand...
Interesting.

Here's a 20D at ISO6400 (3200 + 1 stop digital exposure compensation). Downsampled to screen size and sharpened, no other noise reduction. I'd be interested to see a comparable shot from the E-300 (or even E-1), if you have any?



[snip]
Cephalotus said:
Do you really think I would have bought an E-1 if the Canon really
would deliver significantly better image quality? They simply don't
(except high ISO on the 20D, which really is better)
Click to expand...
That's exactly the "except" I had in mind -- I've seen some really good samples up to ISO400 from the E-1 and E-300. That was precisely my point -- because of the inferior high ISO, Olympus needs to make these monster f/2.0 zooms, which negates the cost/weight advantage of the cameras. It's playing to the system's weaknesses, not its strengths.
Cephalotus said:
Cephalotus said:
the lenses need to be brighter, which negates the
price/weight advantage of the system.
Click to expand...
Yes. If you see it that way you are right. On the other hand bright
lenses have some other advanteges like more light for AF systems
and the viewfinder.
Click to expand...
Correct, but one stop makes actually very little difference. Try it with the DOF preview button -- you'd be surprised how little the viewfinder dims if you stop down one notch.
Cephalotus said:
Cephalotus said:
There are very small APS-C
sized dSLR's on the market, with better performance and a much
wider range of glass to choose from.
Click to expand...
before I sold my Canon gear I tried and shot with all of them,
Sigma, Minolta, Pentax, Nikon, ...

I do not want an extremly small camera like the Pentax *istD
because I simple can't hold it. The grip doesn't fit my hand and I
have quite small hands.
Click to expand...
Have you tried the *ist DS? I didn't like the grip on the D either, but it's much improved in the newer iteration. I like everything about that camera -- except that the sensor is looking lackluster compared to Canon's latest. And yes, high ISO is very important for me. Would be for you, too, if you lived this far north. :-)
Cephalotus said:
Lenses:
Olympus had the best standard lens for my needs. I waited for a
fast 28-100 (in 35mm terms) for Canon for one year(!) and all they
made was that slow 17-85 IS which I had to "modify" for my 10D and
which is far away from the quality of the 14-54 if you look at
distortion, CAs, vignetting and close up possibilities. No thanks.
Not for me.
Click to expand...
Good for you.

One reason I didn't ever seriously consider the E-system was the lack of primes. I just don't like zooms -- they're dark, big, bulky, fussy, and distracting, and I just don't work with them well. I'm currently all primes, as it happens.

[snip]
Cephalotus said:
It has advantages if you look at the performance of the lenses
especially wide open and at the edges.
Click to expand...
I'll put my primes against your zooms any day of the week, aperture for aperture. (Except the Sigma 20/1.8 which isn't the hottest number on the block below f/2.8.) :-)
Cephalotus said:
But sadly you never tried for yourself.
People look at test charts on dpreview made with a 50mm prime
stopped down under studio condititions and compare the lines/mm the
camera delivers in jpg mode.
If you think that will tell you something about the performance a
camera system will deliver then I can hardly argue against that.
Click to expand...
No, Cephalous, I only look at rez charts if there's something very particular I want to check. I do look very closely at the "gallery" shots.

Why are you so interested in getting me to try the E-system? The lens selection already rules it out. No bright primes. I need something like my current setup -- a very wide, a wide, a normal, and a short tele -- and a capability to shoot comfortably at ISO800 and f/2.0 or better. This hasn't changed -- when shooting film, my favorite combo was T-Max 400 and a 50/1.4. The E-system doesn't allow me to do that: I'd have to lug around a monster zoom and I'd get pretty noisy pictures.
Cephalotus said:
Olympus surely is not the holy grail of DSLRs and the system has
its disadvanteges but it is a lot better than most people believe
(mostly the people who never used it but talk a lot about it)
Click to expand...
I don't talk a lot about it; only when someone brings it up. As I said, my interest is purely academic -- even if it had the best damn sensor in the world, I wouldn't buy it because it doesn't have the lenses I want. And I seriously considered jumping ship to Pentax because it does have exactly the lenses I want, even if the sensor isn't quite up to scratch by 2005 standards.

