Four Thirds - My Say

You saved me a fair amount of typing.

Louis_Dobson said:

Since everyone else has had theirs.

There is no medium term future for mass market "crop sensor" OVF dSLRs.

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Agreed.

Louis_Dobson said:

EVILs already offer focusing that is as fast as entry level dSLRs and soon it will be as good as medium level ones. The viewfinders are just fine.

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Aside from speed, EVILs can or do offer highly flexible focus point position, face detect focus, and magnified view for manual focus. My G1 finder is better than any of the similarly priced DSLRs I have tried.

Louis_Dobson said:

My G1 (already an 18 month old model) does everything my E330 did four years ago, while being far lighter. They are catching up...

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Everything and more (I also had a 330, and kept it for a very long time hoping Olympus would catch on to what they had and take full advantage of live view.)

Louis_Dobson said:

The advantages of four thirds are that the cameras are more portable than large sensor cameras and the lenses are better (for the same weight or cost) because they have to cover less sensor. MFT cameras have the same advantages, but are MUCH more portable again.

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The size of individual items is not always much less, but the overall advantage in a kit can be very big.

Louis_Dobson said:

Only people with specialist needs will demand an OVF camera, and they tend to be the sort of people who buy 35mmFF.

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IMO, sports action will be the last area where DSLRs can excell, and then only the top of the line bodies and lenses with really great follow focus and high frame rates. Although I could be wrong, as the pressure to produce video clips could push DLSRs out of the sports business much sooner than I am thinking.

Louis_Dobson said:

If Oly want to be in the OVF market they need to go back and build a 35mmFF range. I can't see that being economic. So they had better start integrating their existing, expensively developed range of lenses with MFT.

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I can't see Olympus having that kind of resources, but if they do something larger than full-frame might be a better move. Say if they could offer something competitve with the Leica S2 at half the price ...

Louis_Dobson said:

Within a few years the mainstream interchangeable lens cameras will be EVILs and 35mmFFs. OVF APS-C and FT cameras will have gone.

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And at least some of the FFs will be EVIL.

Thanks again

Gato

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papillon_65 said:

Yes I can see you are getting very nice results with high ISO on the E-30, I've also noticed much better results using the E-1. It's great when newer software enhances the performance of a camera, Adobe have done very well with LR 3 and I also find it as good, if not better, than anything else for noise reduction.

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I have even been going back to a folder of RAW files I shot with my E300 when my girlfriend and I went to Paris back in 2006. There were lots of files I did not do very well, or at all in the low light of the various churches and cathedrals of Paris that are turning out now to be keepers. I am glad I did not delete them.

http://forums.steves-digicams.com/olympus-dslr/173946-new-software-saving-old-files.html

I'm not suggesting the complete extinction of anything. There are still people using analogue record decks, such as me. However, in terms of market shares they are irrelevant.

In my view in a few years OVF reflex camera with smaller than FF sensors will be very niche market indeed.

marf said:

I agree -Predicting the complete extinction of a given type of camera is always a flawed premise.

CharlesB58 said:

Louis_Dobson said:

Within a few years the mainstream interchangeable lens cameras will be EVILs and 35mmFFs. OVF APS-C and FT cameras will have gone.

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marf said:

Just like film cameras have gone? Or back when AE 35mm slrs were the vogue, people predicted the end of manual exposure, yet the Nikon FM2 remained a strong seller for years.

There will always be people who want to buy a certain type of camera for a simple reason: it's the type of camera they like using . It's why some still prefer film, and even such "dinosaurs" as view cameras, press cameras, tlrs and 35mm manual everything rangefinders.

Predicting the complete extinction of a given type of camera is always a flawed premise.

Your other evaluations have strength though.

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An optical viewfinder with phase detect is better for sports than contrast detect at the current level of technology. Every respectable reviewer has said this.

However, in spite of Louis's assertions, while the E3's SAF is reasonably good, it is not as good as the competition's because it runs past focus points on quick focusing lenses without locking and then has to rack. Also, the CAF is not even in the same ballpark. Also, in low light it loses its reliability (on my camera, at least ... and see Olyflyers post).

