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Olympus' "New Concept D-SLR"

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Hi Louis

we bought a Fuji F11 (cheap at Jessops) the other day, and I tried taking pictures of people with it at a party, and then slightly more seriously in our garder.

basically, in every case, the time lag (tiny though it is) between life and the display meant that for my purposes every single shot was not what I intended.

There's no point in having zero shutter lag (or very small) if the moment has already passed and you were looking at history!

Don't sell me no Evil!

kind regards
--
Jono Slack
http://www.slack.co.uk
 
lglass said:
All Canon EOS lens work on all Canon Digital SLRs, there are no
issues such as no metering.
Click to expand...
If you don't understand what my point is, why advertise that fact? Please insert some Canon equivalent like you wanting to use your older flash, with zero of the new digital options.

Lourens.
 
Buy nature of things your (D)SLR has a significant lag, too.

The mirror needs time to flip up, the shutter has to open,...

With usual (D)SLRs that time is around 100ms, a 50fps EVIL camera could have (theoretically) just 20ms of lag.
Jono Slack said:
Hi Louis
we bought a Fuji F11 (cheap at Jessops) the other day, and I tried
taking pictures of people with it at a party, and then slightly
more seriously in our garder.

basically, in every case, the time lag (tiny though it is) between
life and the display meant that for my purposes every single shot
was not what I intended.

There's no point in having zero shutter lag (or very small) if the
moment has already passed and you were looking at history!

Don't sell me no Evil!

kind regards
--
Jono Slack
http://www.slack.co.uk
Click to expand...
 
Jono Slack said:
Hi Louis
we bought a Fuji F11 (cheap at Jessops) the other day, and I tried
taking pictures of people with it at a party, and then slightly
more seriously in our garder.

basically, in every case, the time lag (tiny though it is) between
life and the display meant that for my purposes every single shot
was not what I intended.
Click to expand...
I have a Sony LCD camera ( MVC CD500 ). No LCD lag.
I had a Fuji EVF+LCD camera. Big LCD lag.

So it depends who makes this, and how much the manufacturer spends on fast electronics.
 
Louis,

I agree .. Oly has already invested much in the porro mirror/liveview design which could be taken in many new directions. Just off top of mind, for example, they might try something with electronic versus optical viewfinders, electronic (versus optical) image stabilization, or AF. I don't know if these are techniquely feasible, but the point is that there are many possibilities for a 'new concept' camera.

That's what is so remarkable about Olympus. To anyone else, 'new concept' means fiddling with the lens mount. They have already done that with 4:3's -- and moved on to other areas of innovation.

IMHO, the underappreciated E-330 is a wonderful example of photographic innovation. Canon and Nikon should be cheering Olympus on. It will take precisely this sort of innovation to expand the markets for DSLR, which they desparately need to stay ahead of the low-cost innovators emerging in Korea and China.
--
Jeff
 
They can always change the specs! They wrote 'em, they can change 'em. I suspect whatever camera Oly produces will follow the 4/3s 'specs' current at the time of release.

What about a set of specs for 4/3 medium format? or 4/3s Full Frame? (I know that's a contradiction in terms, but it's also a good marketing hook to allow the creation of a larger sensor size)

To tell the truth, if it turns out that Oly does come to the conclusion that the current specs CAN'T keep up technologically or commercially, that the specs are altered so that it CAN keep up. A viable set of specs for a given technology must not be allowed to be a 'snapshot' of how technology looked in 1991.
--

Some see the cup as half empty, others see the cup as half full. Personally, I see the cup being knocked over.
 
I don't think it is inherent

and secondly, I'm not planning to sell my dSLR for an EVIL any more than you are.

I tell you what I'd LIKE as a second camera:

A 4/3rds compatible EVIL, which accepts 4/3rds lenses, but also takes a range of tiny lenses (with an extra tang on the mount to stop the terminally stupid trying to put them on a 4/3rds camera) that go right back into the mirror box.

Result? A tiny camera that I can also use as a second body in my E System set up.

In my view such a camera would sell like crazy - but I bet you no one ever makes it :-(
--
http://www.flickr.com/photos/acam
http://www.pbase.com/acam/
 
remember the E-100RS? Shot 15fps, and had something like a 5-frame pre-capture. It had only 1.5MP, which probably turned people off, and a truely ugly viewfinder. But the concept was unique.

So when Olympus says 'new concept', that covers a lot of possibilities ..

--
Jeff
 
It would be a marketing disaster of Tsunami proportions...
They made the bed, they are lying in it.

They can't get out, without leaving a lot of unhappy users high and dry. They did it with OM, and lost a LOT of users. They dare not do it again, surely?

I don't want to choose another brand, I'm happy with what I've used for near 30 years!