Petteri
--
Me on photography: [ http://www.prime-junta.tk/ ]
Me on politics: [ http://p-on-p.blogspot.com/ ]
 
yes it is.

There are some small other lenses, a 21/2, a 24/2, a 28/2 and a 35/2 but these are not very cheap and I don't know how they perform on the E-300/E-1 (I think that the super WW wouldn't be very sharp but I haven't tried them yet)
 
Dominic Groß said:
Ross said:
The 30/1.4 will be more significant, if they also make it in mounts
for P, K-M & 4/3rds and it is affordable.
Click to expand...
For Pentax and Minolta there is the HSM problem again, and the fact
that there is no single EX Lens for 4/3 speaks for itself.
Click to expand...
It's not a problem for Minolta. The 30mm f1.4 is a reduced coverage digital SLR lens. The only Minolta bodies that can't use an HSM lens are film bodies. ALl Minolta DSLRs can use an HSM.

--

Salvage troll posts! When you see a thread started by a troll, post something useful to it. It will drive the trolls up the wall. ;)

Ciao!

Joe

http://www.swissarmyfork.com
 
Joseph S. Wisniewski said:
It's not a problem for Minolta. The 30mm f1.4 is a reduced coverage
digital SLR lens. The only Minolta bodies that can't use an HSM
lens are film bodies. ALl Minolta DSLRs can use an HSM.
Click to expand...
Are you trying to say something by using plural ? ;)

Anyway, seeing Sigma lens lineup it seems that they have not figured out, or don't want to figure out how SSM / HSM works on the Minolta Bodies.
--
http://www.pbase.com/dgross (work in progress)
http://www.pbase.com/sigmasd9/dominic_gross_sd10

 
Dominic Groß said:
Joseph S. Wisniewski said:
It's not a problem for Minolta. The 30mm f1.4 is a reduced coverage
digital SLR lens. The only Minolta bodies that can't use an HSM
lens are film bodies. ALl Minolta DSLRs can use an HSM.
Click to expand...
Are you trying to say something by using plural ? ;)
Click to expand...
Not really. I just didn't want to say something about "the only Minolta DSLR"...
Dominic Groß said:
Anyway, seeing Sigma lens lineup it seems that they have not
figured out, or don't want to figure out how SSM / HSM works on the
Minolta Bodies.
Click to expand...
I bet they've figured it out, but just can't make a business case for marketing it. For Nikon, all bodies have been AF-S compatible for 12 years now, and there are 10's of millions of these in the field, so the HSM market is huge for Nikon. For Canon, it's 100% of all the autofocus bodies for the last two decades, an even bigger market.

For Minolta, SSM is only a couple of years old, and not even all the production models support it. The Minolta SSM market is small, compared to the screwdriver market.

--

Salvage troll posts! When you see a thread started by a troll, post something useful to it. It will drive the trolls up the wall. ;)

Ciao!

Joe

http://www.swissarmyfork.com
 
Joseph S. Wisniewski said:
For Minolta, SSM is only a couple of years old, and not even all
the production models support it. The Minolta SSM market is small,
compared to the screwdriver market.
Click to expand...
I am not sure this estimation of the market size is pretty good, since most of the newer minolta film bodies also suport SSM but on the other hand that is the best explanation so far.

--
http://www.pbase.com/dgross (work in progress)
http://www.pbase.com/sigmasd9/dominic_gross_sd10

 
Petteri Sulonen said:
Petteri Sulonen said:
yes, people reading the dpreview.com tests believe this. Shoot the
E-1 in RAW and use Adobe Camera RAW 2.3 or newer it gets
significantly better with noise performance on par with the 10D.
I used both so I can compare.
Click to expand...
Interesting.

Here's a 20D at ISO6400 (3200 + 1 stop digital exposure
compensation). Downsampled to screen size and sharpened, no other
noise reduction. I'd be interested to see a comparable shot from
the E-300 (or even E-1), if you have any?
Click to expand...
He keeps mentioning this point, at least I saw it in a german forum.

Afaik it was all about using the noise reduction of ACR, the one that will hit the resolution / details very hard.

--
http://www.pbase.com/dgross (work in progress)
http://www.pbase.com/sigmasd9/dominic_gross_sd10

 
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