Side by side, the G1 was better and more accurate than the E620 in a shop with a large sunlit window lighting the shop.

So, while the E3 is better than the micro cameras at action, the same arguments you employ to dismiss the micro cameras for action are the exact same arguments other shooters use to dismiss the Oly DSLR's for action or low light shooting.

I'm not saying it can't be done, but I'm saying if action is your thing then there are better options than Oly, just as the E3 and E30 are better than the micro cameras.

rovingtim said:

I'm not saying it can't be done, but I'm saying if action is your thing then there are better options than Oly, just as the E3 and E30 are better than the micro cameras.

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Of course there are. I'm just not going to pay the price most of those other options cost. Most non-pro's without deep pockets don't. Some that have the money and do shouldn't have bothered. For those I do my action shooting for (myself) the E30 has worked pretty darn well. I'm never going to find myself in a photographers' well at a major league baseball park, on the sidelines at an NFL game or shooting through the hole in the glass at an NHL rink with a ceiling strobe trigger at-hand and have no illusions of granduer in doing what I do. Many venues where I'd like to shoot don't even let interchangeable lens cameras of any type in. In those cases, it pretty much doesn't matter what you own.

Depending on what the next several months brings on, something like a Nikon D300s could be in my future. We'll see. Whatever Olympus does or does not do won't keep me from doing what I want to do.

I think back to the various 4/3 gear I've used, and what I remember most fondly is:

The 50-200, shooting wide open at 200 and not going all soft.
The 50M, rendering so crisply.
The grandeur of a sweeping 7-14 shot, without vignetting or soft edges.
And the lovely sharp/soft result of a PL25 portrait. Exquisite rendering.

As long as I can continue to use that glass, I don't really care what it's mounted on. As long as I get a crisp, clear view in an eye level viewfinder, I don't really care if it's optically or electronically generated.

tko said:

How I wish this was true. My old Pannie FZ30 focused amazing fast, maybe 0.5 seconds at best. The brand new NEX camera focuses in about 1.0 seconds. How can a new, more expensive, start of the art camera focus slower?

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Focusing a large sensor camera takes higher precision and thus more measurements to focus, it will need more measurements - and thus slow down even more - to focus on long telephoto lenses as well as fast lenses of any focal length for the simple reason that focus has to be more precise. Look at the FZ30 it may have had maybe 20 distinct focus positions, that's it, there aren't more to check because of the DOF of the small sensor. These 20 focus positions on a mFT camera only cover a very small part of the distance range.

Any cameras relying on contrast detection via the main sensor it will fail to focus on a subject that changes distance to you while focusing (prefocusing is your only chance for a single in focus image, blow the timing and the shot is gone).

A DSLR needs one measurement to get the amount of necessary focus movement including direction. It needs a second measurement to get the speed and direction of any movement of the subject, with this amount of information it can track the subject.
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regards
Karl Günter Wünsch

i don't really care as long as i can get a camera that suits my shooting needs, unfortunately for Olympus it is neither 4/3rds or micro 4/3rds although intend to get some kind of micro system at some point as my travel camera, it's also not a 35mm based sensor system, if systems do start disappearing I'll just stockpile a couple of bodies to last me.
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TrapperJohn said:

I think back to the various 4/3 gear I've used, and what I remember most fondly is:

The 50-200, shooting wide open at 200 and not going all soft.
The 50M, rendering so crisply.
The grandeur of a sweeping 7-14 shot, without vignetting or soft edges.
And the lovely sharp/soft result of a PL25 portrait. Exquisite rendering.

As long as I can continue to use that glass, I don't really care what it's mounted on. As long as I get a crisp, clear view in an eye level viewfinder, I don't really care if it's optically or electronically generated.

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I think you should care because with those lenses you can only use MF with a CDAF only camera, so if I were you, I'd hope Olympus would continue with mirrored cameras.

olyflyer said:

TrapperJohn said:

I think back to the various 4/3 gear I've used, and what I remember most fondly is:

The 50-200, shooting wide open at 200 and not going all soft.
The 50M, rendering so crisply.
The grandeur of a sweeping 7-14 shot, without vignetting or soft edges.
And the lovely sharp/soft result of a PL25 portrait. Exquisite rendering.