--
  1. ######
  2. ####_O Tim Yorath
  3. #### />
  4. #### @ UK.
  5. ### \
http://catmangler.smugmug.com/
 
james vornov said:
I don't think that if Olympus came out with a new, larger format
digital sensor it would go against everything they've said about
digital specific lenses and four thirds. They've had tremendous
success with four thirds at the low end of the market, which
confirmed the wisdom of a small, more square format.
Click to expand...
Yes it would. To design a larger format sensor would need new lenses which would have to be much larger to stick to their rules around lens design. Trouble is they would then be larger than Nikon/Canon lenses. Image how wide the lens mount on the camera would need to be!
james vornov said:
What I would see them possibly doing with the "New Concept" would
be creating another, larger digital format that could leapfrog the
competition in resolution and noise by using the same strategy. Oly
has no reason to go to a 35mm film format sensor- only Canon and
Nikon have that for their legacy lenses. The Hasselblad sector of
the market used to be a robust pro sector and it's now gone.

One of the reasons that I bought the E-1 in early 2004 was the
promise of digital specific lens and body design. Canon and Nikon
reminded me of Microsoft with their endless need to protect
consumer use in legacy users. Windows XP still runs old DOS
programs. Newer Unix based systems have moved on. Similarly,
Olympus is free to design new systems.

Four Thirds, with Leica and Panasonic on board has a strong future
and the Olympus presentation that I saw proposes to maintain four
thirds. It just implied they are look to add something new to fuel
growth.
Click to expand...
 
4/3 to EVIL adaptor with correction lens(es)?

Where's Joe Wischnewski (You know, Detroit Pistons fan and optical guru!) when I want him? He'd shoot me down in flames I'm sure...

So an adaptator required for 4/3 lenses, and maybe some Pentax 110 size primes to fit straight on?

Yummy. A digi Pentax 110!

Dear Santa...
--
  1. ######
  2. ####_O Tim Yorath
  3. #### />
  4. #### @ UK.
  5. ### \
http://catmangler.smugmug.com/
 
Tim the Grey said:
4/3 spec includes the image circle and sensor size. Oly cannot
increase the sensor size and call it 4/3.
http://catmangler.smugmug.com/
Click to expand...
May have been said - but 4:3 is a ratio - width to hight. I have a gif showing all the sensor sizes - in picture form - and the Oly sensor is the same ratio as the Hassy. Any size sensor that confirms to the 4:3 ratio is 4:3.
Is this right or wrong?
--
'We all have it, but how do we use it?'
 
To Jono's excellent response, I can only add one thing: I am almost certain that there will be

no new interchangeable lens systems, so no new larger format systems

No camera maker will launch a new interchangeable lens digital camera in a format other than the current ones for which there are already significant lens systems.

So the new concept is clearly LiveView, a.k.a. EVIL.

Olympus suffered greatly to get the FourThirds lens system extensive enough to calm the critics and satisfy a good number of mainstream SLR customers, even at a time when competitors like Canon and Nikon did not yet have good coverage of the shorter focal length needs of their "APS-C" formats. Now that lens systems like EF-S and DX are well developed, along with Canon's EF offerings for 24x36mm, no-one will go up against those established systems with the huge handicap of a having to create a whole new lens system.

So, no maker of SLRs (or rangefinders or EVIL cameras) will introduce a new format. Especially one larger than their current format, where there is virtually no ability to reuse existing smaller format lenses. Only Nikon has any possibility up up-sizing, since only they have a 24x36 format lens system capable of competing with Canon's in the high end market where 24x36 dwells.
 
Really. Using the prism like in the E-10 and E-20 produced a viewfinder that was very close to that in the E-1 (which is sweet). THe mirror slap and small DIM finders (330/ 500/ 300) are not necessary AND you get Live view.

EXX was dead - resurrect it!

brent
 
All the DSLR unit sales numbers come from recent reports in the business press that summarize these various companies' annual financial statements. When companies issue their annual financial results, invariably reports are written about the statements and these reports usually contain interesting facts that aren't in the reports themselves (as is the case with the DSLR unit numbers).

Most Japanese companies end their fiscal years on March 31, and begin reporting their results in May and June. The business press is crowded with articles on these reports during those months. Some Japanese companies (Canon is one) end their fiscal years on the calendar year-end -- i.e. Dec. 31 -- so February and March are also fertile months for business press articles on company performance. (A search on Google News would undoubtedly yield most of these articles.)

Here are two of my posts from earlier this year, which include sourcing for some of these numbers:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1022&message=18383818

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1000&message=18486505
Jeff said:
Eamon,

That's great information. Where is this available? (I've hunted
around for this with no luck).
Click to expand...
 
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