Help me understand

[peripheralfocus]

Sorry, William. Jono and I had a long back and forth exchange over what the real significance of the so-called focal length "multiplier" is, and I was just joking about starting the whole thing over again.

 

[peripheralfocus]

One thing I didn't found
mentioned is the impact of using lenses designed for digital. Maybe
the point is moot because the 35mm based DSLRs only use part of the
light of the lens. However, at some point as the sensor size
approaches full frame there's going to be issues of light fallof at
the edges. Unlike film a CCD or CMOS sensor need to have the light
entering at close to a 90 degree angle. Digital lenses should
compensate for that while regular 35mm film lenses aren't optimized
for it. I'm not sure if the size of the sensors used in the current
crop of DSLRs is big enough to make it an issue but potentially it
could mean another edge for a 5MP Olydak.

I don't think you can count this last part -- the light ray angle of incidence issue -- as an advantage for the Olydak. The sensors in currently popular 35mm-based DSLRs are already bigger than the sensor that will be in the Olydak, and there is clearly no significant problem with lower edge illumination -- or light falloff, if you prefer -- on these cameras. Even if 35mm-based camera systems would have problems with some future "full frame" (i.e. 24 x 36mm) sensor, that can't be counted as an advantage for the Olydak because the Olydak (at least as far as we know) won't be able to use a sensor that big either.

And there's also some reason to believe that current lenses made for 35mm film cameras won't have much problem with 24 x 36mm sensors anyway. The Horseman Digiflex II camera uses standard Nikon lenses and a 24 x 36mm CCD without, according to every report I've seen, edge illumination problems or excessive edge artifacting (another possible result of sharp light ray angles of incidence.) You can see it here:

( http://www.horsemanusa.com/pd_frame09.html )

All that said, it is possible that Olympus may gain some picture quality advantages from designing their new lenses specifically for the size and type of CCD (or other sensor) that will be in the camera. These include optimizing the lenses' MTF characteristics (roughly speaking, that's how much contrast the lenses produce over a range of subject detail frequencies -- i.e. from coarse details to very fine details) for the pixel pitch of the particular sensor used. It may also be easier to achieve super high manufacturing tolerances for things like lens element curvature with the presumably smaller lens blanks that will be needed for Olydak lenses of any given focal length/f-stop, but that's a bit of a guess on my part. Some discussions with Olympus America's head of technical information have led me to believe that they might also be able to reduce certain kinds of artifacting (Bayer and otherwise) by adjusting some design characteristics of the lenses, but I'm not terribly sure of that either.

 

[Bernie Ess]

Sure, a lot in this business is psychology, and that means that since yesterday the upper line is no more 6MP, but 11,1MP (the half- secret/half announced-by-Canon EOS 1Ds). Myself I´d like to see a decent 6MP with a 4:3 ratio, not 2:3. I print big and 5 is not really up to the task (although it is possible even with a 3,3MP, but only with lack of detail and artifacts).

But the Olydak is like the Foveon. Announced at a time where it would have been great, but rather late now. If Nikon will bring something like a D2 with 8 or 9MP, Oly may have a hard time in selling their camera if its not extremely attractive, low priced and makes extremly good pictures.

Bernie

Saw on another board tonight a message from Koo (she used to be an
Oly user) saying that a contact she has told her that Oly will soon
announce a DSLR with six lenses designed to match the sensor. She
says that it is not clear whether it will be a 5 or 6 megapixel
camera.

Now, here's my question...why would Olympus release a 5 mp camera
if they hope to compete with Nikon and Canon? Does this make sense
to anyone? I'm hoping the answer is that it doesn't make sense and
suggests that the camera WILL be a 6 mp.

It sounds more and more likely there IS going to be an
interchangeable lense DSLR from Oly.
--
Olympus E-10, TCON, MCON, WCON and Fl-40
Gallery: http://www.pbase.com/galleries/cokids