As long as I can continue to use that glass, I don't really care what it's mounted on. As long as I get a crisp, clear view in an eye level viewfinder, I don't really care if it's optically or electronically generated.

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I think you should care because with those lenses you can only use MF with a CDAF only camera, so if I were you, I'd hope Olympus would continue with mirrored cameras.

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Who gave you that idea????
I used AF fine on EP1 with 50mm macro, 7-14 and 12-60...

--
Cheers,
Marin

Karl Gnter Wnsch said:

Look at the FZ30 it may have had maybe 20 distinct focus positions, that's it, there aren't more to check because of the DOF of the small sensor.

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The DOF is just around 2 cm at full zoom wide open at 2 m. At 3 m it's 5 cm. So there should be over 20 positions just between 2 and 3 m.

Karl Gnter Wnsch said:

Any cameras relying on contrast detection via the main sensor it will fail to focus on a subject that changes distance to you while focusing

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The focus mechanism could micro-oscillate around the point of maximum contrast (=focus), and note where this point is at each passage and extrapolate from this.

Though in general I see focus tracking (and subject tracking which the user does best with the zero-lag OVF) as the niche where the DSLR will stay ahead, and those who want to track focus often also want reach, which crop systems offer (as long as reading 200Mp off an FF sensor takes too much time), so contrary to the OP I see some life in the crop DSLR; price is also an advantage over FF, and there are many crop lenses available which are more portable than FF options.

--
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Louis_Dobson said:

Yes, I noticed that when I got the D3. You get the impression the D3 focus system is perfect. Sadly not. It is about as effective as the E3's, which is to say if you use a long fast lens wide open with sports action most of your shots will be sufficiently "off" as to be useless (the E3 hides this with extra DoF of course).

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Louis_Dobson said:

--
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http://thegentlemansnapper.blogspot.com

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i'd send into a service centre if that was the case, any Nikon I've used in anger this was has never been off in any way at all.
--
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My 3 year old D50 is the perfect indoor kid cam, even without flash. Has a dedicated AF assist, but the AF is sensitive enough that most of the time it doesn't even need it. I get reliable, quick shots of the right kid moments. With the E-P2 I struggled indoors with anything moving at all. You could say my technique needed work, and you are right. The D50 made me so lazy I wouldn't even call it a technique!

Plus as another poster mentioned the focus points are too big, and clunky to move around, IMO.

Gregm61 said:

Louis_Dobson said:

EVILs already offer focusing that is as fast as entry level dSLRs and soon it will be as good as medium level ones. The viewfinders are just fine.

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No, they aren't...you people who say that and don't shoot anything that moves faster than a slow crawl just don't get it. Fast AF isn't the be-all and end-all if the finder is not responsive enoug, and no finder is nearly responsive enough yet.

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1022&message=35798176

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papillon_65 said:

It's the af that would stop you doing that,

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And it would, for sure!

Louis_Dobson said:

Depends if you mind carrying around a brick! I'd wait and see what Oly manage to come up with. I'm hoping they can find a way to bring FT and MFT together.

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Even if they do, make me understand how a u43-rds body with that tiny-undersized battery will be able to drive a 400mm USM lens all day?
Just wondering...

unfortionately I think you make the typical "prediction game", that means hurting products you do not like by "predicting the end", so hoping noone will buy into a system if enough people will "predict the end".

lets speak about medium-format/FF/APS/43/1"(=nikon) mirrorless systems and medium-format/FF/APS/43 DSLRs - for some will be a significant market, for some not, but I dont see why there is a basis that APS/43 DSLRs will have no market and FF DSLRs have a big market .

Everything can happen but I dont see a basis for your predictions. For example Pentax has a very nice APS system, will never go FF, because it also has medium format DSLRs and in between will not create anything

Louis_Dobson said:

I'm not suggesting the complete extinction of anything. There are still people using analogue record decks, such as me. However, in terms of market shares they are irrelevant.

In my view in a few years OVF reflex camera with smaller than FF sensors will be very niche market indeed.

marf said:

I agree -Predicting the complete extinction of a given type of camera is always a flawed premise.

CharlesB58 said:

Just like film cameras have gone? Or back when AE 35mm slrs were the vogue, people predicted the end of manual exposure, yet the Nikon FM2 remained a strong seller for years.

There will always be people who want to buy a certain type of camera for a simple reason: it's the type of camera they like using . It's why some still prefer film, and even such "dinosaurs" as view cameras, press cameras, tlrs and 35mm manual everything rangefinders.

Predicting the complete extinction of a given type of camera is always a flawed premise.

Your other evaluations have strength though.

Louis_Dobson said:

Within a few years the mainstream interchangeable lens cameras will be EVILs and 35mmFFs. OVF APS-C and FT cameras will have gone.

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Louis_Dobson said:

In my view in a few years OVF reflex camera with smaller than FF sensors will be very niche market indeed.

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Actually in terms of market share of all digicam sales, they already are. That's the bubble some photo enthusiasts live in: we kind of assume that because we have the expensive gadgets, we carry more weight than we really do. When we see that dslrs tend to hover around 10% of the total digital camera market, what are they truly other than a niche product?

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With all due respect, does your current gear work and function as it is supposed to? Does it meet your needs as a photographer? If so, then why would you sell it and buy another brand? What difference would it make if Olympus stopped making 4/3 dslr's?

With the latest firmware on both, the PL25 is a speedy focuser on the EP1. I suspect the better 4/3 glass would need more than just a firmware update, but if CDAF enhanced circuitry were developed for the better ZD lenses, Oly would get a nice little revenue stream from upgrading existing models.

I would welcome an E620 sized body, with E3 construction quality, that accepted both M43 and 43 glass.

The flip side to increasing technology is: it's making the larger sensors more irrelevant. The current EP2 performs about the same as a Canon 5D in every way other than shallow DOF.

While that same technology can be applied to FF sensors, the advantage is becoming less a measurable benefit for what it costs, and more and more academic. ISO 102400 sounds neat, but most of us wouldn't have a use for it, or more to the point: be wiling to pay a lot extra to get it.

Not really.

FF is breaking down into different budget sectors within the market, in fact it's dejavu because a similar market segmentation happend with canon and nikon during the beginning of dslr's. They all started out really expensive, then broke down into the entry and mid range markets as well. What's happening now is that panasonic and sony are taking over the entry level market.

Sony's a850 is now the same price as what the e-3 was when it first came out. Canon's 5dmkII is an indie movie maker's dream and isn't a slouch on the image quality end for photography, it's in the low $2k range. Both of these cameras are in the 20+mp range for resolution, you can do anything with these files.

I think in less than a few years you'll see entry level FF bodies in the $1500 range, mid-range FF in the $2500-$4k range and high-end FF like the d3x and 1ds series rounding out the near $10k spectrum.

Oh and the reason why processor manufacturers are moving to to smaller die's is because there are many benefits to be had that have no relation to cost, going smaller has always been the goal here since the beginning. First of all they take up less power and dissipate heat much faster which is very important with the multi-core monsters and crazy heat producing videocards alongside them and they are now being used in much smaller appliances than your typical pc of yesteryear (ultra thin tablets, netbooks, home theater pc's etc. . ) which don't have the room for multiple fans or exotic cooling methods and need to operate with small power units. It's all about effiency with cpu's.

You really can't make comparisons with processors which contain a city of architecture and transistors in them to an imaging capture sensor in relation to cost and size of silicon, it really is like comparing a bicycle to a fighter jet - the only thing they have in relation is that they travel on earth and are made of metal.

Pedal2Floor said:

FF will continue on the pixel count march between Canon and Nikon and will become special purpose only cameras with video capability and I believe will actually become more expensive not less because silicon wafers are getting expensive and it is why we see Intel, AMD and AMAT all going to 32nm forges.

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